Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 Apollo 1/28/85; site apollo.uucp
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!decvax!wanginst!apollo!dineen
From: dineen@apollo.uucp (Terence H Dineen)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: quibbling over definitions
Message-ID: <24e3b6fc.264c@apollo.uucp>
Date: Wed, 20-Feb-85 14:10:58 EST
Article-I.D.: apollo.24e3b6fc.264c
Posted: Wed Feb 20 14:10:58 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 05:23:26 EST
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, Mass.
Lines: 25

> Why don't you guys grant the libertarian's *technical* meaning of coercion
> *purely for the sake of the argument* so we can spend less time quibbling
> about definitions?
>
> The technical meaning of coercion is clear:  Someone is coercing you when
> he makes you do something, or does something to you or your property,
> that you did not want to do or have done, by force, threat of force,
> or deception.  If you are using the word with some other definition
> in mind, please say so when you use it.
>
> --JoSH

I was not quibbling about definitions.  I was making a claim about taxation 
not about the definition of "coercion".  I subscribe to the definition of coercion
given above.  And, using that definiton, I simply do not feel coerced to pay taxes 
for the simple reason that I retain the option to terminate the deal.  I don't 
expect anyone would use "force, threat of force, or deception" to collect taxes
from me after I had moved to Sweden, for example.  

I know that states use coercion and find it is appalling; debasing the meaning of
coercion by applying it the kind of taxation I am subject to here in the US
does not seem constuctive.

--
on the wrong side of the gender gap