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From: doc@cxsea.UUCP (Documentation )
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialists]
Message-ID: <312@cxsea.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 19:33:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: cxsea.312
Posted: Wed Aug 28 19:33:38 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 08:48:03 EDT
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Organization: Computer X Inc., Seattle, Washington.
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>  This is an interesting notion.  Taxation is theft, and
> income redistribution is  the distribution of stolen goods.
> Never before have I heard that the receiver  of stolen
> property enjoys any property right in those goods,
> especially when,  as in this case, the receivers are in
> fact conspirators before and during the  act of theft.
> As a practical matter, you are correct: people who receive
> welfare, and those  who receive the non-welfare transfer
> payments which are subsidies to the middle  class (Social
> Security, Student Loans and subsidized services such as
> public universities) perceive a property right therein and
> will not countenance their removal.  It is this obduracy
> and illusion which underlies many of our current domestic
> problems, from the deficit through the various agonies of
> public education.  Informed discussions, however, require
> clear reasoning and  moral accuracy.  One has no property
> right in goods stolen from others, it  is not social
> engineering to demand that the social engineers stop
> tinkering,  and it is hardly a radical reform to ask that
> those who engage in systematic  theft please stop.    Now,
> if we demanded that the last socialist be hung from the
> entrails of the  last tax collector --- well, now that
> would be a radical, if beneficial, reform.    -- Rick.

Well, Rick, that's all fine and good....but, first of all,
you're confusing legal norms with political rhetoric. For
one thing, taxation is not theft. Any society has certain
communal functions, paid for by the group (such as
defense). You enjoy mutual reciprocal benefits from this
arrangement (i.e. you don't have to defend your vital
American interests down in Nicaragua - somebody else is
paid for that ;-)). Now, I suppose if you're shouting to
a crowd on a street corner that "Taxation is theft", you
can expect some rousing cheers, and such, but that doesn't
make it so. Your further assertion that people cannot have
property rights in stolen goods is equally simplistic.
However YOU choose define concepts like "property", "stolen
goods", "theft", etc., the fact remains that these concepts
have been evolving and developing for 2000 years or so into
their present form - hence, the current political reality
is that Libertaria is gonna piss off an awful lot of folks.

Now then, your comments quoted above were a response to
someone else, who only raised the question of how do you
deal with current political realities, other than through
force. The only suggestion I saw in your response is that we
non-libertarians have only to wake-up, and put aside the
illusions and lies. Well, shucks, I can't do that, not
until I see something more concrete than street-corner
slogans like "Taxation is theft!". To put it another way,
try convincing me, instead of yelling at me. I'm much
easier to persuade that way.

  Joel Gilman @Motorola/Computer X, Inc. Seattle