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115 sats \ 6 replies \ @elvismercury 22 Aug 2023 \ parent \ on: Which tax rate do you consider "fair" and would pay? bitcoin
The first two sentences of your post are clearly right -- sort of like Christians who, miraculous to see, happen to be born into Christianity. What a funny coincidence that 99.9% of people who achieve this enlightened state happen to be enculturated into it! And how sad that the billions of people who adopt the non-Christian religions of their parents can't see how deluded they are! (People of other religions do the same, I just haven't endured so many conversations with them about it.)
But your final line is so clearly wrong that I think I must have misunderstood it. You think that anyone who believes that taxes can be legitimate -- that they would willingly pay some non-zero portion of them -- has Stockholm syndrome? Is that literally what you're contending?
If so, well, it's technically irrefutable so there will be no convincing you if you're taking a hard line on this one. But I can tell you that I think some amount of taxes are warranted, and it's not because I'm brainwashed, it's because I think there is non-zero value to society being a thing, and paying to support the collective interest of that society, even if you're grumpy about some of the things that society collectively warrants and supports.
If they were paid voluntarily they wouldn't be taxes. That's called a donation or a price.
If you side with the people who are expropriating you, then yes you have Stockholm Syndrome (and I'm sorry to have to break that to you).
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And I'm sorry to have to break to you that certain ways of organizing collective action don't map easily onto the 'price' model, or the 'express everything in terms of property rights' model; and (related) that not every valuable thing in life is expressable in terms of prices.
I'm even sorrier to have to break to you that these issues have been wrestled with, extensively, over the course of the last few hundred years, or even the the last couple millennia. Your response suggests some sad things about your relationship to reality, and how much you actually care about the truth.
That's the thing that I am, honestly, sad to break to you, and to everyone else to whom it applies.
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You imply that everyone has deeply considered taxes and agreed to allow the current system. That’s patently false.
Representation through elections is a farce. Reps simply vote based on their self interest, and get re-elected based on their donors’ spending, not on who the people would want absent propaganda campaigns. Everything is manufactured consent.
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You imply that everyone has deeply considered taxes and agreed to allow the current system. That’s patently false.
I didn't imply that. The assertion was that a person couldn't possibly accept the role of taxes in society without being deluded. That's what's false, and it's trivially false.
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The assertion was that a person couldn't possibly accept the role of taxes in society without being deluded
False. The assertion is that you can't "accept the role of taxes in society" without siding with your rulers; and I stand by that.
If you champion someone else's right to violently expropriate you, then you have been brainwashed; and, again, I'm sorry.
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Get well soon
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