Oddbean new post about login | logout What do you say to someone that says: "We must pay taxes" #asknostr #taxes
Maybe I'm one of those people 😫 how do roads get made without taxes? Walk me through it.
It's simple. If governments wouldn't steal from us in all the ways that they do, people would have enough money to pay for what they actually want and need. https://image.nostr.build/baf0840b08ba19447c9e68c425a666c97e977a047effedf10f715f9c05d0ed69.jpg
It's important to keep in mind that governments do not offer any actual service. They hire OTHERS to do these services because we pay them to hire them. There is no actual need for them as middlemen, they just made us think that we need them.
You're saying if I didn't pay taxes I'd be voluntarily funding highway projects 🤔
That's not what I'm saying.... People that DO find it important would pay for it.
The amount of people using ad blockers or pirate sites absolutely contradicts what you just said.
You'll have to explain the contradiction because I don't see it. The digital realm is different.
What if the proposed highway cut down your commute time to work? Would you consider contributing? You're also taking home 20% more income in this scenario as well.
I work from home though. I live in the city. I only drive sometimes. But when I do, it's on a highway. If we self funded highways, in America of all places, they would be privatized, members only offerings. Likely built by corporations and probably only their employees could use for "free". Am I wrong?! America be like that.
So you wouldn't want to pay a voluntary toll to get where you're going faster? You'd rather be forced to pay taxes to pay for the road and get to use it for "free"?
I think where I get stuck is that there is no competition with roads, in a densely populated area. So it would be run by one company. Right? It's ripe for monopolies. It isn't like there would be parallel roads charging tolls by different companies.
That there's no competition for such roads is the status quo, and with gangsterment building them you are forced to pay for them, whether you use them or not, and even if you don't pay direct taxes. They force everyone except gangsterment members to pay for such projects through currency inflation tax, while such members get the vote buying benefit and a cut from your money. Neither is it certain that such roads would not have competition. Look at history of railroads and city trolley companies.
If the toll is voluntary, I don't have to pay it, and never will. Way would anyone pay the toll if it's voluntary? Shall we try an experiment? Go get a job, but tell your boss that paying you is voluntary. I bet you'll have a million employers willing to higher you, that will choose to not pay you. If you're going to say that I can't use the highway unless I pay the toll, well, that's not voluntary then, is it?
It's voluntary because you can choose to not take the road, not that you take the road and choose not to pay.
Oh, ok, so, only rich people get to use the highway. Question. Who pays for the small army you're going to need to protect the rich people using the highway, from the millions of poor people that'll just rob them? For instance, under your system, you do not have enough money to pay for enough protection to stop me and my very large family, from cutting the throats of you and your entire family while you sleep, and take everything you have? Under a user pays system, only the king can afford a castle with turrets and armed guards. Peasants like you, usually die young from malnutrition.
All that is status quo with current and previous gangsterment. Question: who are "the rich"? Where is and who determines the line between "the rich " and "peasants like you"?
> Question: who are "the rich"? Where is and who determines the line between "the rich " and "peasants like you"? Your bank manager.
You acting like this not happening normally in shadows. Our most wealthy guy of my country accidentally died in helicopter..🚁
> You acting like this not happening normally in shadows. Because it's not happening. You're suffering from paranoid delusions. and need professional help.
You're a bit delusional 🗡️But oke... Never mind, it's definitely not happening lulw
Seems like criminals who think about killing others for their own benefit will always be with us. It's kind of interesting that most criminals lead normal lives like you. And as soon as they get the chance to show their true colours the will forget about the morals they spit out while someone else (the state) does the bidding for them. The state is a criminal organisation and so would be your crime family.
id rather be forced to pay existing taxes for those roads so my lazy cheap ass neighbour is as well. Also, while youre at it, STOP FUNDING THE WARS. You could slash taxes by 80% and still build better roads than we have today.
What if your neighbor doesn't pay? You think he should be locked up? You don't want to pay for wars, but your taxes go towards that anyway. If you don't pay you'll be locked up. This is a system of based on coercion under the threat of violence and you support it just so your lazy neighbor helps pay for roads. Lame.
I mean I'm not defending taxes I am questioning the stability of society without things like roads as public goods. It's great to have principles and theories but if you want to actually convince someone that taxes are unnecessary it needs to be a real conversation.
Muh roads!
This is how I feel. I am ok getting taxed but you need to be efficient with my money and also not commit genocide with it. There is a solar panel program in DC that makes it more than cost neutral (we make a profit some months) to install and operate in private homes. It will eventually set DC up to have an incredibly stable electric grid. I understand why some would see this still as government waste but I love it.
You also okay with getting raped? It definitely helps someone meets his needs. Most people I know are not really okay with rape or abuse or extortion. But there is no choice for consent or no. So people tell themselves they are okay. It's a protective mechanism of your psyche. Ones you can feel the energetic quality of theft you will realise that there is no difference between, theft from an individual a gang or a group of neighbours that claim >50% support for robbing you.
have you met your neighbors? I mean...
I have some experience with this particularly. My family owns some land in a rural area outside the city. When we bought it back in the 90s. There were no roads. We needed roads for many reasons among them to get materials in. So that we could build a house in the land we had acquired. We talked with the neighbors, around 200 plots of land that would benefit from building roads in the area. So we got together with them and pooled resources to build the roads. They were rudimentary nothing fancy. Poor lighting I mean they weren't the highways but they were enough for what we needed. It worked great for a few years. Then the government saw the roads were built in the area and came and imposed speed bumps and speed limits on the roads we built. Then bumped the taxes on the properties around the roads because they now had roads. Communities build what they need in the size and speed that they need it and can afford. We live in Colombia so your milage may vary
I have an interesting story along this vein as well. When I was a teenager, there was this concrete bike trail I basically lived on day in and day out. If I wasn't at school you could find me there with my friends fucking around, maybe smoking weed or whatever. There was this dirt trail right off the main, government made trail, we carved it into the woods by simply walking that path, it crossed a creek to go to a shopping center because the trail wasn't really efficiently designed to actually go places fast. The trail didn't meet our needs so we improved it, no permission, no central planning, nothing. Authorities used to give us a hard time, trying to bust kids getting stoned or whatever down there. My son also grew up there, he's about that age I was in those days, so he took me to go walk it. Nice thing, walking with your son in a place where you both have similar memories around the same age. That dirt trail is concrete now. It even has a name and a big sign over it. There's a bridge over the creek. They couldn't stop us, because they don't actually govern anything. I bet the planners were really pissed at the kids making their own trails there instead of taking the prescribed routes. All they could do was pretend they made it for us, they made it better, slap their legitimacy on it, and of course take some tax money to do it. But they didn't make it, we did, against their wishes, and since government actually doesn't control anything, they instead give it their blessing, pretend they did everyone a favor, make everyone forget that they didn't build it, pretend they've given us some great gift. And they have to, because if they don't people might figure out that we don't need them.
The appropriate question is not “Who will build the roads?” but rather “Who will pay for them without taxation?” And the answer, historically speaking, seems to be anybody who stands to benefit from them. https://mises.org/mises-wire/who-will-build-roads-anyone-who-stands-benefit-them
You have been duped. Roads and public works in general are NOT built by the government. They are contracted out to the private sector, usually via a bidding process. That is, a market mechanism. High capacity roads are often NOT funded by the government either, but by users through tolls and other methods. And in those cases they aren't, it's an issue of people not using the roads subsidizing those who do, which is an obvious injustice and a distortion of the market and the economy for political reasons. Local roads on the other hand are usually kept by the public sector , that's true. However, they existed way before the State took over. I am from Europe, I can tell you I walk on roads between towns, connecting places across the landscape, that have been in the same place for centuries. Way before the State collected 60% of all the wealth of the country every year.
I think that is the disconnect in these conversations. I live in Washington DC (inside the city) so I suppose what you think of as highways are what I think of as local roads. I just don't see how a private company could own and maintain them. And everything is new/developing here so they aren't old roads. Some highways were built less than a decade ago and were huuuuuge projects. Yes contractors are hired to do it but the "government" owns and operates/is responsible. These no-taxes scenarios seen to work for snap populations but I don't see how it works somewhere you almost a million people coming through daily.
I'd say: "I'm imposing a 2% tax on you using my oxygen."
That you're a pussy that's also pays taxes because you don't want to go to prison and spend a few years getting brutally raped. Because that's your choice. Pay your taxes, or go to jail and get traded for cigarettes. Only billionaires are exempt from tax and you're not a billionaire. So, be honest. Everyone knows you pay your taxes too because your here pretending your some sort of revolutionary hero and not in jail getting bum fucked
I like you. you're funny
It's easy to be funny when people like you post stupid statements pending you're some sort of Che Cuevara. You stand in line and pay your sales tax at the 7/11, just like everyone else. You don't have the courage to be the revolutionary you pretend to be.
We must evade taxes!
Of course, historically roads were also pretty terrible, but iron cart wheels are pretty forgiving of that. I live two hours from an "unincorporated area" where locals repair their own roads. Its all gravel, and rarely travelled roads are more like trails, but it actually works.
Thats great for local roads to get to your family friends who live a few blocks away. What about major roads to the city centre, interstate highways, continental expressways... After im saving this 20% on my income tax, how much of THAT savings would I have to sacrifice to have these roads built when people like my neighbour wouldn't pay their part and use it and benefit from it more than I would? How much of that savings would I have to spend to get these proejcts done despite the ignorance of the sheeple and the ignorant out there. You know its rampant. Is everyone out there similar thinking to the way people in this community for example think? or some other place you have atleast some little respect for? The majority of people out there are far from that standard imo. You would be dirt poor, cursing and hating people more than I am right now lol. Sorry for the intensity, its for impact and an opposing perspective :)
