Is Taxation Theft?

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Nope, threat of violence underlies ALL legal action. For example, let's say you don't pay your taxes. You get arrested under federal law. If you resist being arrested, then the police will tackle you, probably literally kick your ass, and put you in handcuffs. Then you're in jail awaiting trial. There's armed guards there making sure you don't escape, and of course if you don't get shot, the guards will kick your ass if you try to escape. Same situation if you go to prison after trial.

As ruveyn said, the threat of violence underlies all government action.

Since I'm more of a crazy anarcho-libertarian, I think the founding fathers for the most part were that. Maybe noble in some aspects, but yes. Ethan Allen for example, was going to side with the British because they were going to let Vermont be an independent commonwealth with him as the governor. It was only when the US started winning he sided with US.

Also, this country is built pretty much on Masonic principles, not Christian principles.

Then I suppose having no government is the best solution....which I am not entirely opposed to. But eliminating taxes and the public services they pay for in the current system would serve no useful purpose.

To be sure, the founders were hardly perfect individuals, if not down right contemptible in certain cases. Hardly worthy of the deification right wing populists want to thrust upon them. You'd think they believe the founding fathers to be the equivalent of Old Testament Prophets, or New Testament Apostles.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I got very tired halfway through writing this reply, so sorry if it is terrible.

Sorry, I must have imagined context in your post that wasn't there. I thought you were saying that I was saying that there were no free markets in these countries for education. What exists there would probably pass for a free market if you asked most people.

Genuine free markets don't work because price wars will reduce profit. The businesses involved therefore try and reduce genuine competition so that they do not have to drive down prices so much. They create brand loyalty and similar concepts to convince people that their products are much more different from their competitors than they think they are.

Free markets would not work in the context of schools because businesses are constantly trying to get away with unethical practices in order to maximise profits, which is something we could not allow with schools. We would need to regulate them. Sure, there would be an element of self regulation, but again, the poorest cannot afford to pay for education, so they'd have to take whatever was on offer, or resort to home education.

Firstly, let me apologise for that embarrassing Freudian slip

Countries with comprehensive education have higher rates of literacy than those that do not. The hyperlexic people who learn to read and write naturally are the anomalies.

Yes, Wikipedia is a godsend for science, but it isn't structured as well for learning as a text book, nor is it obvious what information it is necessary to learn. How would a student who had learned exclusively from the internet and a few popular science books demonstrate to an employer or a university that they have the in depth knowledge required? How would they know what they needed to know?

I think most thinking adults could understand A.J. Ayer's take on Logical Positivism from a single high school level lesson. The SEP is incomprehensible: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayer/
Ayer's Wikipedia article might lead you on a link dump all the way to Language Games, but you'd miss out on much of the detail a high school lesson or two would teach you. For example, it would be hard to encounter Anthony Flew and his famous Allegory of the Gardener.

It does teach it to a degree. I wouldn't be able to pass any of my A Levels without critical thinking, and I am sure that is true for a majority or at least large minority of A Level course. Even disparaged, "soft" subjects like Sociology and Media Studies require selection and criticism of sources, or knowledge of devices used to manipulate us.

I would have to disagree- teachers are really important. Until we have a piece of software that teaches, then the internet alone isn't good enough. Even then, it is likely to remain sub-par for teaching skills. There is no wikiHow for making small amounts of nylon in the lab (this sprung to mind as an example of a practical I did recently). The internet cannot tell you what it is important to learn, or teach you how to learn! Some aspects of schooling are irreplaceable.

And how is property theft?

I think he is referring to the commodification of labour and the extrapolation of capital.

Not really, anarchy is totally utterly impossible. Whenever a group of people get together, leaders are chosen, or leaders take power by force. You see this even in, say, school, with popularity. You can't not have a government, the only thing that happens is smaller governments become bigger, and then bigger governments become smaller. To get bigger, you either persuade more people to side with you, or you force them to (war.) It's the same as on the schoolyard just on a bigger level.

Anyway, as far as anarchy goes, in places with weak national or state governments, control just gets taken by gangs, basically. Like Mexico for example, has gangs literally ruling entire regions of the country right now. Gangs with homemade tanks, grenades, etc. Pablo Escobar got so powerful he was elected to congress in his country. Which goes back to my first comment, about governments basically just being bigger more organized versions of street gangs/mafias. In some sense, it's not "bad" even, as a stable government that sucks is for the most part better than an unstable place like Mexico at the moment.


Which is something I find a bit odd about Evangelicals as a whole. They think venerating the Saints as a strange thing, and then don't find it odd to "venerate" say, George Washington, in the same way.

I thought he was just being facetious.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Property in any form and/or the acquisition of it isn't "theft".
One party sells property the other buys it at an agreed price.
Those against private property ownership usually don't have much of it and have little hope of getting any.
The exception to that rule is those that have property but didn't have to earn it themselves.

Do you know what I meant by facetious?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Of course but I didn't know whether you were talking about me or dionysian who has displayed obvious leftist tendancies here.
Whatev.......

Not all leaders are rulers. In anarchy, everyone is a leader.

Gangs have rulers. Gangs are subordinative and hierarchical, they not anarchist.

Last edited by RushKing on 07 Apr 2013, 12:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Dionysian, as he had made the comment that I had taken to be facetious.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

And what if I decide I wanna lead more people...?

There isn't a simple answer to this question. What kind of leader are you? What are the social dynamics of the group? This guy does a good job at distinguishing between authoritarian leadership, and non-authoritarian leadership.

http://anarchy101.org/1463/anarchist-ef ... horitarian