Hacker News Reader

Comment by utternerd | Hacker News Reader

If you prefer more extortion, that's fine; stop pushing it on others. No one is stopping others from voluntarily paying more in taxes if that's your belief, but personally I'm tired of paying for wars, the slaughter of innocence, police brutality, and a long list of items I'm told are all part and parcel of living in a "civilized" society.

View on HN

The more underfunded the government is, the less it can invest in schools, mental health care, the environment, infrastructure, a competent bureaucracy and so on. All things that are necessary for economic growth. Americans' allergic reaction to paying taxes is just one more reason why the country is circling the drain.

"Competent bureaucracy" is essentially an oxymoron. "Things" necessary for economic growth are infinitely more efficient when directed by the market, not by forceful removal of my property for "them" to decide how best it can be utilized. Why is my body (which extends to my means of production) not my own?

"'Things' necessary for economic growth are infinitely more efficient when directed by the market". This. I think you just touched the essentiel cultural difference.

IMHO the market is a good tool but it is very far from perfect. Its main weakness is the strength it gives to the signal price. The market is a global race to the lowest price and highest ROI. "Things" like infrastructure, health, environnement are expensive with a low (short/mid term) ROI. The market will never favor them.

> "Competent bureaucracy" is essentially an oxymoron.

That's the belief that underpins your opinion but that is far from a fact. It's also a belief that tends to be self-fulfilling -- you get the government that you believe you should have.

It's a belief based on historical data and personal experience. The "state" and it's blind followers have one of the highest death tolls attributable to it, that's an objective truth. It's fascinating that so many people are fine having their lives decided by others, under the illusion of "authority".

Let's bomb some more kids in the middle east for no reason, shall we?

It's belief based on a small dataset that doesn't represent all democratic governments that exist. If anything, your experience is probably based on significant outliers.

Slavery, Prohibition, Women being unable to vote, Gays being unable to marry; the list of inequities imposed on others due to democracy, and faith in the State to "do the right thing" is long. The aforementioned aren't small data sets, nor are they outliers. That's not even mentioning how many murders the State has contributed to (see: Germany and Russia for significant contributions, in the millions of murders) under the guise of "protecting it's people". (see: USA's actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc.)

Slavery, murder, theft, are inequalities that humans do to each other which the state exists to prevent. This argument is a poor one. You can't simply pick and choose the negatives without balancing it against the positives.

Competent bureaucracy is what they've got in Sweden. You obviously don't believe public goods exists. That's stupid.

Using the force of the state to further other's goals is something I am entirely against because historically we can see how much damage it's done, calling that stupid isn't constructive.

I don't feel the need to be constructive towards the whole taxes=theft crowd. Engaging them would just encourage them.

It seems to be common that those that haven't experienced a reasonably competent bureaucracy do not believe one can exist.

> Why is my body (which extends to my means of production) not my own?

You believe your means of production are entirely self-contained which is entirely false. You need all of civilization for your production to be useful. It's not unreasonable to have to pay for that civilization.

So you're saying I'm indentured to my society? This is sounding increasingly similar to slavery. Using force against someone else to get what you want isn't morally acceptable, and it certainly isn't altruistic; if you disagree with me on that, that's fine.

Of course not. But if you use society to make money then you should pay for that usage. If you want to opt-out of society, you have that option.

If you've been educated in a school, travelled on a road, drank water from a tap, watched TV running on electricity, or worked on a computer that communicates across the globe to other computers then you absolutely have taken advantage of a society with a central authority and should conribute to it.

To believe otherwise is absurdly individualistic and self-centred. We are a social species and everything good we have done come through collective effort.

But in practice, more tax money just gets allocated to homeland security, military, police, domestic surveillance, and things that generally don't benefit most tax payers

> Americans' allergic reaction to paying taxes is just one more reason why the country is circling the drain.

A big component of the founding of this country was as a reaction to taxes. In general taxes have lead to many wars and revolutions in the past.

Based off data that I've seen, increasing investments into the U.S. public education system by the government doesn't seem to have made significant improvements to the quality of education. There are those who feel that this funding actually removes, or at least lessens, the incentive to improve.

Our taxes should be democratically decided so they should not be extortion, at least not on average. But maybe they are not democratically decided. I know it isn't feasible for many people, due to things like family ties, but moving to a country where government spending is more aligned with your values would actually be a good way to vote with our feet.

I can't agree with this, for example just because we "democratically" decide slavery is OK doesn't make it moral, or even acceptable. Yet people seem to act as if something democratically agreed-upon has moral force behind it. And to say we have to leave a country because we disagree with policy is ludicrous. It's identical to the right's call, "If you don't like it, you can get out!" which is utterly absurd.

I think you'll find that most people don't believe that taxation (with representation) is immoral. if that's what you believe, that's fine, everyone disagrees on the morality of some aspect of society.

If you ever wonder why more people don't subscribe to your viewpoint regarding taxes, consider leaving out the part equating it to slavery. In case it's not obvious, voters legalizing slavery give no choice to the indentured which is completely different from marginal tax rate increases.

The point of that example was showing there is no moral force behind something simply because the vast majority of people agree with it.

However, with your argument what choice do I have when it comes to paying Federal or State (where applicable) Income Tax? None. I pay it, or else get thrown in a cage/have my property stolen.

If you're a slave, you can't leave under any circumstance. You literally belong to someone else and there is no recourse at all.

If you don't want to pay taxes any more, move to somewhere where they don't have taxes. Alternatively, run for office and eliminate taxes in your jurisdiction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com