[Autolykos]

Welcome to Volconvo, Brunhilde.

Quote by: Brunhilde Look at the morality of a resource allocation method that requires I serve my fellow man in order to have a claim on what he produces and contrast it with government resource allocation. The government can say, "Williams, you don't have to serve your fellow man; through our tax code, we'll take what he produces and give it to you." Of course, if I were to privately take what my fellow man produced, we'd call it theft. The only difference is when the government does it, that theft is legal but nonetheless theft – the taking of one person's rightful property to give to another. This viewpoint overlooks that the government uses tax dollars to provide services.

No, it simply renders that fact moot. Does it matter so much what the government does with the money it receives, compared to how it receives that money?

I don't know how it works in other places, but in Australia taxes pay for universal health care, free primary and secondary education, subsidised university education, road building and repair, provision of electricity and water, policing, civil defence, disaster relief, search and rescue, environmental protection...and so it goes on, down to making the storm water drains work and removing rubbish.

And your point is? Do you think that, without the government taking money from people, none of those things would get done?

Taxes pay for all these services. Taxation is not theft, it is payment for services rendered.

Typically, services are rendered on demand. If I wish for someone to perform a service for me, then I will normally have to pay them for it. No one else will have to but me. Yet, when it comes to the government, I effectively "pay" for a lot of other people's services with my own taxes. So tell me again, how is taxation payment for services rendered?

Without them, my house would flood when it rained (no stormwater drainage).

Right, because you couldn't provide stormwater drainage yourself -- or paying someone else to do so.

If it was still standing after the unrestrained criminal element (no police force) had finished with it.

Of course, because without the government, no one would bother to defend their own property -- or pay others to do so.

We all benefit every day in countless ways from government services and they all have to be paid for.

The fallacy of your argument is that these services would necessarily not exist without government.

The article you quote describes the merit of a system where you provide a service and are paid for it. It then derides taxation as a system where "for government to give one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American". What would you do if you mowed your neighbor's lawn and he refused to pay you? Would you use "intimidation, threats and coercion" (either directly or through debt-recovery mechanisms) to "confiscate" that money from him? You betcha.

Yet would you mow your neighbor's lawn without him asking you to do so, with the promise to pay you for it? That's different from the government. It doesn't present prices for its various "services". People cannot pick and choose which government "services" they want, either at any specific time or in general. In effect, government is all or nothing.

Let me ask you this: Would you be willing to kill your neighbor if he did not pay you for mowing his lawn?

Why assume your taxes are paying for programmes of which you disapprove? Does the government send you an itemised account of how your individual tax dollars are spent? What would that look like... Account of Bob Brown Item: fire and rescue service $3.86 Item: public education system $5.42 Item: environmental protection $1.03 ...and so on.

Okay, what's your point here?

I like nurses. I think they do a great job. The tax I pay in any given year would pay roughly one-third of a nurse's salary. I like to think that, somewhere in the Australian Health System, is a nurse with "Sponsored by Brunhilde" embroidered on his or her uniform. This is much more satisfying to me than imagining it paying for, say, a particularly wanky piece of modern art. It's also just as possible to be true.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, aside from more feel-goodism.

- Rob