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...
:-D
ReplyDeleteBut it's not a personality cult. Nope. Can't be. That's what people who vote for Obama are involved in.
Damn it - I should use the google machine before I post things like that: http://www.jailbreaktoys.com/The_Obama_Action_Figure_p/ob000.htm
ReplyDelete:)
You looked, didn't you?
ReplyDeleteHopefully when he receives it he can shove it right in his... collection of cool action figures. Yeah! That's the ticket.
ReplyDeleteIt's all good. Daniel's still cool in my book, I just don't think that it is a good idea (in many cases) for he and I to discuss foreign policy and war. We're like fire and ice on such topics.
I imagine my conditions for talking civilly about war are much the same as yours, Joseph.
ReplyDeleteWe both hold our positions because we don't like aggression, and neither of us appreciates the insinuation that we are pro-aggression. Right?