[tlrobinson]

By remaining in your country and paying taxes you've bought into the "system" that most of us accept as a pretty good one. You're free to emigrate somewhere else if you don't like it. I don't see anything "coercive" about that.

[scudco]

What if I chose to remain and not pay taxes. Am I then free to live peacefully and not be a part of the state? Essentially, what happens when I peacefully non-comply?

[krschultz]

No because you are a leach off the state. Did you go to public school here? Have you ever been to a hospital? Driven on a road? Used our power grid? Used the internet?

Of course you have, so "living peacefully" in the country is about as OK as some guy I don't know "living peacefully" in my basement. Sure, he isn't hurting me, but that doesn't mean he isn't a thief. And while you try to call taxes theft, the idea that you would not pay taxes but still enjoy the services the government gives (no matter how hard you try, you can not escape present or past use), is definitely theft. The fact that you try to make yourself sound innocent by ensuring you won't kill anyone doing THEIR job is laughable. Is it ok to rob a bank as long as you do it peacefully?

[scudco]

Am I leeching off the state or is the state leeching off its citizens? I did not go to public school, but the state still told my school what they must teach to be considered legitimate. I have been to a hospital. I have driven on a road in a car, on a motorcycle, on a moped, on a bicycle and I have even walked on roads. I am using the PG&E power grid as I type this. And, of course, I am using the internet to respond to your post.

I replied to this kind of thinking in another post in this comment thread, but I do not have a choice in the matter as to whose roads I use if I wish to go from place to another because they are monopolized by government. I would like it if the government did not have monopoly control over things, but I do not deny that they have control. It may be of some consolation to you that I pay and have paid taxes in the past. The government, in my mind, is simply "a gang of thieves writ large" as Murray Rothbard once said. They provide services but they can only do so by monopolizing the service they provide and _taking_ other peoples money to finance the administration of that service.

If you can rob a bank peacefully I would very much like to see that for the sake of argument.

[krschultz]

The roads were not always a government monopoly, nor were the canals, nor the railroads. All had some government support but they were not run by the government. But at some point it became clear that this was a FAILURE. Without roads and rails and at one point, canals, this countries economy would not function. Sure you can make some high traffic routes private and run them better, I would love that. The fact that I-95 is under construction, and they only work 8 hours a day 5 days a week while inconveniencing me anytime of day is something that no private business would do because they would lose customers. But look at the inability to get broadband in rural areas - it is significantly cheaper to run fiber than to build a road, and you can't even get that done.

So yes, you could avoid paying taxes, but at the expense of losing more than 30% of your revenue as the economy crumbled. I can understand the principle, but pragmatically what you want to do is a pipe dream and economically it will be WORSE for you monetarily. I understand standing on principle on the 1st amendment or torture or policy, but when we start talking dollars and cents, your ideas just don't hold water.

[tlrobinson]

Are you advocating anarchy then?

"They provide services but they can only do so by monopolizing the service they provide and _taking_ other peoples money to finance the administration of that service."

I just don't get this. How do you expect them to pay for services? And let's not forget that "the government" isn't some magic entity, it's made up of the citizens of the country itself. I'm pretty sure the US government employs more citizens than any other organization in the US.

I would say that many of the services and infrastructure the government typically provides are considered "natural monopolies". It doesn't make sense to have a bunch of parallel roads when you can have one. Same with water, electricity, etc. With the government providing a single "set" of infrastructure you may need X miles of road, pipe, power lines, or whatever, if you had 4 companies competing you would need 4 times as much, which would end up costing the end user 4 times more.

But in fact, the government doesn't have a complete monopoly on roads, since there are privately owned toll roads, which you have to pay to drive on. Would you prefer all roads were privately owned, and the owners could then charge arbitrarily high tolls?

[tlrobinson]

Well, you could always move to remote cabin in Montana.

And mail bombs to people.

[tlrobinson]

I was serious, excluding the Unibomber reference. Isolating yourself and living off the land is the closest you're going to get.

You won't be consuming any of our tax-funded services, and you won't be contributing to our economy or paying taxes (assuming no property tax?)

Beyond that, the people inside these borders have decided this is how we want things to work, and (as I mentioned) if you don't like it you're free to give up your citizenship and move somewhere else.

[wheels]

Actually you're not. The US won't let you go stateless and even makes it complicated to renounce your US citizenship after you've gotten a second one. Usually it takes many years to be eligible for citizenship elsewhere.

Not that I think it's terribly relevant...

[Retric]

There are millions of people living in the US today that have no legal right to be here. You can live like they do off the "grid" but you will make less money and have less security.