The most rapid alteration of human behavior in history
And it seems nobody is paying it much attention. Well, of course not: they are too busy checking twitter!
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...
Hardly a new phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteSee also.
Rubbish. See response to rob below.
DeleteNor did reading the newspaper have the same effect on the brain as does heroin.
DeleteJust the medium has changed, not people:
ReplyDeletehttps://liquid-state.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/reading_on_train.jpg
Reading developed about 7000 thousand years ago, rob. It took roughly 70 centuries from that invention to people "reading on the train." The smart phone was invented 13 years ago...
DeleteAlso, in my experience, neither my books or newspapers had messages from other people suddenly popping up inside them, nor did one engage in long political debates with strangers on them, etc. etc.
These "nothing to see here, move along" responses are pretty funny! When I was in college, people indeed read the newspaper of the train. However, I never recall seeing every single student in a large lecture hall desperately sneaking glances at their newspaper, even though the professor had specifically banned newspapers from the class. The idea we are not seeing a massive change in human behavior here is laughable.
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