The Systemic Extortion Racket - Taxation

Let's face it, the word 'tax' is purely a euphemism. The real description of the process should correctly be termed 'taking money via the threat of violent force and coercion'. Remove the threat of violence and this quazi-Mafiosa revenue gathering mechanism's model fails immediately; totally and irrevocably.

So, regardless of the apparent merits of hospitalising sick kittens, fighting 'just wars' or whatever other emotive sob-story is dispensed to attempt to justify taxation, when funds are gathered in such a way 'Natural Law' is broken.

What is 'Natural Law'? It is simply those fundamental rules of human society and cooperation that do not need to be written by some imaginary power, church or state, to be logical, practical and true. Natural Law says do not hurt me, do not take my property, do not steal the fruits of my labour. Anything that breaks these fundamental natural laws is intrinsically erroneous. No body has the right to exceed Natural Law - no individual or group of individuals can grant to themselves or others powers they do no possess the right of themselves.

Beyond that of the simple family group I cannot think of any form of leadership, rule or governance that did not include the gathering of a tithe to subsidise a higher echelon.

To be most successful in this enterprise - certainly man's oldest business - there is a balance to be struck between violent force and willing consent. People who live in fear of imminent attack from wolves are happy to reward the leader of those warriors who successfully protect the settlement.

The less apparent the threat or benefit the less the immediate willingness is to pay. It is the task of the state to constantly encourage its subjects to consent to pay taxes with only the minimum visibility of the ultimate threat of force being the most desirable - so as not to 'frighten the horses'.

Roman Emperors and British Kings long understood that which Thomas Paine identified in his Rights of Man: “...taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes”.