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Vico
Guest
Taxation that is legal, is to tax and it is not to steal.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary
- steal (verb): take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
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Random House Unabridged Dictionary
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PetraG
Guest
That is an Enlightenment ideal. Obviously, when Our Lord and St. Paul taught the duty to pay taxes, they were NOT talking about a government that had its authority from the consent of the governed. The context of an occupying government was exactly the context of those trying to trip up Our Lord with a question about taxes, after all. That context is the only reason the question was considered difficult at all!
That’s not to say that consent of the governed is not an important concept in selection of a government. It isn’t to say the people cannot rightly choose the kind of government they want. It is to say that the authority to tax was not originally explained by Our Lord or St Paul as having a single thing to do with whether the governed had consented to the government they were stuck with. From the belief in the early Church, where there is a duty to keep the peace and provide for the general welfare, there is an authority to tax, even if that duty did not fall on those who have it as the result of a popular election.
I agree with your major premise, though: That is, it is hypocritical to want a stable society but to believe that this will come about without material contributions from the governed who had the means to contribute. That is essentially what the belief that taxation is theft comes down to. It rests on the fairy tale that peaceful nations will ever magically happen out of the good will of the governed, with no obligatory financial sacrifice required.
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JoeShlabotnik
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Services are provided through taxation. It is a small price to pay.
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whatistrue
Guest
My understanding of the original question was not in the context of the NT teaching, but rather in the somewhat peculiar (to me) context that I see of people wanting all the benefits of government but none of the cost. The hypocrisy you mentioned was my specific target. I also didn’t mention elections so as not to unduly limit it to republics/democracies. My thinking was based on contemporary societies rather than Biblical times.
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whatistrue
Guest
Not to mention that without NASA and DARPA, we couldn’t even be having this conversation in the format and venue that we are.
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PetraG
Guest
Yes. When someone asks if something meets the definition of theft, there comes both the theological definition and the legal definition, among others. Taxation meets neither definition.
People often feel as if they are the victims of theft any time they feel as if they are being made to hand over more money than they want to or more than they think is necessary, but an act requiring someone to give up their money isn’t a theft just because the party that is paying resents the price they’re having to pay. Just as the presence or absence of guilt is a bad measure of culpability, the presence or absence of resentment on the part of the party paying out to another party is not a good measure of whether or not anybody is actually stealing from them.
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bumblebee
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Matthew 22:21 Jesus said “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s ; and to God the things that are God’s.” Romans 13:1 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.”
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Socrates92
Guest
Questionable. Some curious soul would still have invented the internet, guaranteed.
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itsjustme
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True…it’s like saying that if we Americans hadn’t invented all this modern technology the world would still be riding around in a horse and buggy.whatistrue:
Questionable. Some curious soul would still have invented the internet, guaranteed.
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whatistrue
Guest
Disagree. It was not something that any random Joseph P. Schmuckatelli could have developed in a garage, and the government (or at least some government) is the only entity who could have spent that kind of money on something so speculative and complex. Remember the original purpose behind the project and ask if a random company would have bankrolled it? Yes, once the basic infrastructure was in place and the specifications publicly available, everyone and their cousin got on the bandwagon, but the wagon would not have left the yard without government involvement.
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whatistrue
Guest
The laws of physics work the same for everyone. The USA just got there first, and if we hadn’t someone else may well have. My main point was that the process of getting into space, and specifically to the moon, had such a plethora of spin-off technologies, and the Defense Department looking for a way to ensure battlefield communications were robust and resilient, got us where we are. And it started with tax dollars - actually relatively few tax dollars if you care to look into it - being spent.
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PetraG
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The laws of bankrolling science work the same for everyone, too.
No taxes, then no modern military and no space program and certainly no internet. No way. Not in our lifetimes.
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