Holes in the "Anti-libertarian FAQ"
Political ·Thursday August 20, 2009 @ 22:16 EDT (link)
I happened across this "anti-libertarian FAQ" and noticed where the main problems lie, so thought I'd make a note. They're fairly early on: most of what follows derives from the first, and the picking apart of quotes is just a red herring.
#5 "Taxation is theft" contains the core of the error, although it has one escape hatch: no property (his "property is theft"). If people want to go in that direction, that'd be fun (the anarcho-capitalists might be in favor of it too), but I doubt that many people do. But it is an out.
If we can agree that people can validly hold property, then we could start a libertarian society with property ownership as it is now (if you want to use something other than the status quo as a basis, you'd need to justify it, like libertarianism does for its precepts; for example, you could argue that inheritance is an unfair way to get anything, so anything inherited, and any gains thereby, should be returned to a common pool; there would be practical issues with that step of course).
The next attempt to justify taxation is as a "social contract" which later points (#6-20) attempt to uphold. The video "The Social Contract Defined and Destroyed in Under 5 Minutes" is very helpful to debunk the validity of said "social contract" in most ways. The remaining excuse is that parents have accepted it for their children, who can leave when they reach the age of majority (who gave parents that right, if it exists?… yeah, the government), or that naturalized citizens (or military) have sworn to uphold the Constitution, and, well, the government is the Constitution so you must serve them until end of days. No, no, not really. The Constitution is accepted, not a particular statist interpretation thereof. Certain things are axiomatic (e.g. property ownership can be derived from ownership of self in various ways, e.g. Rand's 'A=A' formation).
Without a voluntary contract, the whole rest of the "FAQ" unravels like a cut-through ball of string. (For example, if the government then has no contract, they have no right to taxes, or at least redistributionist taxes—if they provide services that you use or have contracted for, they should be paid fair value—so they are then initiating force to take them—not retaliating by enforcing a contract, etc.)
