If no one pays taxes, how does any government system supply basic needs (e.g. roads, law enforcement, etc.)? And don't say inflation, which is taxes disguised.
Since I am a free man, which means I define government by force as slavery, I intend to fund essential services through other means than slavery.
Anarchy is not easy, but it is not impossible. Slavery is easy to undertake, but more difficult to tolerate than freedom.
In fact, each person is free. We decide, when a sword is held to our throat and our money demanded, whether to pay or die. That means the choice is up to us, not our oppressors. The wise thing to do is to prevent thugs from reaching our throat with swords.
Once we attain that, we can debate which services are essential, and how we shall undertake funding them. As to inflation, fraud is a crime. Inflation is only possible in a system of fiat money, which is fraud to begin with. Sound money does not inflate.
In a perfect world, Steem would be even less sound, as it's inflationary aspect would be far more onerous. It's a far better currency than most any other of which I am familiar, but this does not make it perfectly sound. That's a different discussion than our present debate, however.
Taxation is not 'requesting a fee.' It is taking wealth from it's possessor by force.
I submit that there are myriad examples of essential services being funded voluntarily, and this is actually one of Steem's best features. Other than flagging, which is the involuntary deprivation of the flaggee's potential Steem (still not taxation), I am unaware of any forced taxation Steem effects.
Yet Steem can be used for any purpose of governance. For example, a HOA (Homeowner's association) could form a Steem based network and voluntarily contribute nominal funding for planting a highway margin with flowers, or effect the removal of junkies under an overpass. Using Steem to upvote such a proposal isn't taxation, but voluntary funding of essential services.
Folks unwilling to pay to shoot and bury the junkies would not be forced to pony up, but if sufficient funds were voted the proposal, murder might result anyway. Same with planting the flowers along the highway.
The first principle regarding taxation for me is rule by force, and I am convinced it cannot end well. I am not capable of ensuring that voluntary contributions can end well, but since involuntary taxation cannot end well, it's the only direction to proceed in attempting to end things well.
Steem does have a voluntary tax, and that is inflation. Steem would work the exact same and have the exact same system if every year your Steem balance is taxed about 10% and that is distributed to SP holders, witnesses, and posters (for upvotes). Inflation is taxation. There is no difference, except one is simply a hidden form of the other.
Could you give me a detailed example of how a voluntary police force would work so that I can have a better idea of what you are proposing?
Inflation amounts to the deprivation of money just as does a tax, but it is not a tax, and I have addressed my disaffection with it. I reckon Steem would be better without it, closer to 'sound money', but it is still better than most any I am aware of. I doubt we disagree as to the general soundness of Steem much, in view of our continued presence here.
Prior to the 20th Century, America had few police. There were Sheriffs, and Marshals, and generally folks simply handled their business. Innumerable mechanisms and examples of private or voluntary police forces have been proposed, but I reckon people preventing criminals from committing crimes against them is a far better system than some kind of police force that is summoned after a crime has been committed, for many and myriad reasons.
I'm not making a proposal, per se, simply noting that Steem can be used to fund services voluntarily that most people consider government essential for.
Taxes are important for a wide range of benefits we all enjoy. A nuanced discussion regarding proper distribution of taxes and lowered rates / better fairness is vital, but zero taxes is unsustainable.
You may find stealing from people necessary. You may believe you are unable to sustain yourself without stealing.
If so, you are a criminal.
How you nuance discussing distributing the proceeds of criminal acts is immaterial to how essential services are paid for by free people. Slaves whose treasure is taken by force have little to say in how those proceeds are spent by their oppressors.
Funding essential services is possible to free people, since it is also possible to thieves and the slaves they prey on. Having a discussion of what services are essential, and how to fund them, is indeed an important undertaking, but it is subsequent to freedom.
I have no interest in the bleatings of sheep, nor the howls of wolves, in discussions free men undertake to resolve their concerns and enact their wills.
Anarchy leads to chaos. We can agree that we need to redo a lot of the current systems in place today, but I would never agree to complete anarchy. We are better than that. To suggest the only way to redo your infrastructure is to tear it all down, is to suggest that we haven't evolved from our primate state. We are smarter and better now, we should hold ourselves to that. We are able to do things a lot better now than we ever could before. Let's not go apeshit just because we don't wanna put in the hard work.
Also, blockchain won't make anarchy possible. Anarchy is literally always possible. Blockchain is one of the ways we can "redo" while being smart, like I was talking about. We don't need to go crazy and kill bankers in order to redo our economy, we just need to develop a better, smarter system and use it. That's why crypto's are cool. We don't need to burn down google's databases, we just need to make decentralized alternatives, and use them. That's why blockchains are cool.
Anarchy is not 'chaos'.
Anarchy means no rulership. (it's weird that english only has ruling and governing as such verbs; in german we have herrschen\Herrschaft which has nothing to do with rules or gouvernment - but means the same)
Just because there is anarchy doesnt mean that there are no rules/law.
No rules/law, and your so called chaos, would be anomy.
Respectfully, I think when we talk about society, anarchy + chaos go hand-in-hand so often enough that it is fair to group them together. But you're right, they're not the same.
So allow me to reiterate. In our current world, with laws and rules, we already have chaos. I believe this chaos will be amplified ten-fold when we eliminate rulership. If there is no rulership, where do laws come from? [ note: I'm not trying to pull a bullshit "without religion, where do morals come from" here. what I mean is, if there is no central body of rulership, then laws just couldn't be held to any value ].
Rulership currently? I think isn't that great [ from a western perspective ]. Rulership in general, as an idea? Can lead to greatness.
So, sure, anarchy =/= chaos. But if we were to install anarchy, I believe chaos would follow suit.
However, perhaps we are just missing the vital words here? As you said, german has herrschen \ Herrschaft. I don't know what that means, but if it doesn't have anything to do with government bodies, than perhaps we are closer to agreement than we might think.
Perhaps you refrain from considering how much chaos is produced in extant conditions? For example, across the Middle East tens of thousands of children starve to death every year, and this does not happen because things are orderly and civilized.
Thuggery increases it's power via chaos. Littlefinger said 'Chaos is a ladder.' in GoT, and this principle is daily exercised via the extant tax based social organization and the profiteers that run it.
I am unconvinced chaos resulting from precluding the rapine profiteering present taxation produces would be substantially increased.
While I expect we will continue to disagree, I am impressed by your thoughtful response, at least enough to respond in turn.
"To suggest the only way to redo your infrastructure is to tear it all down, is to suggest that we haven't evolved from our primate state. We are smarter and better now, we should hold ourselves to that. "
You misunderstand evolution, from a biological perspective. We are not evolved to more rational or intelligent state. Rather the reverse. I expect you haven't made the experiment of living on the land, in a state of nature, and this is why you grossly underestimate the superlative skills necessary to produce stuff as seemingly rudimentary as chipped rocks and pointy sticks in such conditions.
Extant civilization is producing significant evolutionary pressure against higher intelligence and autodidactic abilities.
This is exemplary of why we disagree. I have personal experience that makes it impossible for me to pretend taxation is anything other than thugs taking stuff from people by force: stealing.
I'd be happy to discuss how to effect mutual ends voluntarily, but since the extant kleptocracy precludes any functional alternatives with hyperalert vigor, such discussion would be relatively pointless.
The first requisite to freedom is the end of slavery. The illusion of freedom provided slaves to prevent them from securing their own is not a step towards freedom, but away from it. Tweaking slavery does not potentiate freedom, but fritters away such capacity to potentiate freedom as exists, so discussing how best to distribute taxes merely empowers extant kleptocracy.
We do need to just make decentralized alternative, to many things, but we can only expect to use them if we can secure them from hostile actors.
That is the essence of freedom, and such cannot abide taxation.
You misunderstand evolution, from a biological perspective. We are not evolved to more rational or intelligent state. Rather the reverse. I expect you haven't made the experiment of living on the land, in a state of nature, and this is why you grossly underestimate the superlative skills necessary to produce stuff as seemingly rudimentary as chipped rocks and pointy sticks in such conditions.
No where in my argument did I make the claim that through evolutions, simple acts like "chipped rocks" and "pointy sticks" are easy nor worthless by design. Living off the land is tough, it takes a certain type of intelligence for sure. Never made any sort of hint suggesting otherwise.
However, your claims about evolution are incorrect. We have in fact evolved to be semi-more rational [ and by some extension more intelligent / at the very least, better equipped to access higher-function logical paths ] than our ape ancestors. To suggest otherwise is to hold the current societal trend of dumbing down the customer to more easily withdraw the resources that you want from them to a higher royalship than that trend deserves.
It is true, at least in my opinion, that a lot of companies, products, and general trends are purely designed to dumb down and patronize people. It is a very common way to get what you need from them. T.V., for instance, thrives on this. Funny, relatable, stail humor -> lulls you into a close to brainwashed state where you are comfortable sitting through 15 minutes of ads for shit that you just don't need. Ads on T.V. mainly exist to instill the name brand of a certain product into your soft gooey mind so the next time you're looking for car insurance you have images of a tiny green gecko jumping around in your head.
I get it.
But, to suggest that, therefore, we are dumber as a species:
We are not evolved to more rational or intelligent state. Rather the reverse.
Is to suggest that those who are intelligent enough to enact smart plays like the one mentioned above, are somehow not evolved beyond monkeys. Monkeys would never have an advertisement model in their society [ insert joke about how this makes them smarter than us lol ].
"...Is to suggest that those who are intelligent enough to enact smart plays..."
No, it's not. I am not stating that there are no intelligent people, so I suggest no such thing. I am stating, as a professional experimental biologist formerly employed by a state government for the purpose, that extant environmental conditions are specifically favoring lower intelligence.
This is not something that happens on an individual basis. You cannot evolve. It's a species wide event, and occurs as non-preferred stock fails to breed successfully at higher rates.
You do not grasp my point regarding the superlative skills necessary to produce what seems to be rude implements in a state of nature, and how such environment produced a high degree of selection pressure for intelligence, particularly relative to extant conditions.
It does not require intelligence to breed successfully today. It did - and does - in the wild. See 'Idiocracy'. You may not be able to completely understand what I mean, but you will grasp the gist of my statement.
The issue is, when using intense language like "criminal acts", we tend to lose focus on what we are discussing. Drop the frightening words like "slaves" and "stealing". Let's discuss this a bit more calm & logically.
Taxes will come from the money that you have earned thanks to the society you live in. If you live in a complete shithole where you have to walk everywhere, buildings are worn down, poverty is rampant, etc. Then, yes, high-taxes can feel horrible.
However, if you're job is typing on a computer in an air-conditioned building that you get to by driving a short 15 minute drive on nice smooth roads in a comfy car, then taxes make sense.
Taxes can help you earn money, so to me it seems fair that a part of that money goes back into that system. Think of it as a business:
If I own a company that does "x", and that company is making a profit because of how well we do "x", then it is only smart of me to reinvest some of that profit back into "x" in order to continue this flow.
Sure, some people are suggesting anarchy, but remember where that leads to. We will not have roads if we do not pay for them. We will not have many free activities if they do not get funded. If you want to eliminate taxes, think about what you're giving up along with them, and determine if you're ok with paying a subscription to keep them around. If you are, congrats, we already have that subscription model, it's taxes.
[ Just to be absolutely clear, I think we need to find a better tax model than what we have now. Not to get rid of taxes completely, but to more fairly distribute and spread the givings & takings across parties who can pay for them. Lower class should not be paying as much taxes as higher class, we need to find a balance, which is obviously hard work, but extremely necessary to do. ]
I'm not comparing any of those things to taxes. Not sure why you said that.
And yes, as I tried to make clear in my ending statement, I believe the current tax model is flawed. Many things, in fact, in our society are [ in my opinion ]. But the idea behind what taxes could be, is good. A way to benefit us.
With people, you'll always run into scenarios where good ideas are corrupted and taken advantage of. Some just like to play dirty. That doesn't support throwing out the good idea all together though...
"Taxes can help you earn money, so to me it seems fair that a part of that money goes back into that system."
Were society no more than an economy, this would need little expansion. However, Mike Tyson said 'Don King would sell his momma for a dollar.' This requires consideration.
Many would - and do - trade hard freedom for soft slavery.
I don't. I have very good reasons to prefer even dying a painful death to living as a wealthy investor. I do not speak from ignorance, as I have been an accredited investor. Through my experience I have learned that money is a veil behind which actual wealth is concealed, and that much focus on money is counterproductive to the creation of real wealth.
It is this that has enabled me to grasp that the underlying principles matter far more than facile perceptions of conditions. It is rank hubris to discount our limitations and expect we can effect complex solutions to simple problems.
Let's start with the fact that anarchy is the extant condition. You actually do not have a ruler. You are actually, in real fact, an autarch that rules yourself right now, and so is everyone else. The illusion of hierarchy is both endemic and necessary to our species, but reality is producing ever stronger pressure to change that, as very strong selective pressure is being applied to decimate those individuals that do not fit the needs of our present overlords.
I strongly recommend hard work, but not to refine the extant system.
Work to craft freedom, and end the slave/master paradigm that can only survive and thrive as long as nominal anarchic mechanisms do not exist.
Absolutely a No for me, taxation is theft and have been imposed on human, the results of taxation hardly reflect on the lives of people therefore taxing the church is just extending legal way of stealing from people.
Absolutely. A proper plan that takes into consideration the churches operating cost and income should be instilled, but they should be taxed along with the rest of us.
No one should pay taxes. Not even churches. Taxation is theft.
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If no one pays taxes, how does any government system supply basic needs (e.g. roads, law enforcement, etc.)? And don't say inflation, which is taxes disguised.
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Since I am a free man, which means I define government by force as slavery, I intend to fund essential services through other means than slavery.
Anarchy is not easy, but it is not impossible. Slavery is easy to undertake, but more difficult to tolerate than freedom.
In fact, each person is free. We decide, when a sword is held to our throat and our money demanded, whether to pay or die. That means the choice is up to us, not our oppressors. The wise thing to do is to prevent thugs from reaching our throat with swords.
Once we attain that, we can debate which services are essential, and how we shall undertake funding them. As to inflation, fraud is a crime. Inflation is only possible in a system of fiat money, which is fraud to begin with. Sound money does not inflate.
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So Steem is not sound money? How would you fund essential services other than by requesting a fee (taxes) for their existence?
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In a perfect world, Steem would be even less sound, as it's inflationary aspect would be far more onerous. It's a far better currency than most any other of which I am familiar, but this does not make it perfectly sound. That's a different discussion than our present debate, however.
Taxation is not 'requesting a fee.' It is taking wealth from it's possessor by force.
I submit that there are myriad examples of essential services being funded voluntarily, and this is actually one of Steem's best features. Other than flagging, which is the involuntary deprivation of the flaggee's potential Steem (still not taxation), I am unaware of any forced taxation Steem effects.
Yet Steem can be used for any purpose of governance. For example, a HOA (Homeowner's association) could form a Steem based network and voluntarily contribute nominal funding for planting a highway margin with flowers, or effect the removal of junkies under an overpass. Using Steem to upvote such a proposal isn't taxation, but voluntary funding of essential services.
Folks unwilling to pay to shoot and bury the junkies would not be forced to pony up, but if sufficient funds were voted the proposal, murder might result anyway. Same with planting the flowers along the highway.
The first principle regarding taxation for me is rule by force, and I am convinced it cannot end well. I am not capable of ensuring that voluntary contributions can end well, but since involuntary taxation cannot end well, it's the only direction to proceed in attempting to end things well.
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Steem does have a voluntary tax, and that is inflation. Steem would work the exact same and have the exact same system if every year your Steem balance is taxed about 10% and that is distributed to SP holders, witnesses, and posters (for upvotes). Inflation is taxation. There is no difference, except one is simply a hidden form of the other.
Could you give me a detailed example of how a voluntary police force would work so that I can have a better idea of what you are proposing?
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Inflation amounts to the deprivation of money just as does a tax, but it is not a tax, and I have addressed my disaffection with it. I reckon Steem would be better without it, closer to 'sound money', but it is still better than most any I am aware of. I doubt we disagree as to the general soundness of Steem much, in view of our continued presence here.
Prior to the 20th Century, America had few police. There were Sheriffs, and Marshals, and generally folks simply handled their business. Innumerable mechanisms and examples of private or voluntary police forces have been proposed, but I reckon people preventing criminals from committing crimes against them is a far better system than some kind of police force that is summoned after a crime has been committed, for many and myriad reasons.
I'm not making a proposal, per se, simply noting that Steem can be used to fund services voluntarily that most people consider government essential for.
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Taxes are important for a wide range of benefits we all enjoy. A nuanced discussion regarding proper distribution of taxes and lowered rates / better fairness is vital, but zero taxes is unsustainable.
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You may find stealing from people necessary. You may believe you are unable to sustain yourself without stealing.
If so, you are a criminal.
How you nuance discussing distributing the proceeds of criminal acts is immaterial to how essential services are paid for by free people. Slaves whose treasure is taken by force have little to say in how those proceeds are spent by their oppressors.
Funding essential services is possible to free people, since it is also possible to thieves and the slaves they prey on. Having a discussion of what services are essential, and how to fund them, is indeed an important undertaking, but it is subsequent to freedom.
I have no interest in the bleatings of sheep, nor the howls of wolves, in discussions free men undertake to resolve their concerns and enact their wills.
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Anarchy is best. Blockchain will make Anarchy possible :)
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Anarchy leads to chaos. We can agree that we need to redo a lot of the current systems in place today, but I would never agree to complete anarchy. We are better than that. To suggest the only way to redo your infrastructure is to tear it all down, is to suggest that we haven't evolved from our primate state. We are smarter and better now, we should hold ourselves to that. We are able to do things a lot better now than we ever could before. Let's not go apeshit just because we don't wanna put in the hard work.
Also, blockchain won't make anarchy possible. Anarchy is literally always possible. Blockchain is one of the ways we can "redo" while being smart, like I was talking about. We don't need to go crazy and kill bankers in order to redo our economy, we just need to develop a better, smarter system and use it. That's why crypto's are cool. We don't need to burn down google's databases, we just need to make decentralized alternatives, and use them. That's why blockchains are cool.
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Anarchy is not 'chaos'.
Anarchy means no rulership. (it's weird that english only has ruling and governing as such verbs; in german we have herrschen\Herrschaft which has nothing to do with rules or gouvernment - but means the same)
Just because there is anarchy doesnt mean that there are no rules/law.
No rules/law, and your so called chaos, would be anomy.
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Respectfully, I think when we talk about society, anarchy + chaos go hand-in-hand so often enough that it is fair to group them together. But you're right, they're not the same.
So allow me to reiterate. In our current world, with laws and rules, we already have chaos. I believe this chaos will be amplified ten-fold when we eliminate rulership. If there is no rulership, where do laws come from? [ note: I'm not trying to pull a bullshit "without religion, where do morals come from" here. what I mean is, if there is no central body of rulership, then laws just couldn't be held to any value ].
Rulership currently? I think isn't that great [ from a western perspective ]. Rulership in general, as an idea? Can lead to greatness.
So, sure, anarchy =/= chaos. But if we were to install anarchy, I believe chaos would follow suit.
However, perhaps we are just missing the vital words here? As you said, german has herrschen \ Herrschaft. I don't know what that means, but if it doesn't have anything to do with government bodies, than perhaps we are closer to agreement than we might think.
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Perhaps you refrain from considering how much chaos is produced in extant conditions? For example, across the Middle East tens of thousands of children starve to death every year, and this does not happen because things are orderly and civilized.
Thuggery increases it's power via chaos. Littlefinger said 'Chaos is a ladder.' in GoT, and this principle is daily exercised via the extant tax based social organization and the profiteers that run it.
I am unconvinced chaos resulting from precluding the rapine profiteering present taxation produces would be substantially increased.
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While I expect we will continue to disagree, I am impressed by your thoughtful response, at least enough to respond in turn.
You misunderstand evolution, from a biological perspective. We are not evolved to more rational or intelligent state. Rather the reverse. I expect you haven't made the experiment of living on the land, in a state of nature, and this is why you grossly underestimate the superlative skills necessary to produce stuff as seemingly rudimentary as chipped rocks and pointy sticks in such conditions.
Extant civilization is producing significant evolutionary pressure against higher intelligence and autodidactic abilities.
This is exemplary of why we disagree. I have personal experience that makes it impossible for me to pretend taxation is anything other than thugs taking stuff from people by force: stealing.
I'd be happy to discuss how to effect mutual ends voluntarily, but since the extant kleptocracy precludes any functional alternatives with hyperalert vigor, such discussion would be relatively pointless.
The first requisite to freedom is the end of slavery. The illusion of freedom provided slaves to prevent them from securing their own is not a step towards freedom, but away from it. Tweaking slavery does not potentiate freedom, but fritters away such capacity to potentiate freedom as exists, so discussing how best to distribute taxes merely empowers extant kleptocracy.
We do need to just make decentralized alternative, to many things, but we can only expect to use them if we can secure them from hostile actors.
That is the essence of freedom, and such cannot abide taxation.
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Just taking aim at one thing you said:
No where in my argument did I make the claim that through evolutions, simple acts like "chipped rocks" and "pointy sticks" are easy nor worthless by design. Living off the land is tough, it takes a certain type of intelligence for sure. Never made any sort of hint suggesting otherwise.
However, your claims about evolution are incorrect. We have in fact evolved to be semi-more rational [ and by some extension more intelligent / at the very least, better equipped to access higher-function logical paths ] than our ape ancestors. To suggest otherwise is to hold the current societal trend of dumbing down the customer to more easily withdraw the resources that you want from them to a higher royalship than that trend deserves.
It is true, at least in my opinion, that a lot of companies, products, and general trends are purely designed to dumb down and patronize people. It is a very common way to get what you need from them. T.V., for instance, thrives on this. Funny, relatable, stail humor -> lulls you into a close to brainwashed state where you are comfortable sitting through 15 minutes of ads for shit that you just don't need. Ads on T.V. mainly exist to instill the name brand of a certain product into your soft gooey mind so the next time you're looking for car insurance you have images of a tiny green gecko jumping around in your head.
I get it.
But, to suggest that, therefore, we are dumber as a species:
Is to suggest that those who are intelligent enough to enact smart plays like the one mentioned above, are somehow not evolved beyond monkeys. Monkeys would never have an advertisement model in their society [ insert joke about how this makes them smarter than us lol ].
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No, it's not. I am not stating that there are no intelligent people, so I suggest no such thing. I am stating, as a professional experimental biologist formerly employed by a state government for the purpose, that extant environmental conditions are specifically favoring lower intelligence.
This is not something that happens on an individual basis. You cannot evolve. It's a species wide event, and occurs as non-preferred stock fails to breed successfully at higher rates.
You do not grasp my point regarding the superlative skills necessary to produce what seems to be rude implements in a state of nature, and how such environment produced a high degree of selection pressure for intelligence, particularly relative to extant conditions.
It does not require intelligence to breed successfully today. It did - and does - in the wild. See 'Idiocracy'. You may not be able to completely understand what I mean, but you will grasp the gist of my statement.
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The issue is, when using intense language like "criminal acts", we tend to lose focus on what we are discussing. Drop the frightening words like "slaves" and "stealing". Let's discuss this a bit more calm & logically.
Taxes will come from the money that you have earned thanks to the society you live in. If you live in a complete shithole where you have to walk everywhere, buildings are worn down, poverty is rampant, etc. Then, yes, high-taxes can feel horrible.
However, if you're job is typing on a computer in an air-conditioned building that you get to by driving a short 15 minute drive on nice smooth roads in a comfy car, then taxes make sense.
Taxes can help you earn money, so to me it seems fair that a part of that money goes back into that system. Think of it as a business:
If I own a company that does "x", and that company is making a profit because of how well we do "x", then it is only smart of me to reinvest some of that profit back into "x" in order to continue this flow.
Sure, some people are suggesting anarchy, but remember where that leads to. We will not have roads if we do not pay for them. We will not have many free activities if they do not get funded. If you want to eliminate taxes, think about what you're giving up along with them, and determine if you're ok with paying a subscription to keep them around. If you are, congrats, we already have that subscription model, it's taxes.
[ Just to be absolutely clear, I think we need to find a better tax model than what we have now. Not to get rid of taxes completely, but to more fairly distribute and spread the givings & takings across parties who can pay for them. Lower class should not be paying as much taxes as higher class, we need to find a balance, which is obviously hard work, but extremely necessary to do. ]
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The only thing taxes are supporting right now is the rulers on top to suppress and dull people.
You cant compare beneficaries or delegations or anything here on steem to taxes because taxes are not voluntarily.
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I'm not comparing any of those things to taxes. Not sure why you said that.
And yes, as I tried to make clear in my ending statement, I believe the current tax model is flawed. Many things, in fact, in our society are [ in my opinion ]. But the idea behind what taxes could be, is good. A way to benefit us.
With people, you'll always run into scenarios where good ideas are corrupted and taken advantage of. Some just like to play dirty. That doesn't support throwing out the good idea all together though...
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Were society no more than an economy, this would need little expansion. However, Mike Tyson said 'Don King would sell his momma for a dollar.' This requires consideration.
Many would - and do - trade hard freedom for soft slavery.
I don't. I have very good reasons to prefer even dying a painful death to living as a wealthy investor. I do not speak from ignorance, as I have been an accredited investor. Through my experience I have learned that money is a veil behind which actual wealth is concealed, and that much focus on money is counterproductive to the creation of real wealth.
It is this that has enabled me to grasp that the underlying principles matter far more than facile perceptions of conditions. It is rank hubris to discount our limitations and expect we can effect complex solutions to simple problems.
Let's start with the fact that anarchy is the extant condition. You actually do not have a ruler. You are actually, in real fact, an autarch that rules yourself right now, and so is everyone else. The illusion of hierarchy is both endemic and necessary to our species, but reality is producing ever stronger pressure to change that, as very strong selective pressure is being applied to decimate those individuals that do not fit the needs of our present overlords.
I strongly recommend hard work, but not to refine the extant system.
Work to craft freedom, and end the slave/master paradigm that can only survive and thrive as long as nominal anarchic mechanisms do not exist.
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We are discussing taking people's wealth by force: taxation.
Let's start at first principles, and proceed reasonably therefrom. Ignoring factual bases for mutual understanding precludes rational agreement.
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Absolutely a No for me, taxation is theft and have been imposed on human, the results of taxation hardly reflect on the lives of people therefore taxing the church is just extending legal way of stealing from people.
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That will help a Nation, of taxes are impose on Churches they government will generate more money
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No! they should not.
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Absolutely. A proper plan that takes into consideration the churches operating cost and income should be instilled, but they should be taxed along with the rest of us.
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Yes
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