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 can't be serious? Do you really think this clash of the cultures thing is real?
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly not sure how to interpret the data. The first thing that comes to mind is that the "multiculturalism" did do it, but that this is not an essential part of it.
What?! Cultures are different. The results of making Sweden multicultural are real. What exactly is "not serious" about admitting this?
DeleteOf course cultures are different. I'd be an idiot if I denied that (I also do not think all cultures or, rather, all cultural practices, are equal). That doesn't necessarily mean that two of them are going to react like water and sodium if they mix together. This idea always seemed like a conservative bogeyman to me. Now, I don't deny that certain mixtures can react badly (think liberal America and Islamic fundamentalist Saudi Arabia), but I don't think is inherent to multiculturalism. I'm also not sure how Sweden made itself multicultural through legislation. (Was it a declaration? A change in certain crime statutes?)
Delete"This idea always seemed like a conservative bogeyman to me. "
DeleteSo when a particular example crops up -- and we see this problem with attitudes to women in public and rape all over the world now (Gene could have cited Rotherham) -- how do you react to the fact? Not like Keynes it seems.
"Not like Keynes it seems."
DeleteUh, what? My knowledge of economics topics is basic, so I'm probably missing something here.
Do you draw a distinction between multiculturalism and diversity? And why do you think multiculturalism leads to destructive results?
ReplyDeleteSamson, my post was on immigration.
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