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...
In all its silliness, the advice is sound. I've always advocated following the same traffic rules that apply for cars, on the sidewalk aswell.
ReplyDeleteHeck, it should even apply in supermarkets. Talk about a traffic nightmare! You have double-, and even tripple-parked shoppingcarts, no one uses turn signals, no one checks their rear view mirror, kids are without restraints... The horror!
On the other hand, I guess I should be happy there's no traffic cops issuing tickets in my grocery store.
Dostoevsky dealt with the sidewalk thing a few times.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with "you tube" is that I think a tube, though it should be considered a receptacle, is often thought of as phallic. When I see "you tube" written, I think of someone saying, "You, Tube!" Back in the 1980s a tube steak was a polite way to call a person a dick.
So in C&P, I think Raskalnikov was really saying to the officer, "Hey, you tube, get the *(()& out my way!"
Damnit there I go again!
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