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...
At around 2:50, does he invite the Iraqis to occupy the United States?
ReplyDeleteActually more like 2:47.
ReplyDeleteI used to get that same speech about once a week when I was playing sports.
ReplyDeleteVon Pepe's comment spurred me to listen to the end; I stopped it halfway when Gene first posted it.
ReplyDeleteMy new favorite line is right near the end when he says something like, "You wanna call yourselves Iraqi police then start beating some people's asses."
I used to love when a 45 year old coach, all 5'8" and 175 pounds would invite me outside for a beating. I was 20 years old, 6'3" and 215 pounds of twisted steel.
ReplyDeleteIt never made sense...and every now and then I would just laugh (like one of the Iraqi policeman did). It was reflexive to laugh.
(I actually heard that speech so often I predicted ot myself the "lets take it outside" line was coming).
Reminds me of what I heard from my drill instructors in army basic training. When it comes to making aggressive killing machines, humiliation works!
ReplyDeleteI was a border-line aggressive killing machine back then.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how wise it is to insult Muslims as 'pussies' and 'women'. I think only 'pigs' and 'monkeys' could be more likely hit all the wrong buttons.
ReplyDelete