All they had to do was leave the country to be free.
Yup. Too bad that, unlike you, they were prevented by force from doing so.
You donât have any choice on the part of recognizing private property - when you were born, there were invisible lines denoting private property owned by other people that you werenât asked to agree/assent to, and despite that lack of agreement, you get into trouble if you infringe on it. So is private property whose boundaries you werenât asked to assent to when you were born theft as well? You have no choice whether to accept or reject it, so it must resemble slavery, too, right?
This is a cop out. You canât convince your family that being robbed repeatedly is not something you should all want to escape from? You can easily tell them of the other options. You stay here because you choose to. Because despite all the talk of you being robbed on the regular you are in one of the best places in the world to be. Ironically a lot of that BECAUSE of the shared sacrifice of so many people. Despite all the talk of the evils of government you decide to be here
In that way, it can be said to. Slavery and taxation both involve the forcible taking of something(freedom/fruits of freedom) from another without any meaningful form of consent; Iâm sorry I wasnât clearer on that. The beginning of life can be said to resemble the end of life, since both involve changes in brain activity. I would say death probably more closely resembles entering a vegetative state, though.
Itâs not. People will accept a lot to stay close to whatâs familiar. The other options are not familiar. Of course-slaves stayed by choice, too(not even comparing anyone here to a slave, but they did have a choice-the alternative was just not attractive enough to take itâŠthere is no situation in which a choice doesnât exist if you want to see it that way, barring being completely physically restrained).
Which part of your life makes you most like a slave? The high speed internet to post on t-nation? The choice of an occupation? The access to high quality health care? Netflix and air conditioning? Tons of food choices? Porn? Your car? Being able to be close to your family? Leisure time? Not being whipped and sold?
Very slave like existence.
Taxation is slavery. And yet few people live and tons of people try to come here and are jealous of the life here. If only they knew the horrific shackles and strife we face every day they would not want this!
Ok, good - so to sum up, the concept of private property is akin to slavery. Good to know.
Probably the chance of losing many of those things for doing things that harm no one. I truly doubt being a slave would feel much different, if that was how you grew up. Your master would be one of the better ones. You would have all sorts of privileges you wouldnât have with another master. Look up âStockholm Syndrome.â Itâs not a bad thing that we can cope with just about anything.
The fact that you have no choice whether to accept the existence of âprivate propertyâ(I do; most do not) does not make private property âakinâ to slavery. Private property is acquired with and by the fruits of oneâs labor. Slavery involves another claiming the fruits of oneâs labor without consent. Taxation involves another claiming the fruits of oneâs labor without consent. Slavery and (income, especially)taxation differ merely in degree. Private property and slavery differ in every way other than the fact that you have no choice whether to accept them(unless you are the state or master).
No, you donât. If you think so, go trespass on someoneâs land. Your first sentence was correct.
You said earlier that the mere fact that you had to observe a rule or boundary that was in place prior to when you were born (thus, the rule or boundary did not involve your consent) was akin to slavery. Right?
Well, private property falls into that category. People own private property all around you - likely simply purchased, and they donât actually use it to generate fruits of their labor, the property is unproductive - and you have to observe the invisible boundaries whether you were asked to agree with them or not, subject to penalty, and in fact, subject to penalty by pain of force if necessary.
By your definition, thatâs a species of slavery.
By this logic, virtually every crime is akin to slavery. When I jaywalk, I forcibly take the freedom from drivers to operate their vehicles in the manner to which they have a right; ergo, I am making slaves of them.
If every crime is slavery, then no crime is slavery. The term loses all meaning. And any sincere discussant would reject the trivialization and de-legitimizing of such a horrible crime.
Further, your premise assumes you possess absolute property rights to your pre-tax earnings. This assumption is at best not axiomatic, and at worst simply incorrect. It can be argued that pre-tax earnings do not belong en toto to the wage-earnerâthat the component to be taken in taxes never belonged to the wage earner. Thus, what is taken in the form of taxes cannot be considered theft, as it never belonged to you.
Once again, it is absurd to compare the reasons you choose not to leave (which you have declared to be family-relatedâa bogus reason in that youâre free to take your family with you) with the reasons a slave âchoosesâ not to leave (ie, they will be physically abused, if not killed). To argue that these âchoicesâ are equivalent is ludicrous.
Not really. For any piece of private property you can point to, I can demonstrate that it was derived (at least in part) by the extrajudicial application of forceânot necessarily by its current owner, but by someone in its (direct or indirect) chain of custody. The point being, there is no âpureâ private property.
I just have a real hard time comparing everything you have in your life to the life of a slave.
You ARE taking freedom from drivers if you jaywalk in a manner that obstructs them(you can technically jaywalk by disregarding a crossing sign even with no vehicular traffic on the road, which doesnât effect anyone else).
Not âevery crimeâ is anything like slavery. Many âcrimesâ donât effect others. All true crimes have much in common with slavery(intentionally taking life, liberty, and/or property without consent).
Then what is taken belongs to the wage payer. I imagine there are some wage payers who would rather pocket that income tax money, or give it to the employee.
It is odd that an âincome taxâ comes from money that was never part of an income(I guess thatâs what youâre arguing). Look at all the fraud committed by employers advertising salaries that are not.
Family, culture. Slaves stay because they would be killed or abused if they leave? What about the ones that stuck around after learning they were free? By the way, I would imagine the United States could track someone that forced his wife and children to leave the country. Thatâs called kidnapping. Then, thereâs extended family on two sides. There are many reasons not to leave, none of which have to do with the United States.
Thereâs no way for humans to right past wrongs. Treating currently privately-owned property as belonging to its current owner, and treating âpublic propertyâ as belonging to its current manager, is probably the best we could do(abolition, in other words).
So then, you are affirming that jaywalking is akin to slavery? Thatâs a hill youâre willing to die on?
No, what is âtakenâ is the portion of the wage that is earmarked for taxes.
Semantics.
Yes.
Once they were free, they were no longer slaves. It is logically impossible to ask âWhat about the actions of the slaves who were free,â because by definition, there is no such thing as a âfree slave.â
Really? So if someone stole your vehicle, you wouldnât object if the government decreed âbygonesâ and let the thief keep it? After all, thereâs no way for humans to right past wrongs, and treating currently privately-owned property as belonging to its current owner is probably the best we could do.
I see this thread is living up to its name.
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In a
limited way, you could make that argument. I would not put it that way.
I would still be the current owner and manager of the vehicle. That would be a present wrong, and not a past wrong. 300 years from now, the thiefâs descendants wouldnât owe my descendants anything.
True enough. The point is, former slaves often stayed near their former masters.
Donât call it a âwage(a fixed regular payment, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis, made by an employer to an employee, especially to a manual or unskilled worker.),â if it doesnât belong to the employee.
I donât believe this conversation is going anywhere. You folks are not going to believe that taxation is anything but a great, grand, wonderful thing. Iâm not going to believe that waking up tomorrow as a slave(with a master that isnât absurdly abusive) would be all that intolerable.
So thereâs no qualitative issue, just a quantitative one. Out of curiosity: For how long would someone have to possess your truck before it became a case of âbygonesâ?
Fixed it for ya.
Well you certainly wouldnât be posting in t-nation, eating pizza, being able to go to concerts, taking the day off, watching a movie, going surfing, flying to see family, or probably countless other things you enjoy but I think if you were an actual American slave living a similar life to those approximately around civil war times you would find it incredibly intolerable.
You sound like uncle ruckus
There werenât many Americans doing those things in the 17th, 18th, early-mid 19th Centuries, slave or free. It may be just as intolerable to be a free citizen, by those measures.