And is it logical for that to change based on whether it’s a protest or advocacy?
…yes? Context matters. My go to example is “cutting someone open and taking out an organ is fucked up and a crime, unless you’re like a doctor doing surgery in a hospital”
I feel like sometimes people try to handle human situations like they need to write a perfect algorithm that can run in BASIC.
Why would Alex listen to the other arbiter? Why not shoot them, too? Why not get a bunch of your friends, and fight your enemies until you establish yourself as a local warlord? That’s what these security companies would be positioned to do, and that’s going to bring out the worst of humanity.
Meanwhile, what if Bob was behind on his payments? Is this going to be like The Purge, where you can just do crimes to anyone who can’t afford private security? That’s going to extra suck for groups that are historically economically disadvantaged (women, children, descendants of slaves, chronically ill, to name a few)
And again, there’s not really a reason for these different entities to compete when they can instead form a cooperative trust. That’s sort of the history of the gilded age in the US. it sucked for most people.
It sounds like it’s going to devolve into the rule of might-makes-right, where whoever has the most guns and willing soldiers gets to say what’s what. Real life has at least some thin wrappers around might-makes-right, with rights enumerated in the constitution
Once the trust gets big enough, they can run other competitors into the ground even without doing violence.
You kind of see this with food stores in the US. You have some small shops, and then a mega corp like Walmart or whatever moves into the neighborhood. They can undercut the small shops due to scale, or even by operating at a loss. They can operate at a loss longer than the smaller companies can stay solvent. When all the small shops close up (or get acquired), the big company can then raise prices.
Behavior like that is just emergent from “free markets”.
That’s not even touching on the idea that they could just do violence to secure their position. Like old union busting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States might be worth a read, even though it’s not exactly on this topic.
As to whether these security companies could use violence. I think that would have to be on a case-by-case basis where violence would not be used in most cases unless there is active aggression occurring or imminent upon somebody they are to protect. In which case the use of force would be retaliatory and not aggression.
Who decides on the case by case? If anyone can form their own private security company, and can unilaterally decide that lethal force is authorized, that’s a recipe for disaster. Alex hates his neighbor Bob. Alex forms a security company of his own. Bob comes home and walks over the flowerbed again, so Alex confronts him. Bob raises his voice. Alex decides this is imminent aggression, and shoots him dead.
If a security company thinks that another security company is using unjustifiable force, then it could always be taken to an arbitrator or outed in the media.
Who is the arbitrator? Why does anyone listen to them? What is their enforcement mechanism? Are you reinventing a court system?
You’re kind of reinventing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism still, which has a lot of problems.
Why would the different companies compete when they could form a Trust instead?
Do private companies have the right to use violence? If so, you’ve kind of invented Cyberpunk2077 / Shadowrun, which notably are dystopias
Are you certain they wouldn’t try to profit from victimless crimes? What’s going to stop them?
And what happens if someone just doesn’t have security? Or it’s like private health insurance in the US, where it’s a huge mess and your claims get rejected?
Stuff like marijuana laws should definitely be changed. The war on drugs is racist nonsense.
I really don’t think anarcho-capitalism is the way to go.
This sounds like it would devolve into monopolies or cartels, which are famously bad for end users.
Also what happens if someone doesn’t have private security? Are they just unprotected?
You’re kind of describing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism which isn’t taken seriously by many people because it has a lot of big problems.
You might also enjoy “A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear”, which you can read about https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling , or probably get a copy at your local library (if it hasn’t been defunded and shut down)
I appreciate you taking the time to find the video you found compelling, but right this moment I can’t watch a 23 minute video in entirety. I usually prefer transcripts, personally.
That’s a pretty big claim that like all of philosophy is the “approved” narrative. I don’t have a degree in history or philosophy, but maybe read up on like Hobbes and Kant?
You didn’t respond to my part in the middle asking if you’re just cherry-picking laws.
(Also I have to go get dinner and such, so I’m going to stop responding in a bit. This has been interesting.)
Progressive taxation has been systematically attacked by conservatives for years. That’s why you see people saying we should make the top marginal tax rate back to 90% like it was in the 60s. https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates
You also need to address problems like stepped-up-basis, and buy-borrow-die strategies. I think there are also unpatched problems with corporate income, but I’m less familiar with the details there.
This is a complicated and storied part of humanity. I really recommend reading more about it.
That’s not what criminal act means. Criminal means it’s a violation of a law.
Tax policy comes from the laws that are made (typically) by elected representatives. That’s the government we live under, which is allegedly maintained by the consent of the people. If you knock that pillar out and just say “Government only applies to people who explicitly consent” then you’re going to get some hellish mix of sovereign citizens and the purge.
Like, if you’re not consenting to the laws of the US, can I just shoot you dead? Why not? Are you cherry-picking which laws you want to apply?
You can’t really seriously be making the “I didn’t ask to be born and thus I’m not subject to the rules of the land” argument, can you? I feel like every teenager comes up with that point, and then takes like a history class or philosophy class.
I think we should organize and go demand everyone working for DOGE… stop. And not demand like with funny signs and chants, but like with 2nd amendment arms.
That doesn’t explain how they are “criminal”. that was the word you used.
Many things are either subject to penalties or legitimacy based on context. If you cut someone open and take out their kidney, that’s probably a crime! Unless you’re a doctor doing a surgery in a hospital. Context matters.
Ok, I kind of get what you’re going for, but that’s still a very regressive taxation model. Assuming we could reach some consensus on “taxation has a place in government”, in my opinion you want to tax people who can better afford it. This is why flat taxes kind of suck.
Like let’s say we did a flat 10% tax of money. Someone who makes $10,000 pays $1000, and is left with $9000. Barely enough to live on. Someone who makes $1,000,000 pays $100,000 and is left with $900,000, which is a shit load of money. This is why progressive taxation is more popular. We say, don’t tax the first $10,000 at all, then tax stuff from like $10,001 to $100,000 at 10%, then $100,001 to $500,000 at 20%, and everything above that at 50%. (Numbers made up). Now people who have a lot of money pay more, and the cost of being rich scales.
We don’t really want very wealthy people. We don’t want money and power to consolidate in the hands of a few people. We want a flatter distribution of wealth. Now you have more people living life, having ideas, making inventions and art. If you put all the money in the hands of a few, and everyone else struggles to meet their basic needs, your society isn’t going to thrive.
Taxing what people purchase would be regressive, because there’s a certain floor for what everyone needs to buy. Some rich guy just isn’t buying so much more stuff that it’s going to work out.
Why are they both criminals? What law are they going breaking? I think the IRS, as part of the sovereign government of the US, cannot really be criminal. I think that’s getting into some like philosophy of “what is the state?” stuff though, which is beyond my expertise.
You seem to be rejecting the whole idea of social contracts and representative government. Which, ok, but that’s going against quite a long history.
I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say. No one is talking about poor people buying five cars and yachts. I’m talking about how when you’re poor, and you’re trying to make what little you have cover (for example) clothing, paying $10 in taxes is a bigger portion, and thus hurts more, than if you were rich and had to pay the same tax.
Do you know how money works? How the more money you have, the less each dollar matters?
Because conservatives have been trying to kill social security since its inception. It shouldn’t really be in any danger of insolvency, barring conservative sabotage. A trivial search finds many articles about this: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/retirement/social-security-bankrupt/
If pushing taxation down to the state level makes a project impossible to do, then perhaps that project should not have been done to begin with.
This is clearly pants on head stupid. Postal service. Interstate transit systems. Weather forecasting. Just off the top of my head.
And again, one more time, you haven’t backed up your initial claim that “Taxation is theft”.
Are you Elon Musk? Because “cut 99% of the government” is the kind of uninformed ass-pull I would epxect from him.
Consumption taxes on goods is extremely regressive. That will tremendously impact the poor.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
That is irrelevant to your claim of “Taxation is theft”. Taxes pay for programs like medicare, medicaid, and social security, which are extremely popular.
Pushing stuff down to the state level makes coordination difficult, some projects impossible, and again is irrelevant to your argument that taxation is theft
Apply it to healthcare, science, finances, and the world will become a better place, especially in healthcare.
That’s all kind of moot if we continue down the capitalist hellscape express. What good is an AI that can diagnose cancer if most people can’t afford access? What good is AI writing novels if our homes are destroyed by climate change induced disasters?
Those problems are mostly political, and AI isn’t going to fix them. The people that probably could be replaced with AI, the shitty “leaders” and such, are not going to voluntarily step down.
What a disingenuous take. Surely you can see how no one’s going to take that message seriously, and no one will be convinced?
Taxes also pay for health care, roads, libraries, arts, and countless other things. Do you hate health care, roads, libraries, and art? I mean, maybe, but I wouldn’t be confident about guessing that based solely on your position on taxation.
None of this is supporting your initial claim of “taxation is theft”
No it’s not. Not paying your taxes and using public services is more arguably theft.
If those Internet duds that get mad about black people in video games spent like half that energy being mad about, like, wage theft, we’d be so much better off.