From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2004-11-03T14:59:07+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] US Presidential Election

From: "Corey" <corey_s@qwest.net>
> On Tuesday 02 November 2004 02:48 pm, Bill Kelly wrote:
> > From: "Corey" <corey_s@qwest.net>
> >
> > > So, I get taxed even when I refuse to pay taxes.... all those services
> > > you listed above as examples of my hypocracy and selfishness -
> > > I've already in fact payed for them.
> >
> > Have a garage sale and list a bicycle for $25.  I'll plunk
> > $0.75 on your table and if you complain as I ride off on
> > my new bike, I'll happily remind you I've already paid for
> > it.
> >
> 
> That's a horribly inaccurate analogy, almost not worth responding to -
> especially in light of the fact that you seemingly ignored the whole context
> of the rest of my post.
> 
> Let me adjust the parameters of your analogy to more closely approximate
> the topic which you're disputing.
> 
> First, you _must_ by law have a bicycle, whether you actualy even
> want it or not is of no matter, neither does it matter if you ever actualy
> end up riding it. Secondly, that bicycle isn't simply displayed at a
> garage sale where you are free to buy it or not buy it - instead, you are
> forced by law to buy your bicycle from a single source.  In addition,
> since the bike distributor has a total government-enforced monopoly on 
> bike sales, it can lift the price unreasonably and it can produce bikes of
> shabby quality as well. NOW, the money you use to pay for that bike is
> created and  controlled by the same agency that forces you to have a 
> bike in the first place. Also, this agency continually devalues the currency
> it forces upon you, and the money is not even backed by anything of value;
> but you _have_ to use it to pay for your bike, and all the other things the
> law says you must pay for, including the actual things you need to 
> survive.
> 
> SO...
> 
> I think that if I first forcibly gave the bicycle to you, then forced you to
> pay for this overpriced bike, whether you wanted it or not -- with money 
> that _ I_ created and then subsequently devalued, but which you had to 
> work hours for to receive -- then I would hardly have a leg to stand on 
> if you simply took the bike at cost, especially if you never use it and
> didn't want or ask for it in the first place. You would be under no
> moral obligation to pay for the bike _at_all_ under those circumstances,
> and neither would anybody else. Why can't you opt out of the bike?
> Why can't you only pay a fair price when you use it, if you decide to
> use it? Why should everyone else be forced to pay for _your_ bike that
>  you may never have even wanted or will use? What if the bike was
> made from slave labor or violently taken from other people? What if
> you were ethically opposed to the usage of bicycles?
> 
> Finally, taxation occurs on services, not products - so your whole bike
> analogy was already flawed to begin with. 

I don't regard it as flawed, since it was intended to 
satirize the notion that one should expect to be able
decree by personal fiat what one will contribute toward
some service provided by another entity.

Sure, you've argued that you didn't get to CHOOSE the
services provided, - but (assuming you're in the USA),
we live in a representational democracy.  A democratic
republic.  Just because you wish the government spent
its money more wisely, more efficiently, and only on
things you don't object to---gawd, what taxpayer doesn't
wish that?---doesn't mean the government is obligated 
to poll each citizen for their personal preferences on
how funds are to be allocated.  That might be a 
democracy, but that ain't what we got.

You called not paying taxes a form of civil-disobedience,
and asked whether it counted as a way of exercising 
your political power in some way other than voting,
which you termed, "the most thoroughly passive, inane,
non-productive and uneventful form of political action
that a person could possibly do."

I don't buy it, because you are *counting* on your form
of civil-disobedience to go unnoticed.  What do you do
with the money you save?

> It really comes down to simple ethics when we actually get down to it.

Um, yeah.  An ethics of convenience, sounds like.


Regards,

Bill