Conversation

Aella
@Aella_Girl
"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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Harry Heymann 🥑
@harryh
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
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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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Replying to
@harryh
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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anti ego
@DLydbyrd
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
and
@harryh
Most of the people opposing the drug war are focused on other reasons (util outcomes regarding poverty and crime, race). So I think Harry’s point still stands that the consent question is inherently not salient in that issue vs when you explicitly argue about consent of taxation
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Harry Heymann 🥑
@harryh
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
The idea of taxation to fund a government is, perhaps, a fundamental necessity of the social contract. To deny the validity of taxes, in some ways, negates the idea of a social contract completely. This isn't true for debates around drug legalization or bad policing.
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