| </span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Theft: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
The government doesn't tax you with the intent of simply taking your money. Instead, they use it to fund public goods, such as police, roads, postal services, the military, and a variety of other such things that in the end are there to benefit the citizen: you.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
First the "definitino" you offer is arbitrary for it introduces law into the equation, when theft can and does occur regardless of law. Property exists regardless of law.
But to make matters worse for this position, you argument does not even support this misrepresentation of theft. Regardless of what you personally value, the fact is the individual ARE deprived of their property, time, and labor with taxation.
So with this approach defeated in two ways, let us be extremely generous and examine yet a third way that this approach fails: the prisoner situation.
Applying your reasoning, the innocent prisoner is indebted to his captor for the captor provides shelter, some food, and perhaps other "benefits." Furthermore if theft is so justified by what OTHERS perceive to be benefits, then so too is the very imprisonment itself regardless of justice or truth. So of course you can see that by the exact same line of reasoning we have "discovered" that theft is always justified, imprisonment is always justified, and if we continue along these lines of thought almost every heinous act is perfectly justified and good, including rape if the victim experiences an orgasm.
Surely none of us is willing to grant these absurd conclusions are true, and if we are not, then we must recognize that the argument form itself is necessarily invalid, so neither is the conclusion that theft is justified a true or reasonable conclusion. |