Government schemes are ridiculously inefficient for a simple reason: they take their money by force. This means that they are not financially accountable to anyone. Yes, you can vote in some new bosses, but those are just new people in charge of using force, so nothing fundamental has actually changed.
For example, if everyone in my area were forced to shop at a specific grocery store, I'm almost certain that their produce department would suck within a few months. But even if it didn't, I would still object to the use of force for basic moral reasons. I'm not a pragmatist.
When you pay taxes, you aren't "contributing" anything. Perhaps you would pay those taxes voluntarily, but that point is moot because you are not given the option of paying them voluntarily.
I gladly pay the annual fee for maintaining our private roads up here, so don't mistake me for a miserly free-riding ingrate who wants to use other people's property for free. I'm just saying that when the initiation of force is involved, people are no longer customers who can take their business elsewhere. Inefficiency is a likely outcome of the initial moral offense.
Of course they're accountable. Ever heard of a little thing called democracy?
Oh, the lines of accountability are too indirect? Fine, call your cable company and health insurance company and try demanding some direct accountability.
Also, you're free to take your business elsewhere, just live in another first-world country. Oh, they all have higher taxes than the US? Hrm. Too bad you're not running things, then we could clear all this inefficiency right up. What's your budget plan?
Sorry if I'm not constructive. But you ignored my actual point, regarding that fact that he can in fact take his business elsewhere. If no country exists that conforms to his expectations, perhaps he should revise his expectations or design his own country.
The GP poster is advocating eliminating taxation period, because it's based on force, if I'm understanding things correctly here. How can someone respond constructively to that?
Guess you're right, I'll stop wasting time engaging.
You're right, I could move my entire bodily self somewhere else. My expectations are realistic, so I don't need to revise them. I know that for now, wherever I go, people will demand money from me and will lock me in a cage if I don't give it to them. I also know that many people will support that heartily, because they accept the belief that without such a threat of force, people would not or could not build roads, pick up garbage, create parks, care for their health, educate their children, or protect life and property. I find that view incredibly silly, very much like the old superstitions about the Church which people held 500 years ago.
Of course it's idealistic of me to oppose the initiation of force in principle. But I reject the belief that in a purely voluntary society, people would regress into violent, stupid, and helpless animals. On the contrary, I believe that the initiation of force is responsible for the very level of violence, stupidity, and helplessness we see today.
I was amused to hear you say "too bad you're not running things." I'm sure you realize that is the last thing I would ever want to do. However, I think reasonably competent people like me are perfectly capable of running businesses, providing services such as road construction, garbage removal, education, landscaping, security, package delivery, telephone, and such. Our "budget plans" would be whatever is required to keep customers, owners, and employees happy. It is not my responsibility to devise other people's business plans. It is their responsibility to do it, and without resorting to force.
As for designing our own "countries," I think we'll see a lot more of that sort of thing in the next hundred years. Right now the entrenched State violently opposes such competition, much as the entrenched Church violently opposed heresy long ago. The trend is in the right direction, but it could be awfully bloody and messy along the way.
> If no country exists that conforms to his expectations, perhaps he should revise his expectations or design his own country.
Unfortunately, the second option there isn't really possible anymore.
> How can someone respond constructively to that?
Have you never encountered this political opinion? Maybe we travel in different circles, but this seems like a pretty common line of argument to me. However, you're right: it's hard to respond to constructively, because you two are operating on different fundamental axioms: 'initiation of force is sometimes okay' versus 'initiation of force is never okay.' This is a pretty big and decisive difference, made from two different ideologies... there's no real way to argue if one is better or worse.
This is getting fairly off-topic, though. If you'd like a further discussion of the libertarian viewpoint on taxes, feel free to email me. I'm not exactly a libertarian anymore, but I was for long enough to explain it to you fairly thoroughly.
Sure, I've encountered lots of stupid opinions that don't make the least bit of sense in reality.
There's exactly one country in the world that just plain does not have taxes: Somalia.
It's a reasonable (but silly and immature) opinion to demand that the country slashes taxes in, say, half, without outlining the spending cuts. Demanding that they're slashed by 100% is just madness.
See my response above please. I'm not saying people should slash spending on roads, education, and security by 100%. That would indeed be madness, and utterly self-destructive. I am simply saying that all such spending should be done voluntarily.
Often, moral positions aren't based in reality; they're based on ideals.
Just because all current countries do thing one way does not mean that it's the best way; there isn't really a large variety of government/economic systems in use. Yes, there's variability, but essentially all of them are based in capitalism, and most governmental systems are either some form of western "liberal democracy" or monarchy. I personally find it tragic that there's no place left in the world to experiment with different ways of organizing governments; I always fear monoculture.
And even if you do move to other countries, sometimes, there's just no fit. This is a question I've given a lot of though to lately, and there's really no place that I could live where I'd consider the government to be truly moral. I'd simply be trading one kind of unhappiness for another, and while it might get _better_, it won't reach maximum.
> Demanding that they're slashed by 100% is just madness.
Even those who advocate such a thing consider it to be drastic, yes. Life wouldn't continue in the same way, but they have other solutions to those problems.
Actually, anarchists don't generally see Somalia as an example of anarchy. It's generally accepted that for an anarchist... state to form, significant social change is necessary before any sort of governmental chance. You cannot just take the training wheels off, or you'll fall.
I suspect your opinion of anarchy is that of 13 year olds and punk bands, and I can't really blame you. There's a large amount of poor press involved. It's actually very thoroughly thought out, even if you disagree with their premises. If you'd care to learn more, there is a FAQ: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html
Note, this is from a collectivist perspective, who say that anarcho-captialists are not anarchists. I'm not sure of a great resource on anarcho-captialism, but it's basically just a more extreme version of libertarianism/minarchism anyway.
Okay, enough off topic stuff. Just please try to consider the way you casually dismiss others' beliefs, it makes them less likely to listen to your arguments (which are good ones).
Your link just upgrades "13 year olds and punk bands" to "20 year olds, phish, and alt-electronic bands". I'll stand by my casual dismissal, but if it makes you feel any better, I have the same level of casual disdain for people who claim communism just hasn't been implemented properly.
For example, if everyone in my area were forced to shop at a specific grocery store, I'm almost certain that their produce department would suck within a few months. But even if it didn't, I would still object to the use of force for basic moral reasons. I'm not a pragmatist.
When you pay taxes, you aren't "contributing" anything. Perhaps you would pay those taxes voluntarily, but that point is moot because you are not given the option of paying them voluntarily.
I gladly pay the annual fee for maintaining our private roads up here, so don't mistake me for a miserly free-riding ingrate who wants to use other people's property for free. I'm just saying that when the initiation of force is involved, people are no longer customers who can take their business elsewhere. Inefficiency is a likely outcome of the initial moral offense.