St. Paul and I Agree...
Taxation is not theft: "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves." -- Romans 13 The key idea implicit here, and the one that turned me on the subject of whether or not taxation is theft, is that "every soul" owes obedience to the "governing authorities." Now, if that is a debt I truly owe , then, when those authorities levy the taxes they need to do the job of governing, I owe them those taxes, and attempts to collect them certainly do not constitute acts of theft. And obviously it doesn't matter at all, from this point of view, whether or not I "signed" any sort of "social contract." (In fact, the history of political thought since the Reformation can be read as an attempt to find a secular rep...
It seems that the state governor had to sign an authorisation to use the buses; she only signed on Thursday 1st Sept. This isn't Dunkirk...
ReplyDeleteSure, by that time, to use buses from other Louisiana areas would have required authorization from Gov. Blanco. Before the hurricane though, Nagin should have been able to order or ask for city and local schoolbuses to do the job. He's the mayor!!!! Unfortunately, the New Orleans evacuation plans tell people to rely on their neighbors for lifts out of town and Nagin kept to the absurd evac plans. Maybe I'm "spoiled" but in Miami the buses pick you up and take you out of the flood zones if you can't do it yourself.
ReplyDeletehttp://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:bUuAZkdWIOMJ:images.ibsys.com/2000/0822/51810.jpg
Dunkirk, no. Gonaïves, maybe.