When you really look at a document like the Constitution, it is a document which, above all else, seeks to protect the system from the selfish levels of moral development.
And yet you take a position that I cannot find any way to qualify other than as "selfish". From my point of view it seems to boil down to "I'm all right Jack; keep your hands off of my stack."
It's not about that. I think I've explained fairly thoroughly that my position is not about avoiding paying taxes for morally legitimate functions of government. My position is the exact opposite of selfish, since I am saying that I don't have the right to take labor or property from others by force, no matter how difficult my personal situation. And, I personally spent just over 5 years without health insurance because I couldn't justify the expense. You can't reduce my argument to a greedy person not wanting to pay taxes. This is about people being able, as much as possible, to pursue their destiny and happiness based on their own definition.
So was the 16th amendment.
Ooohh. You're one of
those.
Can you explain to me why direct taxation is so evil? The constitution clearly calls out that clause as one that's likely to be amended (at least that's how I interpret the time restriction), so why is there so much concern over it? There's no reason that the Federal government couldn't levy an indirect payroll tax that, these days, would have basically the same effect as the direct income tax. What difference does it make that it passes through someone else's hands first? Or is your argument that there should be a regressive taxing system? Because, again, that could be implemented as either a direct or indirect tax.
The problem is that once you allow it at all, then it tends to be used for all kinds of things. The original income tax was around 1-2%, from memory, and nobody would have imagined that it would be 30+% at the time. Again, taxation is not the issue. It's the government proscribing what "good" is for people. Not killing or robbing each other? Fine. Protecting the system from foreign invasion? Fine. Forcing people to buy a product (health "insurance")? Not fine. Prohibiting people from buying useful products (Vicodin, experimental drugs)? Not fine. These things clearly fall into a category where a person should be making those decisions for themselves.
I also think that I might be able to get Bitt (or people like him) to admit that what they are fundamentally doing is using force to impose their *opinions* on me, and that Bitt is smart enough to realize that HIS OPINIONS MIGHT BE WRONG, no matter how fervently he believes them.
Absolutely. That is the basis of all society, from the smallest anarchist collectives, to the largest capitalist states and everything in between. Society makes rules that state how others can behave. There are societies that exist(ed?) that didn't really have a notion of personal property, so isn't it possible that your requirement of the sanctity of personal property is also opinion?
Of course! But, you see, that's the beauty of my position. If I'm wrong, I haven't imposed my beliefs on others. You have. Property rights are a logical consequence of self-ownership. Self ownership means being able (among other things) to make moral decisions for yourself (that don't affect others), to eat and drink what you want, to labor and keep the fruits of your labor.
Imagine an island with 10 inhabitants and one doctor. The 9 non-doctors get together and have a vote which decides that the doctor has to treat all of their ailments for whatever they decide is a "fair" amount to pay him. In my view of the world, the doctor is completely in his rights to say, "go fuck yourself."
I think he is, too. And while I realize that you're making a larger point about taxes, I think you're being disingenuous by using that particular metaphor. In the post-HR3962 world, no one is required to be a doctor, and no doctor is required to perform services for any payment he does not wish to agree to. (Except in emergent circumstances, which was true before.) No doctor is required to accept Medicare payment, and doctors are allowed to negotiate contracts with insurance companies, including the rejection of any such contracts. In summary, if they're not happy with the amount they're being paid, there is nothing that compels them to work for that amount.
But I am required to pay money for health insurance I might not want. And the government WILL restrict liberties to improve public health. We're seeing it already with smoking laws, trans fat laws, etc. You think that's OK, and that's the problem.
Sadly, most people operate at the selfish level of moral development (remember, it has to be this way, we were *all* at this level once).
To be pedantic, that's a specious argument. (I'm notably not denying the basic claim, just the argument that leads you there.) To use your prior example, if we all know how to add before we know how to multiply, if we use your argument, most people don't know how to multiply. Or taken to a larger extreme, if we all know how to say individual words before we know how to speak in sentences, then most of us don't know how to speak in sentences. I think this is demonstrably untrue. (Ignoring poor grammar; it's still a sentence even if it's improperly constructed.)
Yes, you are absolutely correct. Research does show that 60% of Americans are operating at ethnocentric or lower morality, but that isn't a logical requirement or hierarchical development.
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