(urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)

brunians at brunians.org brunians at brunians.org
Tue May 19 14:00:52 PDT 2009


Tell us where money comes from, again, Dan'l. Now that the shock of seeing
someone as intelligent as you say something that bogus is wearing off, I
find it incredibly amusing on a number of levels.



.


> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 1:43 PM,  <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
>> The government wants you to pay taxes, which they are going to spend on
>> whatever. You or I may approve of everything they spend it on, or we may
>> approve of some of it, or we may approve of none of it. No matter: we
>> must
>> pay. If we do not, legal processes will be begun against us, and we may
>> be
>> forced to pay fines, or sent to prison or even (if we are extremely
>> unlucky) killed.
>>
>> What I would like you (or someone) to explain to me is how this process
>> can be described as consensual. It seems to me much more like extortion
>> by
>> threat of violence.
>
> It's not very complicated, actually.
>
> One chooses to be a member of a society. If one does not like that
> society, one leaves. If one chooses to remain, one has agreed to
> "play" by the rules of that society's "game." (Note: the US is not like
> the CCCP, where people needed permission to leave, and even then
> were stripped of most-to-all their possessions when doing so.)
>
> The advantage of a democratic "game" is that the rules can be
> changed to suit the people "playing." Nobody will always get all
> the rules they want - that's the art of the compromise.
>
> As it happens, one of the rules by which we choose to "play" is
> taxation. If you don't like it, strongly enough, you are encouraged
> to go live in Somalia.
>
>
> --
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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