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...
Interesting. 84. But I think I should have received an additional bonus for not just knowing where Branson is, and not just having been there, but having worked there.
ReplyDeleteI scored 57, but I look skeptically on every section after the first. In terms of cold numbers, the rural/small town share of American population is a minority segment - it has no more claim to be a hallmark of "the mainstream" than the walkups-over-bodegas segment does. Similarly, military service is the pursuit of a tiny minority of the country, as Murray's own figures make clear. And on and on.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Jon Rogers' complaint a couple of years ago that "More people play World of Warcraft than farm! So why aren't WoW players 'the real America?'"
But then I also wonder why Murray has a question about whether you've visited/worked in a factory, but no similar question about farms. There's no pleasing me.
I also can't escape the feeling that on questions like Branson, Murray's own provincialism may convince him it's a bigger deal than he imagines, even among country-music-loving, non-degree-having white people. Murray's heard of it, therefore it's important. Is he sure about that? The paradox of the semi-detached!
64. However, in my short life I have had quite a variety of living situations (from the big city to a rural population just over 3000) and levels of income (ranging from homeless to $100k); with the exception of the Navy, all of my jobs have been labor-intensive. I got almost no points when it came to restaurants, television and movies.
ReplyDeleteThe descriptions that he provides for your score are pretty vague and certainly don't apply to me. I grew up in a middle-class house that became upper-middle class (possibly even upper-class), yet with the exception of 2007 I have been lower-middle class (or working-class) even though I currently work in the same exact industry and position as my father did when he was middle-class/upper middle-class.