More thoughts on the care and feeding.......

..................of the goose that lays the golden eggs.  Tomorrow is the date we all have to settle up with the IRS for the year 2015.  While some grumbling is perhaps expected, it pays to remember:

                               Atomism

Notions like "taxation is theft" rely on atomistic individualism for 

whatever plausibility they have. Taxation would be theft if:

1) The natural state of human beings was to exist as isolated 

individuals, somehow in full possession of a bunch of property 

despite their isolation; and

2) These atomic individuals then entered into a "social contract" 

in which they agreed to live in a society with other humans, but 

nly on the condition they get to keep all of the property they had 

when they lived alone.

Of course, both one and two are complete nonsense: human 

beings would not even be human beings apart from a human 

social group. Our natural state is to live in a group with a 

number of other human beings, and the monads of atomic 

individualism have only existed in history due to terrible 

mishaps. And they certainly possessed no property!

Furthermore, the natural state of affairs in these groups was to 

treat resources as the possession of the group. Private property 

was an innovation (and a very useful one) granting some 

individuals greater rights in regards to some resource than 

anyone else. But being granted to an individual by their social 

group, it is quite naturally subject to revocation by the group 

and to whatever other conditions the group puts upon its 

possession. Such as, for instance, "You may have control over 

this land, and the proceeds you earn from using it, on the 

condition that you return 10% of those proceeds to the group."

Tax evasion, not taxation, is theft! And you are "coerced" into 

paying your taxes only if you try to weasel out of your 

obligation to pay them, just as you are "coerced" into paying 

for your groceries.

-Gene Callahan