[CaptainZapp]

  Because social programs get their money from coercion

Language matters, and the verb 'coercion' in this context, to me, is actually repugnent.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion):

"Coercion /koʊˈɜrʃən/ is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force,"

I don't see taxes (and I pay a fairly significant share) as our evil government squeezing out our hard earned cash by threatening, or intimidating us.

Quite the opposite: taxes are our entrance fees to a civilized society, to a working infrastructure, to good and fair education and to umpteen other things that make up a society.

You may argue how the public money is spent and how much of it should go into social programs and how deeply the state should get involved. Interesstingly, more equal societies, like the Nordics, seem to provide generally a higher quality of life for their citizens.

You can see taxes as a necessary evil, or hate them, but defining taxation as coercion is pretty loaded and rather close to Orwellian newspeak.

[jerf]

"You can see taxes as a necessary evil, or hate them, but defining taxation as coercion is pretty loaded and rather close to Orwellian newspeak."

In addition to what refurb said, I feel you're exactly backwards. We should always remember that taxes come from the threat of imprisonment if you don't pay and coercive force. There are things that are worth this threat. Civilization is a big deal. It's a good thing. I'm rather Hobbesian on my view of Nature; in that sense I'm probably more enamored with civilization than the average liberal who believes in the inherent goodness of man. I think we have much farther we can fall than such a person would. But people should not casually use this power. To wipe away the fact that taxation is coercive is to encourage attitudes that spend your time and energy on irrelevant, if not downright wrong, purposes. That's not something we should overlook.

Taxation is a big deal. It's intrinsically coercive. It should only be used on really important things, not for things like shutting up some interest group somewhere, or buying votes, or lining the pockets of your buddies, or worthless administration (and please note the word "worthless" isn't superfluous there), or any of the other myriad of ways government can coercively spend the fruits of our precious, precious time on this planet.

That said, by the way, I think this particular thing is a solid use of taxpayer dollars. Or at least it is, provided it's somewhat efficient; if they're managing to blow $10,000 a box or something, as the US government would probably find a way to do (a snipe at our particular government today, not the concept of government in general), that's less true.

Also, if you do not today agree with me, wait three years. When a Republican is President again, it will once again be a popular notion that we shouldn't have to pay our taxes blindly to the government and we should think really carefully about how we're spending on things. I'm just ahead of the progressive curve here, that's all.

[mindcrime]

Taxation is a big deal. It's intrinsically coercive. It should only be used on really important things, not for things like shutting up some interest group somewhere, or buying votes, or lining the pockets of your buddies, or worthless administration (and please note the word "worthless" isn't superfluous there), or any of the other myriad of ways government can coercively spend the fruits of our precious, precious time on this planet.

That's a very good point. I, for one, consider taxation to be theft, plain and simple. But yet I don't try to defend myself from this theft via force, for pragmatic reasons (they employ more men with guns than I do, for one). So, I grudgingly tolerate a certain level of coercion, even though it is extremely distasteful to me.

BUT... I maintain that if you're going to steal my money and spend it - nominally - in my name, then you better damn well spend it wisely and on something important. This is one reason government agencies piss me off so much.. I see so much waste and inefficiency and fraud and other shenanigans, and it just enrages me that they are taking my money and blowing it on idiotic shit, or - worse - things that I'm fundamentally morally opposed to.

[mindcrime]

"Coercion /koʊˈɜrʃən/ is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force,"

I don't see taxes (and I pay a fairly significant share) as our evil government squeezing out our hard earned cash by threatening, or intimidating us.

And what if you decide that you have a better idea of how to spend your money than the State, and stop paying "your taxes"? Do it long enough, they send men with guns to arrest you, and put you on trial and (probably) put you in jail. If you resist any portion of this process, you will probably be shot to death by the men with guns.

How is this not "use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force"?

All State power is ultimately rooted in the use of force. Just because many (even most?) people happily pay "their taxes" out of rote habit, or because they've grown to accept a certain measure of coercion as acceptable, doesn't change the underlying principle.

[res0nat0r]

I guess it is not coercion due to the fact that no one is preventing you by force from packing your bags and leaving the USA.

[refurb]

Different strokes for different folks.

Taxes are certainly not voluntary. If you do not pay them, you will be coerced into doing so. Hence the use of the word.

[andrewflnr]

You say that using the word "coercion" is repugnant, and then quote a definition that perfectly fits taxation? You've got some nerve. You can see it however you want, but if you don't pay taxes, someone will come and physically haul you off to jail whether you like it or not, someone who is prepared to escalate to deadly force. Sure sounds like coercion to me.

Taxation might make sense as an "entrance fee" if someone asked you whether you wanted to participate, and gave you an honest chance to say no, but we don't really have that. You usually can't even just hide out on your land and not interact with anyone except dealing with trespassers, because of property tax, a form of coercion I find particularly repugnant.

Yes, language matters, which is why "coercion" is the perfect word for taxation.

[clicks]

It is a curious thing that you object to this.

Are you not also being coerced to conform to virtually every other societal norm? Try walking out naked down the street in broad daylight. See if you're not jumped by the police. Try hunting some deer in the non-hunting season for food, -- because afterall you're hungry and the meat would do: you'll meet the heavy side of law.

You're seeing things from a libertarian-lens I think. Human society is built on a social contract, that pretty much basically boils down to an agreement of certain rules and guidelines so the collective fares better in the end. It's a thing to avoid a tragedy of the commons. We recognize that the unprivileged are not given the same opportunities as the privileged ones (their children are not going to schools where their peers are supportive/smart, they don't have the right role models, they don't have access to the same resources), and we decide that it is only fair that they receive a little help from the privileged. You can choose to stop paying taxes and in the end be left with a deteriorating society with unable customers... but you don't want that do you? What is so hard to understand about this?

[oblique63]

Thank you for saying this. It really bothers me how arguments are reduced to meaningless 'facts' around here so quickly, when the real world is a lot more nuanced than that. A 'fact' without context is effectively meaningless (i.e. saying "the sky is blue" would be useless if we had no concept of a "sky"). The simple fact that "coercion" is defined in such a way that aligns with the way taxation is implemented is about as useful as one of those "fun facts" you see under snapple caps. Yeah, that's nice coincidence, but it's really only notable when you look at it for what it is: a relation between a word definition and a system implementation. In other words, the connotation of the word and the context of the system implementation are not necessarily guaranteed to be congruent, as there are many paths that lead to the same destination. And as you clearly stated, taxation is just a special case of the more general practice of governance through law enforcement. And while a lot of people here like to see 'law' as equal to 'right-ness', it too is not necessarily congruent but rather a close approximation (much the same way that I.Q. scores are a rough approximation of 'intelligence' -- another relatively 'vague' concept). What's funny, is that this incongruence makes itself pretty clear whenever drug laws are brought up. Several clamor to "legalize", yet many of the same people then go on use law/law-enforcement as an accurate metric for 'right-ness' in argumentation. The thing is that law is a pretty good metric for what society deems to be right in general for practical usage in implementing guidelines, but the system behind it is never going to be responsive/fast/informed enough to represent a useful snapshot of societal values that can then be used for argumentation[1]. If culture/society were generally static then that would be fine, but this big mess of dynamic interactions is much too complicated, so we just resort to using simple arbitrary factoids to end discussions.

[1] Not to mention that a government's body of law as a whole is not generated by a fixed algorithm; different laws arise from different needs/contexts/scenarios, and not understanding what context brought about any specific policy, yet still using it in argumentation, is essentially a strawman.

[andrewflnr]

Where did I say I objected to it? Coercion has it's place, and government's role is to use coercion where and only where it's justified. My point is, let's be clear that when we talk about things the government should do, we're necessarily talking about things for which coercion is justified.

[sneak]

> You can see taxes as a necessary evil, or hate them, but defining taxation as coercion is pretty loaded and rather close to Orwellian newspeak.

By your own copypasted definition, how can they be anything but?

Even if you love taxation and government spending, this is factually true.