[zestyping]

Are you able to understand the difference between taxes and slavery? If you can, try your hand at explaining why taxes and slavery are different. I'm am not merely asking rhetorically; I'm serious. It's a worthwhile exercise because it reveals something about your underlying model of the world.

[samdoesnothing]

Well, I suppose we should define what we mean by "slavery" first because one could simply argue they aren't the same by definition. If it's something like "someone captured, sold, or born into chattel slavery", than obviously a tax payer is not a slave.

But under a loser definition, it's fairly obvious that an entity which takes part of the results of your labor under the threat of violence at least partially owns you, and thus it's reasonable to consider tax payers as slaves to their government.

I'm actually more interested in your argument for why they are mutually exclusive concepts.

[wredcoll]

> But under a loser definition, it's fairly obvious that an entity which takes part of the results of your labor under the threat of violence at least partially owns you, and thus it's reasonable to consider tax payers as slaves to their government.

This is the difference between what I might call philosophical, or perhaps semantic, and practical discussions.

We can define slavery to mean anything we want, up to and including being born. Every human has to eat and breathe to survive, does that mean they're slaves in that way? Sure? Maybe? Who cares.

The practical discussion is how we want to live our actual lives and structure our actual systems of power.

When people talk about "positive rights" (and really, all rights) they are aspirational. Merely creating a law does not change reality. We can create all the laws we want saying that people should not be murdered, but people will in fact, still be murdered, even though it is now against the law.

Similarly we can create a law saying that people should have healthcare access or food, but people will still be unable to see a doctor or get food when they need it. Neither of those laws imply putting anyone into slavery.

At a practical level, human life is better when we band together in larger and larger groups and contribute to the common welfare, however you want to phrase that.

We can, of course, quibble over the size and type of those contributions and how we use them, thats how society should work, but it is incredible bad faith to accuse people who want to use those contributions for, say, healthcare access, of wanting to enslave people.

[samdoesnothing]

Well yeah, thats a problem with debates, if people are using different definitions then you end up talking around each other. I don't think the definition I use is unreasonable though. Slavery is fundamentally a matter of self-ownership, and taxation robs you of such self-ownership. Requiring resources to survive doesn't rob one of their own self ownership. Neither does working for a salary, although "wage slave" gets thrown around without much opposition to the term...

Anyways, rights exist a priori, regardless of the capacity for any power to enforce said rights. Negative rights don't actually require enforcement because they aren't coercive. Implying rights don't exist because people violate them doesn't make sense, it's irrelevant.

Think through your example about the doctor. If you (a doctor) and I are stranded on an island and I break my leg, the "right to healthcare" would imply that you are obligated to help me, and I have the moral right to coerce you (violently if required) to help me. Would you agree to this proposition?

Now of course most people who hold these beliefs haven't given it any thought beyond "I want people to be safe happy and healthy". But those who have, realise coercive violence is a base requirement and are fine with it, but obviously won't frame their beliefs in that way.

[wredcoll]

You keep attempting to shift terms to mean something they do not.

> Anyways, rights exist a priori, regardless of the capacity for any power to enforce said rights. Negative rights don't actually require enforcement because they aren't coercive

Prove it.

> Think through your example about the doctor. If you (a doctor) and I are stranded on an island and I break my leg, the "right to healthcare" would imply that you are obligated to help me, and I have the moral right to coerce you (violently if required) to help me. Would you agree to this proposition?

This a fantasy you've created by deliberately using the wrong definition of the words involved.

The "right to healthcare" means that your government should do its best to make sure people can see doctors and receive healthcare related treatment when they need it.

[samdoesnothing]

> you keep attempting to shift terms to mean something they do not.

> The "right to healthcare" means that your government should do its best to make sure people can see doctors and receive healthcare related treatment when they need it.

Yeah ok. I'm gonna bow out of this discussion now, since you're just accusing me of doing what you're in fact doing.

[wredcoll]

Like I said, you can use whatever definitions you want, but this is what everyone else means. You can disagree with reality all you want, but you won't become correct.