The Current Stack
One of three.
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 never ends, does it?
ReplyDeleteYou said it.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a similar situation. It got so bad I developed the horrible habit of reading several books at the same time (I know this is not the perfect way of describing it; maybe saying I read many books in parallel is better? Anyway, I think you understand: I start a book, then another before finishing, then another... eventually, I finish them all).
ReplyDeleteDon't you have a reader, Gene? I have a Sony Reader, and it's very practical for voracious readers. For people like you, who I presume reads many books that are be in the public domain, it's even better, because those you can get for free.
I saw that bottom one in a used bookstore the other day and almost got it, but figured I'd never get around to it. Looked very interesting.
ReplyDeletePedro, I have several books going at once always.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about readers is, I like to write all over the books. I also have eidetic memory of where quotes are by physical location in the book: I'm not sure that would work with a reader.
Daniel, the world needs more round tuits!
ReplyDeleteI don't often read that many books at one time, but I do usually have 2 or 3 that I am reading in a given time frame. It has more to do with my attention span. Sometimes after reading one book for too long I find myself beginning to just gloss over the sentences without fully taking them into my head. However, I find that when I switch gears and pick up a different book that my brain is able to focus again.
ReplyDeleteI too have a somewhat eidetic memory. I found this out when I used to have to read technical publications for troubleshooting. They (the Navy) attempted to switch over to a completely CD-ROM based system and I was completely lost (good thing I held onto the hardcopies). It isn't that I remember the location of specific words or phrases in a book (I am horrible at remembering quotes), I actually remember concepts and subjects (or the groups thereof) in specific areas of a book.
Basically, if you give me a book in electronic form, it will take quite a while to find what I am looking for. Whereas, if you give me a hardcopy version, my hands will flip to the desired page within a few seconds.
My kindle/iPad toting friends think that I am full of crap when I tell them this and say that it is so much easier to find what you're looking for because you can search keywords/phrases. They don't get that I don't remember words/phrases, but that I remember concepts and subjects, and I remember them with regard to where they physically lie in a book. Even stranger, I often don't even consciously know where the section is that I am looking for, but my hands do.
You're probably right. I do have a similar skill in remembering where to find quotes, though mine is not as strong as for me to call it "eidetic memory". I tend to remember whether a quote was in the left page or in the right page, and more or less in what part of the page. You're right. It doesn't work well with a reader. I've found that the reader is great for reading a book start to finish, but no good for reference.
ReplyDelete