k wrote:
The word "theft" implies immorality.

Yep.

Decius wrote:
Theft is when you take something from someone without their consent, sometimes by force. While theoretically speaking our government occurs by consent its not as if people have the real alternative of not participating. The government is a monopoly on the use of force, and it applies that force to extract taxes.

Taxation is not theft, because consent has been given. As adult citizens, we all agree to a social contact with each other. We have government because it's necessary (not a necessary evil, just plain necessary). Whatever the government's role, it costs money for the government to function, and we citizens pay the government's bills through taxation, which is also necessary. Because we live in a free country, any citizen may opt out by going somewhere else to live... or by choosing one of the other options that k mentioned.

Decius wrote:
When people get together and impose greater taxes in order to create social services they are literally taking money from people by force and redistributing it. It literally is theft.

Now that's where we have some agreement, but one shouldn't conclude that taxation, as such, is theft. In your example above, I consider the redistribution of wealth to be a perversion of government that is detrimental to our society. While our money is being misappropriated (in my view), it isn't being acquired by theft.

Sadly, there are those who disagree with me and consider the redistribution of wealth an appropriate function of government. That's why we have elections. While I think our taxes are way too high, and that our governments (federal, state, and local) spend way too much of our money doing things that are far beyond the scope of those governments' responsibilities, I just don't see how one can equate taxation with theft, when we the people are the ones taxing ourselves.

RE: FIVE CONSERVATIVE MYTHS