The real question we should be applying our intellects to is "how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?"
The reality is that violence existed way before any government or society. For millions of years, it was, and very often still is, the normal way of dealing with conflict for human beings.
Human society emerged as an attempt to contain this violence and avoid human suffering. In other words, without governments or any social structure, we would return to what we call the "law of the jungle", and that's not desirable at all.
We absolutely need a set of common rules that everyone follow, otherwise human society would collapse, that's a fact. However, those laws are by definition limiting individual power (taxation, etc) and therefore very often resisted by those individuals. That's why there is, as far as we know, no other way than violence, or threat of violence, to enforce those rules.
In other words, taxation is not theft, it's a key component of a desperate attempt to control human violence and limit human suffering (including yours).
> how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation
One method, in polite society, would be to willingly pay the (minimum, of course) taxes require.
We delegate use of force to the State because we don't personally want to have to clobber our neighbour for being a moocher.
So the real answer is: it's complicated. Any system so far devised has been imperfect. We learn to live with the trade-offs.
How is taxation theft exactly?
I mean you happily use the services that taxes provide. Police, the legal system, roads, schools, libraries, anything created using the legal system, roads, schools or libraries, fuel exploration subsidies, research, etc. To use your hyperbolic analogy, using them without paying for them would be theft, therefore trying to mark taxation as immoral is trying to get out of paying for the services you use, which is in itself immoral and attempted theft.
Finally, if you don't like paying taxes that much, you have a couple of options: a. you can not make any money, or b. you can get a boat and live in international waters. Ironically, you would still be benefiting from services provided through taxation, namely sea lane protection from piracy provided by the US Navy, paid for with taxes.
No, calling it anything but theft is "intellectually dishonest".
I mean you happily use the services that taxes provide. Police, the legal system, roads, schools, libraries, anything created using the legal system, roads, schools or libraries, fuel exploration subsidies, research, etc.
No, I don't happily use any of those things. I grudgingly use (some of) them because A. the State usually doesn't allow any other choices, and B. my stolen money was used to pay for them, so I might as well derive some benefit from it. But since the initial "transaction" was not voluntary, it's clearly theft.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
"how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?"
C'mon, we're hackers... we can do better than relying on violence and aggression. What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things?
I mean, if you want to abdicate and just accept things the way they are, that's fine. But some of us still believe in progress.
There are powerful groups of people with intellect, reason, logic, rational thinking but also have large sums of capital and the government's servitude to counter anything we try to change.
Seriously? It's mind-boggling to me that somebody would ask that with a straight face, ya know? I mean, the essence of what it means to be a hacker is to examine things, break them apart, understand how they work, and improve them. And as a general rule, most hackers have traditionally preferred to use their minds to achieve various ends, rather than relying on violence.
Put those two things together and it's pretty easy to see why one would think that hackers would be motivated to find ways to improve our systems to governance such that they aren't rooted in the use of violence.
My example was showing how even amongst a group of people who would have defined themselves as hackers, all the winners have resorted to relying on violence in one form or another. You can sit and be principled all you want, and then maybe you'll be a footnote in a history book
Firstly, set up a gradually percentage-based system of mandatory contributions, based loosely on income, to be one's expected annual payment. Add in a unhealth dose of special-interest initiated loopholes. Next, split the whole entirely in half so you fall under an entirely different system if you earn your money working a 9-5. Finally set up a section of the government dedicated to enforcement of these statutes, with financial and penal penalties for violation.
Most countries have a fiat currency. The government via the central bank creates as much money as it needs to run a society, money is there simply to get things done, it's a promise to 'pay' for work.
Money in itself doesn't have any intrinsic value other than the fact that everyone collectively agrees to believe that it does.
The government doesn't have to tax anyone, it can just continue to create money and inject it into the economy and things get done. The problem comes that the more money it injects the less the perceived value of the money is (i.e. inflation). It needs to destroy some of the money it creates and it does this via taxation. That's why you have tax.