[rosser]

"Withdrawal of consent" isn't merely "creating things to skirt around the rules I don't like". Withdrawing consent is withdrawing from the system to which you no longer consent.

You do not get to reap the benefits of living in a society without subscribing to its rules and mores. You can work to change them from within, or you can walk. Pretending you can reap the rights of participation in society without shouldering your share of the responsibilities concomitant to those rights is spectacularly delusional.

[itistoday2]

> Withdrawing consent is withdrawing from the system to which you no longer consent.

You haven't actually defined "withdrawing consent" there, you've just repeated the phrase "withdrawing consent".

> Pretending you can reap the rights of participation in society without shouldering your share of the responsibilities concomitant to those rights is spectacularly delusional.

Nice feigned outrage + strawman.

[rosser]

So tell me what would constitute "withdrawing consent" that doesn't mean "itistoday2 gets to participate in modern society without having to play by its rules", because AFAICT, those are the choices: play the game everyone else agrees to play and reap the benefits, or play your own game and forfeit them.

EDIT: verbiage.

[itistoday2]

I'll copy a reply I wrote to a similar question elsewhere.

This is a reply that was written in response to a comment on this post: https://fixingtao.com/2016/01/lunatics-terrorists-and-the-th...

And is copied from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/40uevh/lunatics_t...

<Begin>

> The system is forced onto Canadian Citizens, there is no way to opt out.

This is not entirely accurate, you can certainly opt-out by leaving Canada.

Canada is a group that has chosen to play by these rules.

So long as the rules reflect the interests of the group members, there is no problem.

The problem occurs when a substantial portion of the group membership feels no longer represented by the rules and wants to play by a different set of rules (and mass-migration is not an option).

It is not about making taxes voluntary per se, but about allowing new groups to form. If a portion of Canadians wish to form a new group, separate from Canada, then they should be allowed to. They can opt-out of paying Canadian taxes, but they will lose all of the benefits that you refer to, and I'm sure they will miss them and therefore decide to implement their own taxation system that they feel represents their interests.

Does that address your question?

</End>

[rosser]

Quoting from within your self-quoted reply:

Does that address your question?

Perfectly, thank you. It seems we're rather in agreement: play along, or don't — where "don't" isn't just a matter of not paying taxes, but still using the roads, or whatever. I'm, personally, not interested in going back and forth on the notion or merits of internal secession, or "home rule" or any of that; that's orthogonal to the point I was trying to make, and with which you appear to concur.

EDIT: But, for the record, I agree that it should, in principle, be possible. In practice, I think it's a far bigger deal than pretty much anyone who'd want to undertake it is probably prepared for, and that's likely part of why it's not allowed. Vanishingly few people have the resources to start their own wholly self-sufficient society.

Further, I submit that many, if not most, of the people who would want to would be doing so in order to perpetuate some prejudice or other. Witness the neo-Nazi group that tried to take over a town in North Dakota as an existence proof of the phenomenon. That's the kind of thing you'd explicitly have to allow, if you pursue the concept to fruition.

[itistoday2]

Replying just to the last part of your edit:

> Witness the neo-Nazi group that tried to take over a town in North Dakota as an existence proof of the phenomenon. That's the kind of thing you'd explicitly have to allow, if you pursue the concept to fruition.

If you are referring to a military takeover-type situation, the concept does not endorse that as in that instance the group members are not being represented.

On the other hand, yes, if the group members choose a set of rules that you (an outsider) disagree with, they should still be allowed to do so. To quote from the post itself:

Through awareness of the mortality of all systems (including our own), we should ensure a means by which any group is able to abandon our system in a conflict-free manner if its members want to adopt something else—even if we might disagree with their choice. Systems that explicitly allow such secession are called voluntary systems.

[rosser]

No, it was a fully "democratic" takeover, in that they saw a small town, much of which was for sale, and tried to buy up enough of the town that they'd have a majority, and be able to vote in whatever hateful nonsense they deemed fit. What do you suppose the town's original, non-neo-Nazi inhabitants should have done if they'd succeeded? They aren't exactly being represented in this case, either.

I guess, as long as you're cognizant of the fact that the system you're espousing offers potential institutionalized hate as a means of conflict avoidance, I don't think there's much else to say.

EDIT: Or, hell, let's just take it straight to ludicrous-land. Imagine a group that believes it should be able to practice virgin sacrifice, and raises their sacrificial virgins from birth to believe that it's in their, and their society's interest to be placed upon the altar, so they aren't inclined to leave the society that believes it needs their mortal blood for its upkeep. Do the rest of us just sit by and say, "Well, they're over there in West Whack-a-doo. Nothin' to be done about it", and let them go about their business?