George,

thanks for your reply, I think we are closer on this subject than we
might realize. I accept your points and I agree withy them. What I take
exception to, and I understand your arguement exactly, is that the
government is an entity outside of ourselves. You, as many anti-tax
people do, refer to "they" as the government. And in a practical sense I
agree with that. I too feel that we are paying way too much in taxes for
things that do little to actual improve our lives. But honestly, isnt
the problem that we are not in control of our money, and how it is being
spent. Collectively.

If you belong to any group, and I would consider a society a group, then
you will have to submit to the will of the group and their decisions
which should reflect what you want in turn. So let's say that you are a
member of a Pontiac car club (they exist!) and the club decides to
collect dues for teh purpose of publishing a newsletter. With the
newsletter they expect to increase participation and make the group more
enjoyable.

Now at some point there will be a decision about this newsletter that
you will disagree with; using Kinkos or printing in color, lets say. The
wise choice is not to stop paying dues, because that will hurt everyone,
but to get involved in the decision making process and decide whether to
keep publishing the newsletter at all. That decision will be a
collective one.

you say:

"But there's that animal again - it's not that we shouldn't pay for
those things, it's that we should willingly pay for them rather than be
forced."

But we are willingly paying taxes. If the majority of people decided to
stop paying taxes then we could and nobody would stop us. The "coercion"
of law is to keep people from expecting everyone else to pay for what we
all decide we want to fund. Your car wash analogy is apt, except that if
I and thousands of other people decide to fund public works projects
then you will have access to them whether you pay for them or not.

Everyone will expect everyone else to pay for everything... a certain
level of coercian is necessary to keep the system honest but we should
always have control of that process. I think its fair to ask "how much
is too much" when it comes to taxation.

This idea that you should have an individual choice in every decision is
bunk. Every decision you make has effects on others whether you like it
or not. You benefit from collective action whether you choose to or not.
You reap huge benefits just by living within the borders of the United
States and other free nations.

Do you not often wonder why all first world countries have strong public
works programs?

I personally feel that programs like public schooling and social
security have been great successes and if not for the people wanting to
drawn them in the tub would be a great benefit to future generations as
well.

We need a military to protect our national territory, but I am a strong
advocate in limiting the power of that military and putting it under a
much stricter mandate than what it currently resides under. There should
always be civilian oversight to the actions of our military.

Its like my dad is fond of saying "Why do we need shots, when nobody
gets sick anymore anyways"


bruce