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...
Gene, you write in regards to Rothbard's theory of children: "In this instance, I personally believe that Hymowitz has hit the mark, and that Rothbard’s position was mistaken." Have you spelled out your critique of Rothbard anywhere? If you haven't, would you do it now? In the comment section? With footnotes? And multimedia?
ReplyDeleteWell, he goes about doing politics in an absurd fashion, trying to generate all political life from first principles. And so he winds up with ridiculous conclusions like this one. See Michael Oakeshott's essay, "Rationalism in Politics," for a more complete analysis of this style of politics.
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