Subject:
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Re: Is space property?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:10:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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389 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
>
> > When you pay your government [taxes] to kill people, it is the moral
> > equivalent of killing them yourself.
>
> Just a minor nitpick; if the money to fund such killings is taken from you
> against your will and beyond your reasonable power to resist, you are not
> morally responsible for what is done with that money. If a person breaks
> into your house and steals some money, buys a bat with it, and clubs someone
> to death, you're not responsible in any way. Even if I give you five
> bucks-- without having any say in its spending--and you buy a glass with it,
> break it, and kill me with the shards, have I morally committed suicide?
Hi Dave,
I get your point, but...
The payment of taxes is (normally considered) a proper and right thing. So
it feels different (even to me) than being burgled. (How often do you
write a check to your burgler?) And, I do know that the recipient of my money
is going to behave immorally with it. I may not know the specifics, but I'm
sure from year to year that our government will engage in heinous crimes funded
in part by my tax dollars. And it disturbs me. Not only that, but the fact
that it disturbs me and that I continue to go along because the alternative
would be difficult distrubs me too. I _could_ not pay taxes. But the cost to
me and my family would be great. So I really am complicit in the behavior of
the government even when it makes me sick.
You say that if someone steals my money and buys a bat, that I'm not
responsible for what is done. What if my gun is stolen, sold in the
underground weapons market, and is used to murder? It's easy to say the same
thing for that scenario, but what if I left the gun sitting on my porch where
anyone could take it? Don't we bear some responsibility for what happens with
our stuff?
I think that as a fairly hard-line property rights (and second amendment) guy,
I have to also acknowledge property (and arms) responsibility.
Chris
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Is space property?
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| (...) 8^) I make it a habit only to be burgled by people who accept Visa. I might be unknowingly straddling two issues here; I'm comparing taxation with burglary in terms of the "taxation is theft" principle I've read, but perhaps that's not (...) (24 years ago, 2-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Is space property?
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| (...) Just a minor nitpick; if the money to fund such killings is taken from you against your will and beyond your reasonable power to resist, you are not morally responsible for what is done with that money. If a person breaks into your house and (...) (24 years ago, 2-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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