Debate: Taxation is Legalized Theft
Side: yes

"Theft is a legal term. And I am using it consistent with jurisprudence. You can choose to define words however you see fit, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend to indulge your whimsical, persuasive definition for any reason."Bullshit. If you really felt that way you wouldn't have commented to me in the first place. ;)You clearly think I should use words (or, at least this word) the same way you do.For someone refusing to indulge you sure have done quite a bit of indulging. "What you are calling theft is robbery (See: legal dictionaries for distinction between theft and robbery, I got my use from Amy Hackney Blackwell's "The Essential Law Dictionary"). "Oh jeez, so either I let them rob me or they'll steal it. Big freakin' difference."Your allegation that this is my definition"It is."and not the common use"Common use is arbitrary."is your departure from reality."Only if you see it that way."And your accusation of taxation equaling theft,"Does it comfort you more to call taxation robbery than theft?  "hinging your argument on emotional pleas,"I'm a passionate person, but my arguments are far from rooted in emotions. I'm appealing you your preference to keep your belongings (through robbery or theft, using your definitions of each government still does both). If I seem emotional it's because you're seeing emotions in my arguments, not necessarily because they are there."hyperbole and exaggerated allegations of force and potential death, is incorrect and an injustice to healthy debate."An injustice according to.. you. You feel as though I'm being unjust in saying that the government will kill you for not obeying their edicts? All the letters and threats of a government mean nothing if they won't kill you in the end. Sure, maybe they'll manage to arrest you and throw you in solitary for 20-life, but is that better? "You benefit from public goods that you otherwise wouldn't be able to afford (assuming you're not rich), just as the rest of society benefits from them."For example?"I highly doubt that you spend all day cursing roads for being "coercive monopolies" while you're driving on them, or shake your first at police officers or armed forces that enforce the law and protect us."Neither of those things require a government to exist. Just the opposite, the very fact that the government has monopolized such markets shows that there was/is a very high demand for such services independent of the state. So, even if there was no government there would still be roads/police because there is a strong enough demand for these services that someone would start a business to supply them."These goods require maintenance for their perpetuation, and since you gain benefit from them at disproportionately subsidized rates, you pay back what you owe."Oh how lucky I am to live in a world where only one organization free of competition exists to build roads and supply protection at the bare minimum required to stop people from marching angrily in the streets in protest and violently stomps out any possible competition.Surely, I owe a great debt to these men and women who give so much by assigning mandatory payments from us to them. =/"If you really have such a problem with being held accountable to the law and want to continue depreciating forms of governments, I can point you to countries or places on the planet where you don't have to worry about those things at all."You assume that you need a government to have order. Even contries that didn't have a government (for example, the 1000 YEARS ireland held together free of government) had "law".