Me too. Wish Sam would do these every week. It's so entertaining to hear Sam break down their ideology, bring reality into the equation, and listen to the libertarian try to follow-up (change the subject, contradict themselves, make false analogies and obsure references, divert to personal insults, etc.).
Libertardians don't want to live in society, but unfortunately for them society is global and no other planets are reachable and / or habitable by humanity, so I guess they are going to have to paint the ceiling with their hippocampus.
+Eric06410 Personally i think we should let people register as non tax payers. Then the second they take their car on the road, arrest them for trespass or charge them on a per mile basis as they love the user pays system. One week would be all it takes for these clowns to de register after realising the true cost of things. Need to use the emergency room at the nearest public hospital? Nope, you'll have to go to the private one. What?, you can't afford the $5000 bill for 10 stitches and an aspirin? Tough shit. House on fire?, best you buy yourself a firetruck. Want to buy groceries?, Sorry, those products were transported to the store on public roads and infrastructure so either pay our $75 transportation levy or GTFO. Only simpletons think the modern world would work without taxes. Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but any reasonably intelligent person understands why they are needed.
+Bronson Kaahui Yes, have you ever lived where the government is broken. I lived in Nicaragua for a year. The quality of life in the U.S. is exponentially better. Even still I would love to live in Sweden, Norway, Denmark. Their taxes are even higher than the U.S.
My favorite moment is at 9:25, where the caller says, "I'm pretty sure the police are quite militarized and so is the military." A militarized military? You don't say!
@@zackcolbourne6921 there are 440million guns owned privately in the USA, that significantly out numbers the amount of cops and guns owned by them. There are also more privately owned guns than civilians in the USA.
Does the caller even realize that taxes go to many great things like social security, Medicare, infrastructure etc. Taxes help the disadvantaged, people with disabilities, and many other people that need help.
+BryceStawski A better question to ask would be if the caller even realizes that taxes are prescribed in the very US Constitution that most Libertarians publicly profess to worship? These folks are seriously fucked in the head.
+BryceStawski That's exactly the problem that he has with taxes. "His" money is used to the benefit of the 'weak', the 'inferior' who should just politely lay down and die.
+Bronson Kaahui Yet, he's not an anti-war activist, *just* an anti-tax activist. Wars are only one of the excuses he gives in trying to get himself a tax cut.
Many civil-rights activists knowingly broke laws because they felt that their message was more important than the laws that kept them from protesting in the most public way possible. They may have been on the right side, ethically, but it would have been naive of them to think that they could make a principled stand without making a sacrifice - that's just not how society works. So let's say, for the sake of argument, that the USA is a terrorist organisation and that Bronson is right that it's unethical to pay taxes to that government. Now what? As an individual, he can take a principled stand and refuse to pay his taxes, in which case he'll end up in jail. It's not like the government is going to give him a special exemption based on his conscientious objection. This seems to be a common theme with libertarians. They're always getting hung up on how things ought to work within their model of society and forget to connect it to reality.
+Phlebas They just want to whine pointlessly, not actually stand up for their beliefs. The entire point is that they are unwilling to suffer for their beliefs - that's why they want to steal from the government.
NUTCASE71733 Exactly. Or more specifically, certain government policies rather than the government in general. If Bronson is against drone-strikes, the most obvious political solution is to end drone strikes, not to end taxation that funds it (while simultaneously cutting funding to infrastructure, social programs, education, health care, etc...). It's almost as if ending taxation is a goal unto itself, and that the whole "not wanting to fund bad things" thing is a flimsly rationalization...
NUTCASE71733 That's okay, my initial comment was pretty muddled now that I re-read it. Basically, I was trying to point out how, in practice, there's a huge difference between civil rights movements and libertarians not wanting to pay taxes. Civil rights activists tend to have a realistic vision of what it is they're campaigning for and they're willing to make sacrifices because a) they strongly support the cause, and b) they see the cause as achievable. Bronson made it clear that he doesn't want to go to jail... but he still feels that, in principle, he shouldn't pay taxes. To me, that says that he sees this entirely as an academic issue: he doesn't have the courage of his convictions and I don't think he's confident enough in his ideology that he'd be willing to invest anything more than words.
***** As I said in one of my other comments on this thread, if you're against drone strikes (or war in general), the most obvious thing to do is to protest war. So why are you protesting taxes? It makes no sense unless you see abolishing taxes as an end unto itself rather than a means to ending war, in which case you're using the anti-war talking point as a rationalization for your ideological stance on taxation.
***** But it's a needlessly roundabout way. If one were to advocate a radical change in government policy with the goal of ending war, why not just advocate ending war?
***** Actually Democratic Socialists understand that if you benefit from certain aspects of living in a SOCIETY, that you have to repay that society in some way, and that way usually takes the form of TAXES. You are INVESTING in a society, and that investment is repaid down the road. There used to be an old saying that the only reason you got rich is because you have an army protecting you. I don't see the private sector building those roads that you use to transport the goods to your business, or the building the water supply lines, or the electrical grid that you use to power your business. Why not? Because there's no profit in it, and the "free market" is motivated by profit, and not what's best for society as a whole. You may say "welll I don't have kids, so why should I support public schools?". Those schools and universities that you supply your tax dollars to will repay you in the form of EDUCATED AND SKILLED EMPLOYEES, and will SAVE you money when those children graduate and we don't have t incarcerate them in a for profit private prison system. If you want to live in a "libertarian" society where you get to keep everything you make, then might I suggest Somalia. I hear it's lovely this time of year, at least until a war lord with more guns forcibly TAKES your shit.
Modern, technologically advanced societies cannot run without a government; consequently, taxation is required. The freedom we have now is infinitely greater than that we would have in an anarchy
NUTCASE71733 it's not our money it's their money '' Likewise those same fat bastards are making our government invest between 60-80 percent of the budget in the military,'' I don't know if it's the same groups
That is what the government wants you to think. You do not need the government for anything, what you need is a common rule system. You can be your own security or have private security, you can have private school, private medicine, private justice system and private charity organizations.
It is quite obvious that Bronson didn't think his libertarian philosophy out. Getting rid of government would simply create a power vacuum that would almost certainly be filled by corporations.
+Bronson Kaahui So you are an anarcho-capitalist? Wonderful! The burden you believe government imposes on you will simply be replaced in the power vacuum by giant enterprises now completely unfettered by the big, bad government. Welcome to Somalia, Bronson! You're needlessly throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The biggest problems with libertarians is that you underestimate the need and desire of people to congregate and organize and you overestimate people's need to be "rugged individuals".
I love this Bronson guy, he always responds to peoples poorly worded or poorly thought out arguments and then disappears as soon as someone clarifies it. He says he doesn't like corporations but ignores the power vacume part, its great. Replace corporation in the first argument with warlord. But I suppose he doesn't believe in warlords either, because you know, hes totally thought this stuff through.
@Bronson Kaahui In the FOUR YEARS I made this comment, the status of Somalia has changed and they now have some form of organized, central government. BTW, who built the telecom system? Did it get there by osmosis? You really believe that some private corporation would build that type of infrastructure out of the goodness of their hearts? If you would use that tool between your shoulders, perhaps it was a leftover infrastructure from whatever organized government they had previously prior to the civil war. Gimme a break. The fact that you think being able to "buy a cell phone" in failed state is a your notion of a "market", is laughable. In your ideal paradigm, there would be no rules, standards, on making cell phones much less rules to protect the buying and/or sellers from fraud and abuse.
+Right-Libertarian Atheist Gamer THE ONLY PEOPLE BITCHING ABOUT THE TAXES.....WERE THE BIG LANDOWNERS & THE MERCHANTS it was THEIR WAR.....NOT THE PEOPLES!
+Right-Libertarian Atheist Gamer The problem was not taxes - the problem was that the taxes were forced upon people by a foreign power, not by the elected officials of the country. Representation, not taxation, was the key point of the revolution.
***** to have the greatest empire at the time running America would have been amazing. couldn't have been any worse with most of the mediocrities we elected as President over the last 226 years
+Jeff Hocker Except for sales taxes that are indeed taxes and the most regressive form of taxation in the USA. Why should American citizens who have next to nothing have to pay 8+% of their meager "wealth" in taxes when multi-billion dollar American corporations not only pay NO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES, but audaciously get FEDERAL TAX REBATES while making 100's of millions in profits?
Thomas Goldfinch So then go reside in Delaware if you're against the practice. If you're homeless, sales tax probably isn't going to be a top concern for you anyway. However, to counter your point of why you're being forced to pay sales tax, well, why do you really need to buy most of the crap that sales tax applies to anyway? You more than likely could live without most of it if you really wanted to, which are typically more of a luxury than non-taxed items like food and clothing.If your lifestyle is so meager that sales tax is keeping you in poverty, then more than likely you already have a spending problem that needs to be addressed.
I remember having this exact same attitude and debate tactics back when I was 16. Dad - You are coming home late. Are you drunk? Me - Whatever. You cannot PROVE that I am drunk.
Anyone know if someone's called Sam in regards to crime in a libertarian society? If person unknown shoots my dad, who pays for the murder to be investigated? Is it supposed to be me? What if I can't afford it? What if it was me who shot him? I'm not going to want it investigated. Who pays for the jail I'm in while I am waiting for trial? Who pays for the prosecution lawyer? Who pays the hangman, who pays for the rope?
Then knock it off with your numerous laws and regulations with firearms. You and your dad would be able to fight someone who's trying to kill your dad. Because you'd have an easier time buying a gun.
The government offers benefits to all entities that pay taxes--not all of those benefits are monetary in nature. People in poverty benefit more than the rich from directly monetary services like food stamps and medicaid. The rich and corporations benefit (far far more than poor people) from roadwork, anti-trust laws (esp any company that's emerged in the last 100 years), and free trade laws. They are taxed, then receive benefits. It's still theft--their money is being taken against their will. But it's theft in exchange for benefits both to the individual and society as a whole--we can call it moral theft if you like.
OK, run for office and fix the problems. You act like people have zero power over the government. As much as I dislike the guy, I think Trump proved that our elections are not completely in the hands of some elite.
I resent having to sleep too. It would be so much better if I could just stay up and do what I want all the time. When I'm sleeping I don't get to play videogames or watch my favorite shows or anything. I'm totally with Saul on this one.
Taxation gives legitimacy to a currency and government. The first continental congress failed due to inability to levy taxes. Taxation also reduces inflation. The super rich needs to pay more taxes because they benefited greatly from a stable society and environment allowing them to conduct their businesses.
kathy kelly warren buffet pays less % in taxes than his secretary. Same with Mitt Romney. Capital gains and dividends pay less % than salary. Middle class pay a higher %. Top 10% means lawyers and doctors, and they pay a lot of taxes, but they aren't the super rich.
+kathy kelly you gotta tell everyone where you buy your choice narcotics from? either that, or, STOP PULLING BULL SHIT FROM YOUR ASS.....it's disgusting!
This caller knows exactly what Sam is getting at. He doesn't wanna say "Well if you don't like the people around you then you should move". He is smart enough to know it would prove Sam's point so he is trying his best to avoid it! lol
Libertarians are almost exclusively white men of privilege, born middle class or rich and grew up in suburbs or gated communities. Hence why they have names like Bronson.
Don't want to pay taxes? Don't sign a contract agreeing to pay taxes! You don't get arrested for not paying taxes, you get arrested for breaking a contract. Enforcing contracts is something even libertarians admit the government should do.
@IAmNotPeaceful If that really happened, then sure. That's a bad argument on that libertarian's part. But him being wrong about the circumstances involving the Native Americans (who those specific individuals are no longer alive to give land back to) doesn't address the issue that no one actually signed a "social contract". Indeed, the "social contract" isn't a contract in any definition of the word, it's a unilateral, vague, unjustifiable declaration of authority from authoritarian collectivist to try to rationalize the evils they support inflicting on their fellow Man.
I don't like paying taxes... I do, however, like having my garbage collected and disposed of in a safe and hygenic manner, water that's clean and safe to drink along with a way to dispose of my waste that doesn't lead to outbreaks of preventable diseases like cholera and typhoid, roads and infrastructure that help me get to where I need to go safely and efficiently, schools to educate the next generation, a stable currency and banking system, a social safety net (speaking as someone who's had to rely on unemployment compensation during a major rough patch as well as subsidies for health insurance coverage through the exchange), etc- all of which cost money to provide but are absolute necessities in this day and age, so I may grumble a bit when writing my check to the IRS every April, but I still pay them gladly.
I don't think people should be imprisoned for not paying taxes. There is a better way to deal with them... "Once the IRS figures out how much you should have paid, do not try to ignore its attempts to contact you. If you don’t respond to any letters or calls, the IRS will start to reach into your pockets using these common methods: Garnishing wages from your paycheck Taking any tax credits or refunds that may eventually be due to you Pulling money straight out of your bank accounts Placing liens on any property you owe (preventing you from selling, and damaging your credit score rating)" This is the way you deal with tax evaders.
problem is most of those things are easily avoidable to someone with enough money. Garnishing wages - no longer collect wages, instead use an expense account and skimming off the top pulling money from bank accounts - empty your account, use your wife's placing liens on property - don't own property...my son however seems to have been sold all my previous land for a dollar
"Garnishing wages from your paycheck Taking any tax credits or refunds that may eventually be due to you Pulling money straight out of your bank accounts Placing liens on any property you owe (preventing you from selling, and damaging your credit score rating)" That ALL sounds like theft and extortion to me.
I'm not sure Sam used the right metaphor. The one I would've used is: I don't want to have to pay my cable TV bill. They put on a lot of shows I don't like and never watch. Plus they have a lot of violent shows on HBO, and overly sexual shows on Cinemax, and shows on the Outdoor Channel that show hunters actually shooting and killing animals. And on INSP, a lot of dumb religious shows, and _Walker, Texas Ranger_, starring Chuck Norris who is an ultraconservative. Not to even _mention_ the Fox News Channel and The Blaze. All of which I find objectionable. So I don't want to pay my cable bill. Don't get me wrong, I still want to _keep_ my cable service, but I shouldn't be charged for it. I shouldn't have to support content I don't like and don't agree with. I want to keep my cable service and continue to enjoy certain channels like MSNBC, Syfy, Comedy Central and HBO (there are some good shows on HBO that I do enjoy, like _Real Time_ and _John Oliver_ and _Game of Thrones_), but not pay for it. And don't tell me I should just cancel my service or switch to another cable company. That would encroach on my freedom.
The mistake that people make is in thinking that the money that they earn is theirs. All money belongs to the people who issue it and in the case of dollars those people are the government. Money is government property not your property. They're just letting you use it. So they have every right to dictate the conditions in which you use their property.
I'm so addicted to these libertarian calls. A bunch a whiny little boys who don't want to pay their fair share to live in a society with rules, like some high school punk rockers who just discovered what anarchy was and got a patch for their leather jacket. Just deluded beyond words. I love it, I can't get enough.
I think it's morally wrong to support the government too. I also think it's morally wrong to support capitalism. I have no choice in the latter, so I don't attempt the former either.
You have no choice to trade freely with other people who aren't forcing you to do anything? I don't think the word "capitalism" means what you think it means.
@@177SCmaro Also, what you are describing is "Free trade", not capitalism. Capitalism includes free trade, but so does communism. It's a common misconception driven by the modern aristocracy to scare workers away from enacting a system where they get to keep the value of their labor. The motives for this deceit should be obvious, but I will say it explicitly: for the greedy to keep taking profits from society that they did not generate.
There has never been and never will be a complex, largely populated society without government. This is what anarchists (ancaps and anarcho-communists alike) don't get. We should just have the best government possible.
@John Langley "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." That's the United States Government. "We the People." So quit pretending like the gubmint is some big hairy monster that flew out of the sky one day and seized control. If you enjoy living and working in the United States of America, it's only fair that you should pay for the privilege. And some of that money is going to be wasted or put towards things you don't agree with. I'm afraid that's just tough shit. It's all part of the price you pay for living in a free and (relatively) civilized society.
They should try a social experiment. There seem to be a lot of libertarians who want to try this lifestyle. They should try to do it like a commune. Well not a commune obviously, that would be socialist, but a sort of libertarian community where they really try out the experiment. Mad Max!
His argument is he is too dumb to understand reality. So he will call and annoy people. I mean, why do we have to eat eaggs? Why cant we wear eggs? Or can we? These are very difficult issues for him.
I don't want to pay my rent. When did I agree to follow the capitalist property system? If I have to rent and follow the capitalist systems agents my will I don't feel bad you paying taxes against your will.
Except a landlord is the rightful owner of the building you voluntarily agreed to live in, thus you own him money for the use of his property. Government is not the rightful owner of a country, they steal every dollar they have, thus no one is under any moral obligation to pay them for anything they do. If I stole your money, built a house, then forced you to live in it and pay me rent that would be far closer to what governments do but that's not what landlords do with rent. Also, no one forces you to engage in voluntary economic interactions i.e. "capitalism".
Whiney baby, try doing without all the things the feds do for you: roads, bridges, court system, military protection, safe food, water, air, police, fire fighters, plus a lot of other things I haven't mentioned. Oh, but he thinks he shouldn't have to pay anything (so the rest of us should have to support him?).
What did we have before government and taxes. Tribal systems. People are generally better off in groups working towards a common goal. Government is basically one big unified tribe. I still don't think Native American Indians should have to pay taxes. Libertarians have very strange ideas/fantasies on how things should be paid for, or not paid for. Do they want some kind of privatized system applied to everything? Let's have Greyhound and the passengers pay to build and maintain their road routes. For a basic 100 mile trip be prepared to pony up $10,000 for a freaking ticket. A typical libertarian response would be...That's fine, I never use the bus :)
Sounds to ME like the government has too much control over water and electricity. But roads? You REALLY think paving roads is some complex black magic that only the government can conjure up?
@John Langley I think you missed the sarcasm in my initial post. I am not for capitalism or the US Govt. I don’t think the US had any reason to be in Vietnam to begin with.
I never understood the libertarians who think a tax free society is possible. I'm a libertarian leaning liberal. But personally, I want a fire department to put out my neighbors house fire before it takes out my house, even if he isn't one of the altruistic contributors of the libertarian utopia. I want EMT's to give me emergency care and transportation that don't ask for money before they do so. I want a police force that isn't beholden to one corporation or another (I know there are many issues with our current force and some extreme bias in inner city, but even with these faults they are above and beyond the private police like the old Pinkerton's). I want clean water and purity standards for my food. But most importantly, I want a justice system that is independent of market forces. How in the hell would we achieve this without taxes? And I'm a flat tax guy, I think property tax is BS. Once you own a home you should own it. If all of a sudden your property value goes up and you go from 600/yr to11000/yr like my father it can be impossible to pay such taxes on a fixed income. I would also like to see a minimum of 10 percent income tax that applies to the wealthiest among us who don't technically, under our current system, make an income. I think a flat tax of 15-20% of gross income or liquid assets would be more than enough, but that's another debate.
I don't like when Sam sedar uses it's a law type of argument come up with a better argument don't get me wrong I f****** love you dude but you're better than that type of argument you're smarter than that type of argument
@@boneappleteeth3127 Feudalism is not strictly defined by a monarchy, but the degree to which the few control the many. Most of the monarchs were very weak, and the feudal lords had the power, hence the name.
@@boneappleteeth3127 Feudalism can take many forms. The shoguns in Japan were a version of feudalism that lasted until the 19th century. Russia was feudalistic until the Revolution.
@Bronson Kaahui In this hypothetical situation you DIDN"T pay for them. Obviously you did because you have to, but in this HYPOTHETICAL world where you don't want to pay taxes and didn't you shouldn't get to use services you don't help pay for.
@Bronson Kaahui OH MY GOD I CAN'T EVEN...I don't want you to be a subject of the crown AND not receive benefits. I'm saying IF you aren't subject to the crown you cannot receive the benefits.
As an anarcho-socialist, I find both the caller's and Sam's arguments to be inadequate. One of the purposes of taxation is to compensate for the income inequality that results from the undemocratic distribution of the surpluses (profits) within each capitalist company. With capitalism as the main mode of production, we need a higher authority (a government) to re-distribute the wealth, because the initial distribution within each company is bound to be biased, due to the top-down decision-making structure inherent to capitalism. That is, if the workplaces were instead democratized such that the actual producers of the surpluses (the workers) would direct-democratically decide how to distribute the fruits of their labor, there would be no unfair income inequality to fix through taxation. So, if you want to do away with taxation in a sustainable manner, you should look to workplace democracy, which is counter to capitalism. Libertarianism makes sense only with the democratic mode of production. This is why most of the prominent anarchists have been socialists.
***** { you need to apply force in order to have socialism } Each decison-making society in anarcho-socialism is based on free association. In principle, they consist of voluntary members who have consented to the process and effects of the direct-democratic mutual management of resources & environments. And even if you end up profoundly disagreeing with a majority decision, you have the freedom to leave the collective so as to not be affected by that decision. Your freedom would be limited only as far as you would limit other people's freedom. This principle can be respected also by those who advocate the state-less capitalist system of private courts, where you would sue other people for violating your rights. One obvious difference is: conflicts of individual interests are to be resolved primarily through money in the capitalist alternative, and through democracy in the socialist alternative. In private capitalism, your negotiating power is a factor of your affluence, and you may not have a say if you don't have the money to participate in the decision-making process (hiring lawyers etc.), and the resultant decision may not even have any relevance to either your individual interest or the society's collective interest but to an elite's despotic interest; in cooperative socialism, you have the basic right to have a say in any decision which affects you regardless of your wealth, and the resultant decision may be a synthesis of all cases advanced by all the participators according to their logical soundness. "Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?" anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca211 { you almost need to have violations of property rights in order to have socialism } There are two types of property, a distinction which is usually ignored in capitalism: a) The natural right to possess anything you personally use or occupy, such as your possession of a toothbrush when it's cleaning your teeth or a room when it's giving you comfort or privacy. b) The legal entitlement that is not based on personal use/occupancy but is institutionally enforced, such as a capitalist's absentee ownership of a car factory or a golf course which he is not directlly using or occupying for any direct need. When socialists (or communists) speak of abolishing "private property", they mean (b). (b) can be abolished so that (a) is fully protected. In capitalism, the affluent can expand their legal ownership of lands in the name of "private property" beyond their personal needs, at the expense of the money-less who need some portions of those lands to live in or work on but are denied by the legal institutions & armed forces. It's this institutionally and forcifully arbitrated capitalist private property system which violates each person's natural right to possession of the means of life. "What is the difference between private property and possession?" anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secB3.html#secb31
***** The point is not in the lexical difference between "possession" and "property". What's more important is the different sources of justification for people's ownership of things. There is a clear difference between a) "owning" something *because* you are personally using/occupying it, and b) "owning" something *because* you have the legal entitlement to exclude others' access to it, whether or not you are personally using/occupying it. It does not matter how we call each. For convenience, though, I'm going to call (a) Natural Ownership and (b) Arbitrary Ownership. Natural Ownership is a direct physical relationship -- a natural right based on self-evidence; Arbitrary Ownership is a remote abstract relationship -- a legal fiction based on institutional arbitration. A stove is in your Natural Ownership if it is directly/physically serving your needs; if it is not directly/physically serving anyone's needs, it is not in anyone's Natural Ownership. In capitalism, however, a stove can be also in someone's (or some company's) Arbitrary Ownership, by virtue of a legal entitlement, whether or not there is a direct/physical relationship: a company may "own" a stove arbitrarily because the law says the manufacturer can, whether or not the company is actually warmed up by the stove; you may "own" a stove arbitrarily because the law says the buyer can, whether or not you are actually warmed up by the stove. A house may be in your Natural Ownership as you are personally occupying it, but it may be forcifully put into someone else's Arbitrary Ownership as a collateral for a loan as he has the legal right to deny your access to it. In capitalism, many instances of Natural Ownership are violated (invaded) by Arbitrary Ownership in the name of "private property", because the system, which is set up by those who benefit from Arbitrary Ownership, ignores the difference, ignores the logical priority of Natural Ownership. { Private property of capital goods comes from foregoing consumption goods for a time (possession-type goods). } How did Columbus et al. earn the right to the American land? Was it traded? The goods used as capital by capitalists today are produced on lands whose status as "private property" are rooted in the history of certain power-exercising groups daring to appropriate the common heritage of this planet. If we are to reject the legitimacy of such non-consensual appropriation, then the historical basis of instances of Arbitrary Ownership in today's capitalist world is to be nullified, and all economic resources on this planet are to be regarded as social commons by default, and "possession/property" by individuals is possible primarily through direct/physical relationships, through personal use/occupancy, as Natural Ownership.
***** { Your home is no longer yours when you aren't physically occupying it. } That is the natural self-evident reasoning for a house being or not being "yours", yes. That is how "possession" can be universally defined independently of institutional arbitration. And that is different from the questions of -- how the house could be protected and be in the expected condition when you come back for re-possession, and -- how re-possession could be secured throughout an extended period interspersed with your absence or another person's occupancy. These are questions not of what "possession" should mean, but of how the same thing can repeatedly serve the same person's needs in the way they want. These questions require a different set of political considerations, for which social anarchism proposes certain principles & mechanisms that are more democratic than the pro-government "social liberal" alternative or more libertarian than the pro-market "classical liberal" (aka right-wing "libertarian") alternative, which are discussed in the articles below: www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionB3 www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI6 www.scribd.com/doc/269161246/Anarchist-Property-A-Reconsilation-of-Socialist-Equality-and-Libertarian-Freedom I don't clearly see what you mean by "foregoing personal consumption in favour of building capital goods". And I do not assume that "the current wealth seen in the world existed before conquests and merely changed hands". My point was not that people have not been producing new wealth or useful commodities (that is a question of labour and value creation). My point was that the justification of today's "private property" traces back to the appropriation of unowned or communally-owned resources by those who established themselves in positions of unequal power and exercised that power to deny other's access to those resources (that is a question of ownership).
***** Democracy means that every member of a community has a say in decisions which affect them. In the market system, people vote with money. The money-less cannot participate in markets. Markets listen more to the affluent. The poorest have the most urgent survival needs to be met, but they have the least influence on markets to effect the necessary changes. This is not democratic.
***** Minority votes are not necessarily countermanded. Consider Proportional Representation: if 10% of the electorates vote for party x, they get 10% of seats for party x, such that their votes are effected. Economic decisions can be made likewise: the 10% voters can get a 10% quota of their preferred resource. There are either/or cases, of course. And the necessity of countermanding the minority votes in those cases would be the same for, say, the private jury system in state-less market capitalism (that is supported by those who in principle do not favor democracy), where the resolution would be the one voted by the majority jurors, countermanding the rest's votes. Democracy does not have to be majority rule; it can be consensus rule. It's up to the participators. Many rights are relative: some rights are arguably superior to some others. Also, effects of decisions are relative: a decision can affect some people more than other people. Democratic decision-making involves not only voting but also debating, where the participators logically advance their cases to the end of elucidating the benefits & damages of each proposal. It's a dialectic process, through which people's opinions can evolve. You may initially oppose to the construction of a geothermal power plant in your city, but after learning different perspectives you might end up agreeing to the construction. If the entire community will be affected negatively by a woman's not marrying a certain man, and the woman will be affected negatively by marrying that man: which side's damage is more significant, is up to debates. In democratic socialism, debates are governed by logic; in market capitalism, debates are governed by logic plus money. In market capitalism, if the mass financially supported the private lawyers and private courts against her, her case & autonomy would be unjustly undermined more than it would be in the purely democratic alternative. In both market capitalism and democratic socialism, people may create a rule to protect their right to decide their own marriage. The difference is, again, that the process will be influenced more by the affluent and less by the poor in market capitalism, but not so in democratic socialism.
The "We'l all get along and if we don't, then we won't get along" argument. So sad. Love this playslist...
9 лет назад
There actually is one option to do go without paying taxes without going to jail, its called being an outdoorsman. So long as one lives entirely on their own devices on land not owned by anybody (they still need some acknowledgement from the government that they own said land) then not paying a dime in taxes is entirely possible. You cannot use rods or any other infrastructure howerver, and you need to make sure your actions don't do damage even to your own plot of land because if you were to dump fecal matter into a stream for example then you're going to contaminate a water source used by the public to get drinking water from.
Libertarianism is a great idea...but these people aren't libertarians. They're capitalists. "Right libertarianism" is just capitalism with fewer regulations and less accountability via government. Libertarianism is a leftist concept closely related to socialism, where instead of a government above the people you have common democracy as the basis for all rule-making and accountability, which in essence means that all of the people are the government. It's a great idea that we should definitely work towards...but the way right wingers use the term it would lead away from a more democratic society and towards a more dystopian feudal society.
Damn am I really siding with the Libertarian at the start? Not a fan of Sam's "you don't have to, just go to jail or another country" argument. Just the same as the "oh, you're against capitalism but you live in society!" meme.
2 of the greatest American minds of all time's opinion on the first minute: Henry David Thoreau didn't pay taxes, as an act of civil disobedience for what he believed were immoral actions, on the governments part, and went to jail for a little while. Noam Chomsky talks about how we have a moral obligation to do what's right, and if the state is doing something "illegal" we can practice proper civil disobedience in response to hold them accountable, and thus those acts would be "legal" by the moral ideals vs the laws which can become corrupt. (disclaimer: don't get too carried away with what that actions that justifies lol)
Sadly, we did have the society he described. We were natives of a land the name of which I cannot recall because a long time ago, while my grandfather's grandfather was planting a Cherry Tree, some man pale of skin about 5'6" tall stabbed him in the buttocks with a sharp piece of shiny hard rock and told him to leave. When my Gg, short for "three -stabbed-buttock attack" refused to do so. PSM stabbed him in the other bottock and you'll never guess what happened next....
The entire geographical area of the Earth that you all a "country" doesn't belong to you thus you have no right to drive anyone from it, least of all someone who disagrees with you or is rightfully complaining about being stolen from to fund things other people think are good. Each individual piece of all that land belongs to the millions of individuals who own it, respectively. Please stop being a collectivist authoritarian.
there's a big difference between government telling you what to do with your body on government telling you what to do with your money. The money wasn't yours from inception, the money is an exchange for goods and services. Libertarians really have a disdain for actually being part of human society.
"The money wasn't yours from the inception' Yet the goods and services WERE his (company or the government) from the beginning? 😒 From the beginning, this land belonged to almost none of us. Socialists love to gloss over the ACTUAL history, yet accuse libertarians of reasoning in a vacuum separate from reality. They alternate from trying to make a strictly economic/sociological argument to making a moral argument to refute libertarian stance on the issue of taxes. But MORALLY, this country or no country for that matter has a leg to stand on. The REALITY of the matter is that government is nothing more than a hypocrisy machine - a temporary placeholder for a race that's in denial about its eventual doom because Truth will always destroy a lie. This country is built on a lie. And the subconscious of the nation will be its undoing.
+gb997 my god Libertarians are the dumbest people. and i say that (regretfully) as a former Libertarian. long story short, i decided to open up my mind, become intelligent, and realise how stupid and wrong i was ( like the caller in this video).
I really don’t feel like sams argument applies in this situation. When the caller argues that not being 100 miles from other people is just a part of being in a society, he is trying to say if everyone lives 100 miles from each other, we would end up running out of land. So in order to all live as free individuals, we must also respect the personals space of others.
