[alexqgb]

Whether they're enforced exactions of voluntary contributions is not the Court's call to make. Some people are happy to pay their taxes, recognizing them as the perfectly reasonable cost of living in a functioning civil society (which, not coincidentally, is seen as the basis of their security and prosperity).

Others, for whom this connection may not be so clear, take a more exploitative view of the public sphere, in which their own role is all take and no give. They may see taxation as forced extraction, but that view is hardly shared by everyone. Moreover, were they allowed to act on this view freely, the public sphere would surely collapse - which a clear majority clearly recognizes.

In this regard, tax law is no different from laws against, say, murder. Most people are internally resistant to the thought of killing others. But the law still exists because "most" isn't "all". In cases of extreme anti-social behavior, the few - if allowed to run riot - really can secure tyrannical domination of the many (classic example: the mob in Sicily).