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by asveikau
2322 days ago
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> My response would be that everybody who supported me was paid to do so, That strikes me as a cynical read on the situation. Could it be that some of those people liked you, believed in you, wanted you to thrive for selfless reasons that were not economic? > People who oppose punitive taxation ... oppose it because they don't think people have a right to decide how other people spend their money. That's the thing, the "their money" part is sort of a fiction. Additionally it is totally fungible, not earmarked or put conditions upon, it doesn't go into a little pile marked "asveikau's taxes" for only the parts of government I approve of. We pool it, and it's all or nothing, take the good with the bad. We have elections for any disagreements that may arise from there. |
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Maybe that did, but it doesn't change that they did whatever they did without asking for anything in return. At least to me the idea of a system in which you owe somebody more for something they did (either something they did out of generosity or because you paid for it) than what you explicitly agreed upon is quite unpleasant. Like if somebody came to my house, asked "could I mow your lawn", and I was like "uh okay sure, I suppose so", then afterwards they were like "ah-hah, now you have to pay me $200!" or "ah-hah, now you have to clean my kitchen!", I wouldn't consider that very fair. Ideally an agreement/contract is only valid when both parties understand and agree to it.
>That's the thing, the "their money" part is sort of a fiction. Additionally it is totally fungible, not earmarked or put conditions upon, it doesn't go into a little pile marked "asveikau's taxes" for only the parts of government I approve of.
Well then that's where the disagreement comes from. For people who believe in property rights, money isn't a fiction, it's a proxy for the claim people have over the value of the product of their labour. For many of the American founders, it was a consequence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law . For economically conservative Christians, it was a product of the argument that commandment "Thou shalt not steal" is not waived merely because enough people have voted for you to steal. If someone believes for whatever reason in an inherent moral right to their property, they won't believe it's acceptable for that right to be violated just because other people voted to do so.