"If you don't like it, move to a different country; you implicitly consent by staying here" is an argument I hear a lot from people when I complain about taxes, but is mysteriously absent when I complain about things like the drug war or bad policing
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Sure! Taxes are something we've agreed upon as a society, and have created laws for.
Bad policing is not that, that's an error in our system.
And the drug war was something we created laws for, and now that's changing as society's opinion changes.
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Lots of people supported the drug war - it was something we agreed upon as a society, and created laws for. If, at the time, I had said "the drug war is bad", would you have been like "If you don't like it, leave?"
I wanna change society's opinions about taxes, just like drugs.
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I think that tends to happen because the "taxation is theft" argument implicitly brings the question of consent into the argument where "the drug war is bad" does not.
So it's not surprising that debate about the former centers around consent grounds while the latter does not.
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what? Yes it does. The drug war is entirely about consent, in my eyes. The government has no business violating the consent of people to do what they want with their own bodies. Same with taxes - no business violating people's ownership over their own property.
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That's because taxes are an explicit and central part of the contract of being a resident of a country, and those other things aren't. I've never heard anyone argue that the "price" of benefitting from US society is putting up with bad cops or drug wars. Taxes are the price.
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Are you saying that if something is explicit and central to a country's rules, that if someone doesn't like it, you'd tell them to stop complaining and leave the country? In every instance? Cause I've got some examples for you...
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In general:
1. Foreign policy and national defense
2. Protection of negative rights
That's mostly it, though I'm open to smaller sub categories.
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Because libertarians seem oddly in favour of government as soon as a natural disaster destroys their home. What government services do you support? What would you pay for?
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