For those whom are beginning to understand the reason why taxation is theft, the recognition of paying taxes brings to mind the destruction such compliance will enable. For many people taking these first steps there is a moral conflict. So how is this conflict resolved?
For starters, let us delve into the heart of the issue. What comprises the core of the issue?
1-the imposition of aggression, force, or coercion outside of the realm of self defense of the entities imposing taxation
2-the seemingly helpless position of recognizing the previous point while being surrounded by apathetic and or champions of government
3-the results of compliance with such demands being the destruction of others’ property and lives
So let’s break down these three issues.
1-the imposition of aggression, force, or coercion outside of the realm of self defense of the entities imposing taxation
At first glance this seems as if it is a huge problem. In the moment it is a huge problem; in the long run, not so much! People in the moment who demand a tithe, tax, or tip and encourage such with some kind of an underlying threat tend to do so because they believe one or more of the following reasons:
-they can get away with it individually
-they are owed it
-they believe they have a ‘right’ to do so
The question is why? Why do they believe they can get away with it as individuals in the moment? Why do they believe they deserve it? Why do they believe they have a ‘right’ to do so? If we don’t ask these questions, then we won’t understand how to empathize with their situations AND eventually present an argument to them which offers a way out of the worst case scenario of consequences; such as death in the moment to cease the violence and act of aggression they may not yet understand; thus further fueling the idea that government is necessary by other nescient advocates of it.
To be clear, the position I hold is built upon the idea that everyone can be reasoned with to varying degrees. The key is to figure out how much an individual can be reasoned with and work from there. If violence in the moment is needed to subdue the initiator of violence then just enough violence should be used to cease such activities in order to return to a more peaceful exchange of ideas. In the case of someone demanding wealth as a payment of services rendered, one must ask which services were rendered. Then it is necessary to follow that question with ‘who did the rendering’, ‘when were they rendered’, ‘why were they rendered’, and ‘how was this made possible to be rendered’.
This may seem simple and humiliating for someone thinking they are a seasoned veteran of the liberty movements. Just rest assured that this is exactly the path many of us took when we first began looking at such things. We just didn’t do so with such clarity. And we often only walked upon one side or question of the path at a time instead of seeing the big picture and having each piece broken down for us.
When we get answers to these questions we find that they are all based on noble intents. The overwhelming majority of apathetic and champions of government want government for protections of the common folk; of course to various degrees. So when this is put forward it should begin to become clear that the lowest common denominator is social and individual protection.
And if we are paying attention we will observe the idea that morality is more often than not presented in the arguments for helping other people. There will without a doubt be some case made as to why people should be made to help others for some noble purpose. And what is the idea of helping other people if not a moral issue?!
That will be a defining point of interest as we move along. For now, we can’t really reason all the time with advocates of taxation and government. They are many and we are few. So we must pick our battles carefully. This brings us to the second point.
2-the seemingly helpless position of recognizing the previous point while being surrounded by apathetic or champions of government
The overwhelming majority of those whom support government do it because they have justified to themselves that there is no truly better way. Or they have justified that they don’t need to find a better way. And for most, which I argue, few ever make the time to examine a process if it seems to generally work for them. But what is it that is being examined by these three observations?
A set of moral codes or an ideology which is completely transparent and easy to understand without needing another to help interpret it is what is being examined.
Seriously consider that for a moment. If people raised in a society which is governed -especially as heavily as one like the United States after World War II in comparison to pre-World War I, having a centralized set of authorities to ask permission from and seek protection by is a powerful idea. Regardless of what religion is present in one’s life, the actual physical presence of men in uniforms, with guns, and declarations in writing from another man respected by the men with guns forcing you to comply is extremely powerful!
That is something which is physically recognizable; both visually and tangibly. To say “NO!” to such a force is to court Death at the hands of people claiming they have a right to do whatever it is they are doing. And then to argue against them is to argue against all the people who support them for whatever reasons and all the people too afraid to not speak out against them.
Those men with guns, the men in robes, and the men in suits said to have derived their peaceful rights (that is to order the men with guns to take things and coerce compliance) by those whom agree with the idea of government and the apathetic who voted for something less severe than prior are paid with the very wealth they say they have a right to take. In the moment of the robbery there is little to be done but comply in order to end the situation as quickly as possible to live another day. Arguments can be made to fight back with deadly force; but how many enforcers are there in the moment’s notice of their arrival compared to how many they rob at a time with such force?
(Regardless of what one believes happened at Waco Texas during the 1990s, more and more agents of the government were brought in to subdue the local forces. That will be the case until the forces on each side are relatively large enough to draw attention to the potential for a full scale war! But more on this in a bit.)
That’s the key, to notice the violence. Those in government believe they have just enough support to do what they do. Few will stand up to them with the same tactics they use because of the way their supporters twist the ideas invoked as justifications. No one wants to be seen as hurting others without a good reason. And of course, no one wants to be among the casualties in such a conflict either! So the issue is in clearly defining a code of conduct or moral code that is not reliant upon someone else to interpret granting them power of comprehension over others.
The saying ‘live free or die’ is trendy. Yet whom among us wants to risk our lives to be free for a few fleeting hours, if that long, before the behemoth of a monster called government comes crashing down on us?!
Few if any, I argue. And that is the power of government. No one wants war because of the potential to lose their lives. Yet there must be some show of force to grant teeth to the Nonaggression Principle if there is to be freedom from the unwarranted aggression used to make the illusion of peace government grants. So the only thing we can do is comply in the moment to stay the hand of execution.
There is no shame in that. By giving up wealth to save our lives we are not enabling the system by purely voluntary choice. Because there is the element of coercion interjected into such an interaction, none whom truly care about context, as they are capable of critical thinking, will judge us unfairly. However, if we were to commit an act of murder or theft against another innocent in order to save our own lives from the violent hand of the taxman or his employees, then we would be guilty of the crimes which we accuse him and his employees of.
Thus we must live with the third idea.
3-the results of compliance with such demands being the destruction of others’ property and lives
It is easy to say that we can ‘live free or die’, but when the time comes, how many really are willing to make that sacrifice without a horde of like minded individuals behind them in order to be remembered? Or what about being seen in order to set a precedent that others may explore, invoke, and inspire yet even more to follow?
This is why peaceful anarchism, voluntaryism, and the general dismantling of government will take a long time. The key is to expose the violence inherent in the system by forcing the hand of the system to expose itself. History has shown us that this can be done in fleeting seconds, such as the Boston Massacre in 1770 which was a major factor in deciding to rebel against England; or this can be done over the course of decades as when Dixie rebelled in the United States during the 1860s over a travesty of favoritism for Northern coffers with Southern taxes and the brutal occupation of the Southern States during the 1870s.
The violence which makes the physical form of government a more present and threatening idea than the words ‘Peaceful-Anarchism’ or ‘Voluntaryism’ is powerful. When there is an immediate effect upon one’s life in a negative fashion, the affected mind is hard pressed to see anything else but those negative effects. So the immediately recognizable pragmatic approach is to deal with the violence by catering to the violent hand in order to stay it so reason can resume.
Sadly the only reasoning is within the parameters set by the violent hand. HOWEVER, this only remains true until enough minds come to the conclusion that they need to discredit the violent hand. How that is done may vary. There is no one size fits all solution.
There is however, a one size fits all concept we can all strive for. Deeper comprehension into a clearly define moral code which is universally applicable. Many people have done this. Some are complex and some are simple. My work, Morality Defined, is simple. It’s an easy read, free, and only takes a short afternoon to read.
The point is that we need to find the lowest common denominators of what people are seeking. As I pointed out in the beginning of this piece, people want security and protection from those whom would hinder their abilities to maintain and improve the quality of their lives. This is pretty much universal. We’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t want to maintain their lives. And for added clarity, this does include those whom suffer from depression, suicidal tendencies, and other related ideas which give the impression to the nescient that they don’t want to maintain their lives. The behavioral norms for humanity are to seek a means to maintain and improve the quality of their lives. Illnesses such as depression hinder the cognitive abilities of many to see past the present aspect of affairs they are working with in order to seek different perspectives, internal and external.
It is in that lowest common denominator of needs which we should be focusing on. From there we can create far better solutions than government and its initiation of destructive violence, coercion, and aggression it requires to meet the needs of some people at the expense of others. Through the recognition and exploration of this lowest common denominator of needs which people want met, we can see contradictions of the current status quo of government, how they are contradictions, and begin to move away from them and towards ideas which are more transparent and easier to understand. (I.E. ideas which do not require a middle man, priest like figure, lawyer, or judge to interpret so we can tell the violent hands and their supporters to back off!)
Essentially the key is to understand the foundation of thought which makes possible the catchy quip ‘taxation is theft.’ Such comprehension of ‘why’ a moral code is invoked, beyond just ‘HOW’, will lead to our abilities to more openly and socially comprehend why compliance with demands which do not directly hurt others are not the same as actually hurting another to stay the hand of the aggressor. It is a simple and peaceful act to relinquish tangible wealth in order to buy time to find another way to escape the hostility.
It is also a simple act, though not peaceful, to kill another in order to stay the hand of the aggressor. The difference between the two is that the victim killing or hurting another innocent with intent to save his own life is now an aggressor. The justification to hurt another is now the same line of thinking as the order follower who says, “I’m just doing my job to feed my family.” Instead of trying to keep one’s family alive, the goal is to save one’s own life by committing an act of aggression against another per the demands of the initial aggressor. So the justification becomes, “I’m just going to kill you to save my own life. The system is not fair but I have to work with what they say instead of figure out a different path.”
In the moment it is seemingly acceptable because fear has clouded the judgment of the initial victim. Looking in from the outside and free of duress with a clearly defined moral code, it is not just. At best it is teetering on what would be considered grey area, morally speaking; but for only the reason that the individual in question of committing an immoral act is under duress. However, nothing makes that actions okay because another is being directly hurt through the logic of, ‘my life is more important than yours and I’m too afraid to attack the violent hand which attacked me first.’ Having a clearly define moral philosophy at a younger age may have been enough to encourage the initial victim being asked to hurt another to refuse and make a different choice altogether. And because one can control only himself, the act of giving wealth to another who will use it to control his own actions is not the same as one actively hurting another through direct control of his actions.
I’ve made this comparison before in prior works. If the choice is to pay a fine in wealth or hurt another being to complete the task of the violent hand, then what choice is there? Well, there is another choice. Attack the violent hand. But as I previously mentioned, the overwhelming odds of defeat are substantial. Naturally, it is recognized that a dead man cannot do much to advance the cause of liberty and freedom from tyranny.
However, by fighting back against or disobeying the orders to hurt others while we are under duress we can help to expose the violence inherent in the system. We have to expose the violence in order to get people to be fed up with it enough to take a stand. The physical and tangible aspects of government are so in our faces and stitched into the backs of our minds that we know it is something people will act upon as it is always a negative encounter; despite the fact that some people get something positive out of it, but at the expense of the people whom were hurt to make that possible.
We have to encourage the confrontation between those who understand the violence and those who do not. Until we are able to make this happen en masse, we will not make any strides equal to this one. This is the first stride we must complete. In terms of science theories, like the Fermi paradox concerning why we haven’t contacted alien life at least as complex as our own and the whole of our species knows it, this is the great filter which we need to pass through in order to understand and achieve freedom.
If there is moral conflict to pay taxes to stay the violent hand of the taxman, then there is a lack of moral comprehension as to what the issue is. This is not meant to be derogatory or condescending. This is an observation made by someone fully ready to explain a morally transparent and simple ideology that is universally applicable to everyone capable of at least similarly complex communication abilities to my own. So if you’re reading this or listening to it and able to understand the majority of words I use or are able to figure out a way to understand them accurately as I intend, then this applies to you too!
So the choices are to pay the fine and understand that one cannot control the actions of the violent hand; only the mind the violent hand it belongs to can control its actions. Just pay the tax for the mean time and seek alternate means to avoid it in the future or don’t. But make good use of the time not under direct scrutiny by the eyes belonging to the violent hand.
Study it. Study what the violent hand’s mind is seeking to accomplish. Find a connection. And teach to those who will listen to what you learned. But do not ever commit the same crimes that you accuse the violent hand of, no matter the noble purpose outside of your own self defense and to end the immediate destructive conflict so more peaceful communication can take place to find common ground in comprehension. Make use of the patterns the violent hands always create. Let their neglect and inability to watch you all the time be your ally.
In prison one cannot do as much as one can being a little freer. But make no mistake, there is no just blame placed upon someone cooperating to save their own life so long as the actions of cooperation are not directly responsible for hurting another. This means that all of the movies where the scientists are killed for creating massive weapons of destruction while under compulsory settings were murdered for the wrong reasons. (If you’ve seen the Star Wars Rogue One movie, you now may begin to understand the moral conflict behind why the rebellion captain was morally conflicted with killing the Empire’s main engineer for the super laser.) Every effort should be made to help them escape and find closure.
Unless the work of the perceived victim is his own with intent to use such a device to hurt others, no harm can be justly administered to him without becoming the aggressor. So to pay a tax or fine which is used to pay others who willingly justify their actions to their benefit-while fully aware of the actions they are performing in terms of hurting others-, then no moral boundaries have been crossed by complying. Again, the only moral taboo is to willingly seek to hurt another without first being the victim of the other.
Quickly expanding upon this, we cannot simply go around killing advocates of government champions of ideas which ultimately end up hurting others because of how they are implemented. We must always seek to understand the context and perspectives of those whom cause us harm in order to acquire the maximum number of potential allies in thought. This means that we should do what we can to only cooperate with the violent hand of government when it demands obedience in the moment.
Cooperating with the other peaceful hands of government, knowing they are funded by the actions of the violent hand, is to justify the actions of the violent hand. The peaceful hand of government cannot and will not ever be subservient to the violent hand. The only two ways to achieve victory, not over but, with the violent hand is to either destroy it and risk the growth of another hydra like set of hands because the advocates of it are nesciently indoctrinated to support it and feel attacked, or to patiently bide our time to seek alternative solutions until we can force the violent hand to expose itself so others in numbers are willing to stand up against it and give it a choice.
-JLD
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