[eli_gottlieb]

Look, if you want to drag out the old "taxation is theft" chestnut, I'm going to drag out the "property is theft" chestnut, and everyone else can drag out their old chestnuts, and we can totally derail the thread.

Do you want to derail the thread just to vomit out slogans we've all heard a thousand times and found wanting?

[Jabanga]

I don't think that's very constructive. The parent comment said [X] should be the rallying cry. I said in my opinion it shouldn't, and I gave my rationale. By all means bring out your chestnuts. I welcome a rigorous discussion, instead of blind conformity to mainstream political mores.

[eli_gottlieb]

No, you don't welcome a rigorous discussion. You want to repeat discussions we've already had, in which you were not persuaded to others' points of view, and you didn't persuade them either. The likelihood that we'll all see the divine light of von Mises and convert this time is extraordinarily low. Stop trying.

[nailer]

> The likelihood that we'll all see the divine light of von Mises and convert this time is extraordinarily low.

I disagree with Jabanga but the "market incentive to pay for smart kids to learn" is interesting - I'd say it's also very risky - a poor child's parents don't want to pay for the child's education, they're not smart, they decide to rob people, this isn't good for anyone.

But I welcome the discussion and Jabanga has been polite so far.

[eli_gottlieb]

>But I welcome the discussion and Jabanga has been polite so far.

No, I don't think he has been. His core premise is, "taxation is theft", that is, providing government services with tax money is morally wrong. From there, he has dragged us all into trying to refute his entirely rationalized ideological structure, which claims descriptively that taxing people and using it to provide services has inferior results to simply privatizing everything.

He's rationalizing descriptive data that don't fit the real world to maintain a strictly normative premise that he believes for strictly normative reasons. He then wants us to spend effort engaging with his descriptive claims as if they were the core matter, or even as if they were real descriptive claims and not rationalizations.

No, if they were actual descriptive claims, and he was actually engaging in consequential rather than deontic moral reasoning, he would notice that his descriptive claims contradict reality and change his mind on the core moral proposition. Instead, he's solid as a rock on his original claim, which means he's reasoning deontically, not to mention fallaciously: Thou Shalt Not Tax, therefore tax-funded schools are inferior.

That's downright rude.

[nailer]

Believing in something you find morally wrong is not downright rude. Insisting someone else has no right to their opinion is.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Believing in something you find morally wrong is not downright rude.

He's entitled to his own normative moral opinions, not his own facts.

[Jabanga]

I'm expressing my views. It's not constructive to tell people with minority viewpoints to stop expressing them.

I did nothing more than what the parent comment did.

I also don't think we're in a position to judge the full impact of our words on others, so I don't accept your assessment that no minds were changed by the previous discussions.

[eli_gottlieb]

> I'm expressing my views. It's not constructive to tell people with minority viewpoints to stop expressing them.

Nobody's telling you not to express your view. The obnoxious thing is to snidely pretend everyone else has to justify their own positions in terms of your view.

If you want to say, "taxation is theft", just say it, instead of dragging things out from, "Well why should children have equal opportunities to other children anyways?"

[Jabanga]

My position is not that "taxation is theft" though. I do oppose certain kinds of taxation, because of the rights that I believe we have. I thought the way I addressed the parent comment was much more on-topic than the response you insist I should have provided. It was within the context of what the parent comment's argument was, making it relatable and relevant. It also expressed exactly what I believed. I don't think it's constructive to attack me because I expressed my view in a manner you disapprove of.