That's a red herring. No one really has a "right" to anything. In civilized society we strive to ignore our natural greed and, for lack of a less religious phrasing, treat others as we'd like to be treated.
So there is no such thing as a right to free speech, or a right to freedom of religion, or freedom of movement, or to be free from aggression? And when did greed come into things? Sounds like your ideology is coming out to me. That's a new one on me though, no such thing as rights.
That description fits all forms of tax.
Yes it does.
Living in a society means that you assist and are assisted by that society in a number of ways. Because of the structure of the society you live in, you have certain job opportunities that you wouldn't have on your own. Part of what is asked in return is taxes. If you lived on a remote island you wouldn't have to pay taxes, but you sure as hell couldn't make the kind of money as you do in an industrialized country. As a member of a society, you accept both what it gives to you and the fact that you'll have to give back to it.
This is sheer nonsense for a few billion reasons, not in the least because it equates society with income taxes. There are many forms of taxation, many ways to generate funds for government functions. Low tarriffs for example, which are not charged directly to people and only slightly hinder production in the long run. Sales taxes, which are paid at the point of sale and directly affect production and which are also hard to hide through account manipulations. None of which require much if any individual sacrifice of surplus productivity. Taxes are not synonymous with society or civilization. In fact taxes and other economic penalties levied upon people are the primary cause of wars throughout history. Taxes are the cause of the breakdown of civilization more often than its supporter.
Then, the idea of 'giving something back' to society is sheer nonsense. First off, no one asked to be here. They were brought here by the will of others. Second off the idea of 'giving something back' ignores the fact that taxes are
taken, not given. If you don't pay you go to jail. If you resist being sent to jail you are shot. You're completely ignoring the distinction between voluntary and coerced exchange in this poorly thought out social contract nonsense.
Beyond that, helping people to survive is a much better cause than a lot of the crap that tax money is used for.
I wouldn't argue that but in the end it is irrelevant. When it comes to taxes it's not a matter of taking funds A and deciding to spend them on B or C. If both B and C are wanted, more taxes are levied and/or debt is created. The idea that you can create a government program and then restrain its spending is nonsense and proven incorrect through history. Spending goes up. Even on a gold standard, spending always has gone up, and it does so despite drops in supply and the quality of the service supposedly being delivered.
That's really a gross misrepresentation of the actual issue. It's making sure that a portion of your income -- which is going to be taken away anyway -- and pushing for it to be used for a noble cause. Commandeering property isn't remotely on the same level.
It is the exact same thing actually. Money is property. There is no difference between taking someone's house to give to someone else or emptying that man's wallet to give to someone else. money is merely a commodity traded for work. It is productivity made tangible through voluntary exchange. It is property as much as your house, car or shoes are property.
So your point is that you want to do away with all taxes? Or that you want taxes to be collected on a voluntary basis? Or is it just that you feel this is a lesser issue than the other crap taxes are used for?
My point is wealth transfer programs always grow and distort the market, and hinder the very mechanisms that will lead to people being able to afford the things they supposedly lack or can't afford now. My point is that taxation is and always will be theft no matter what the funds are used for, and so should be minimized as much as possible, and you don't accomplish that by nationalizing entire industries. My point is socialism, nationalization, whatever you want to call it, has well known failings that in this particular situation will be more obvious than a **** stain on a wedding dress if we try and nationalize our health care system.
Not in the least also my point is that the idea that you can arbitrarily make something free or affordable flies in the face of a few centuries worth of economics, supply and demand, stuff like that. Someone has to pay for it or the supply shrinks and the quality suffers. Now you may well not mind taking a few billion from the rich and funding a health care system to serve the poor. But those billions would have been spent elsewhere, and the people in those industries now see lower demand and have to curtail production and probably will be out of work. You can't just snap your fingers and magically nullify all the laws of economics to make something free. Someone will
always pay for it, one way or another.