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...
Hello. Does your book assume a knowledge of Oakeshott's philosophy or should it be understandable to someone with no knowledge of his philosophy? In other words, is it suitable for the "intelligent layperson" with no specialized knowledge or is it written for experts in the field? Thank you.
ReplyDeleteKudos, Gene!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kevin.
ReplyDeleteSure thing, Senyor -- it opens with an intro to Oakeshott.
Hmmm... the picture on the cover looks a lot like a well known picture of Rothbard:
ReplyDeletehttp://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Murray_Rothbard.jpg
Your unconscious has betrayed you! Mwahahaha!
That's funny Pedro.
ReplyDeleteBut that is Oakeshott on the cover, not me.
Good evening, Dr. Callahan.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations. I am sure that you are happy and relieved. I would imagine that your wife and children are even more so -- at least until you begin/continue your next book.
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThanks.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest, I was had never even heard of Oakeshott until I saw this post. I did a little digging around and found that it might be worth my while to order your book based upon what I read. However, I don't think that I can do that at this time due to the price; almost 2¢ a page. I realize that it will probably have a very limited (first) printing by an academic publisher and that this plays into the price, but you must admit that that is a lot to pay.
ReplyDeleteI buy a lot of books, so I am quite cognizant of prices. I still wish to extend to you a hearty congratulations on this achievement. I imagine that it is quite hard to get such things as this out there and onto bookshelves; that is an achievement in and of itself, I am sure.
Oops, that should be 20¢ per page. I only wish that new hard-backed books were going for 2¢ a page. Haha. If that were the case, I'd have filled my shelves.
ReplyDeleteJoseph, my words are easily worth over $20 per page!
ReplyDelete