There are many transactions in the world where people pay for things they didn't specifically want, e.g. buying a car and getting all the seats and safety features, or ordering a meal and paying the full price even if you ask for some ingredient to be omitted.
In none of these cases--paying for a car where you'll take out the seats, paying for a meal where you don't get the mushrooms, paying taxes for government services you don't agree with--is the payment suddenly "theft".
> There are many transactions in the world where people pay for things they didn't specifically want, e.g. buying a car and getting all the seats and safety features, or ordering a meal and paying the full price even if you ask for some ingredient to be omitted.
The difference is consent. People consent to paying for those meals or the car. But nobody ever consented to taxation. That's all part of the "social contract" we're born into.
You're right that initial decision of consent was made for you by someone else--it was made for you by your parents, when you were a child and they had custody of you.
As an adult, you are free to revoke your consent by leaving the country and ceasing to enjoy the benefits its government provides.
(And as for "nobody consented to taxation," I consented, and continue to do so, because I like contributing to the country where I live and where I'm a citizen.)
They couldn't even if they wanted to. E.g. Better social welfare, law enforcement, and education means less crime. Less crime benefits everyone in some way. Perhaps if it were made legal to commit crimes against people who don't pay taxes...
Even then, it would be basically impossible to avoid benefiting in some way without leaving the country altogether. There will always have to be at least some "core" services that everyone has to pay into, but that doesn't mean techlibertarian's idea totally lacks merit. Maybe some things should be partially opt-outable. Maybe people would start to question whether America really needs to spend half of its tax revenue on the military; maybe there would be more pressure to get some of the presently useless (and very expensive) 2.3 million prisoners back into the workforce.
In none of these cases--paying for a car where you'll take out the seats, paying for a meal where you don't get the mushrooms, paying taxes for government services you don't agree with--is the payment suddenly "theft".