> You think I'm making a political point. I'm making a moral point - that stealing, initiating force, threatening force are wrong, and cannot be made right regardless of how one tries to dress it up. A wrong cannot be turned into a right. Government is based on immoral actions and lies. This cannot be avoided.
Don't tell me what I'm thinking, thank you. But for the record I thought your argument looked pretty much like a No True Scotsman and I wanted to make you aware of this.
Furthermore, I offered a perspective on the troubles direct democracies as a form of legislative process have and why they are not less, but more, susceptible to manipulation. I probably should have let out the second paragraph, it did not add anything to my argument, but too late. I am afraid this is not going to change a thing, because I'm probably already sorted into the "sheeple" or "hostage" bin, but claiming to make a moral argument instead of a political one, does not reinforce your earlier statement.
So, here is the strongest version of your new argument I can come up with, but first an assumption: You write "government" but seem to mean "executive". The executive is a different branch of government than the legislative we talked about earlier. The legislative makes the laws (by direct vote, through representative, by the will of God, whathaveyou), but does not enforce them. The executive enforces the laws, but does not make them.
Anyway, now the arguments. I can actually see two:
1) An executive threatening force to enforce laws (i.e taxation) is morally wrong, because threatening force is morally wrong. Why?
2) An executive threatening force to enforce laws (i.e taxation) is morally wrong, because taxation is equal to stealing and therefore morally wrong, because stealing is morally wrong, because... why?
I think 1) is the much stronger argument but the line of argument breaks down much earlier. I'm not necessarily against any of these lines of argument but I'm somewhat dangling in the air here. They do not explain why taxation is equal to stealing, and it does not explain why threatening force to enforce the law is morally wrong. I, for one, can think of a few cases where it seems perfectly justified (e.g. arresting an attacker) so this seems at least to be not a universally applicable claim.
But, of course, this depends on what you actually think how moral and ethics work. Are you a deontologist? Or are you more of a teleologist? Are your morals value or virtue based? These are important questions to discuss to understand your argument.
Best regards