Critical Response

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Poor analogy. First, in your comment, you already have the house. In mine, people do not already have a bunch of pre-tax income; they go out and choose to get it.



This frankly isn't relevant. As long as we are assuming that what you go out and get would be your property, then there is no relevant difference. And if you want to deny this, then taxation would not be theft for a different reason than the one you list--namely, because they were taking something that wasn't your anyways.

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Secondly, in your example, it is an out of the blue letter by one person against one person-yours is about private laws and mine about public. In a capitalistic democracy, it is what everyone knows in advance what will happen if they make a lot of money to everyone. The same applies to everyone in the society.



Perhaps you could explain this better, because as written you are merely assuming exactly what we are debating. The point is that it doesn't matter whether people know they are gonna get robbed or not--if they are being robbed, then giving prior warning, whether in 'private laws' or 'public laws' (a disticntion i don't understand anyways) makes absolutely no difference.

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Third, the letter sender is doing it for his own individual gain. The People (singular) in a democracy are doing it so they can maintain the framework and programs, which are, in part, why one can earn the pre-tax income that they can. Your pre-tax income benefits from the effects of past taxes and transfers, and depends on it.



Irrelevant. If the I wrote such a letter, then donated all the stolen money to charity, it wouldn't make it not robbery. It might be better for other moral reasons, but it is still [censored] robbery.

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Fourth, tax laws are created by what the majority thinks should be the case; it is a majority deciding what should happen to the majority. They can be voted out of existensce by the majority In your example, it is based on what one person wants you in specific to do for his own benefit.

Your example is one of a private, unequal, retroactive law, decided by a procedure made by one person for his own gain. Taxation is a public, equal and known in advance law decided by majority rule; it is what most people think the law should be.



Wait, what? The very issue under discussion is whether or not such laws are legitimate in the first place. Obviously if we are already assuming that laws put in place by the majority are just, and can only be repealed by majority action, there is nothing to discuss. But even if what you said was true (not that any argument has been presented, and not that it was relevant to the current debate), then taxation would not be theft because of precisely this reason--and not because of anything to do with 'knowing beforehand'.

Which is why I don't understand most of these points--I explicitly said that taxation might not be theft for other reasons (though I think it is), and that the 'knowledge argument' was fallacious. But all of your arguments are basically reasons why taxation is not theft for other reasons, which I already admitted might be the case.

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But, you haven't shown that world-ownership follows from self-ownership.



Well, I did, in the same sense that you've 'shown' why we aren't entitled to our post-market incomes. I presented an argument in some other thread. You disagreed and were not convinced. What else is there to discuss?