It is an understatement to say taxation is theft.

Saturday, July 2, 2011
It is an understatement to say taxation is theft.
by Paul Zimmerman

It is a truism in libertarian circles that taxation is theft and while that is very much true, it understates the matter to a great extent.

Let me back up a bit for anyone who has stumbled upon this blog and has never been exposed to this notion, i.e. that taxation is theft. 

What is theft?  It is the taking of someone's property by force, deception and/or coercion.  If you were confronted on the street by a thug with a gun who demanded your wallet you would quickly realize that if you resist you risk injury or death.  What is taxation? The taking of someone's property by the government, with the threat of the use of force.  If you were to resist you are liable to have your property taken from you by force through seizure or liens.  If you resist enough you risk fines (more theft), imprisonment or death.  Theft is theft, whether committed by a mugger in an alley or a government employee.

But wait, you pay your taxes voluntarily.  You're happy to pay your 'fair share' and nobody forces you to pay.  So taxation, at least in your case, isn't theft.  Right?  Wrong.  The reality is that the best theives can take what you have without you ever knowing that you've been robbed.  The con artist can steal your money and make you feel good about it and the government can do the same to those who don't see through their scam.  Of course the difference between con artists and the government is that if you get wise to a con they'll just move on to another victim, but if you decide you will not pay those 'voluntary' taxes anymore you are liable to have government agents with guns show up to seize you and your property.  Tell them that you gladly and voluntarily paid your taxes in the past, but now you have rethought the matter and have decided that you no longer want to pay taxes.  The response you get won't be substantially different than what you would expect would happen if you told a gang of muggers 'no, I think I'll keep my wallet.'

As George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

Government is not like force.  It is force.  The same force that is used by armed robbers and rapists. 

But to get back to my original thesis that it is an understatement to say taxation is theft, why would I say that?  Because taxation is a special kind of theft,  taxation is slavery. 

The 19th century abolitionists knew that slavery was theft;  they called slave owners and traders 'man stealers'. 

"The great fundamental principle of Abolitionists is that man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property. Therefore, we affirm that every slaveholder is a man stealer; a man, is a man, and as a man he has inalienable rights he cannot rightfully be reduced to slavery. Our principle is that no circumstances can ever justify a man in holding his fellow man as property." -- Catharine E. Beecher

So how do we get from the theft of property to the theft of a human being?  How is taxation slavery?  Because the money you earn is payment for selling your time, talents and labor to your employer or customer.  If you can sell 40 hours of your time, your labor to someone for $600 (or $15 an hour), then if the government steals a third of your earnings, or $200, they have really taken 13 hours and 20 minutes of your life for that week or 665 hours a year or nearly 28 twenty-four hour days, every year.  Of course in the U.S. most people have more than a third of their earnings stolen from them. 

During the dark days of American slavery if someone had proposed letting all the slaves go, but with the understanding that in exchange for their 'freedom' from slavery they were required by law to show up at the plantations of their former owners once a year and labor and toil for them for 28 days straight or go to prison, no one would have claimed that this arrangement was the end of slavery, but only a modification of the terms of their bondage. 

Americans were forced to work on Uncle Sam's plantation from January 1, 2011 to April 12, 2011.  If that ain't slavery, I don't know what is.

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