Taxes are not theft. Failure to pay taxes is theft.
We the member-owners of the corporation/society The United States of America, have collectively decided that we are going to implement a system that allows for firms to practice their arts competitively while maintaining a minimum standard on things including wages, safety, air and water quality and others. If you wish to operate a firm or benefit from the fact that our society is set up in this manner, to pay less than your fair share of the maintenance fees necessary to operate this environment, you are a thief and we, the member-owners of the US have decided that the appropriate punishment for theft from society is jail time. Simultaneously, if you happen to disagree with any of the standards that we the member-owners of the US have decided upon, you are more than welcome to use your expressly granted right of free speech to persuade people of the correctness of your cause, provided you stick to facts and do not lie. However, until such time as you can get a majority of the member-owners to agree with you1, if you so much as breath the air that we keep clean you are entirely obligated to pay your fair share. There are no free riders.
Among the many many things that Libertarians and their erstwhile allies on the Republican side of the fence fail to understand is that there is simply no difference between a government and a firm. A government is a firm that is set up to allow for other firms to operate in a fair environment. The methods of formation are exactly the same: A group of people collectively decide that situation A is not ideal and convince enough people that situation B is better. A non-governmental firm takes the position that Situation A is a place where the owners and the employees are not producing and that the firm is not producing a useful benefit whereas a governmental firm is one that takes the position that imbalances of information, physical power and others should be mitigated somewhat in the practice of firms competing. Within the confines of a firm, there is absolutely no difference between a government and a firm. None at all. Most firms are set up as dictatorships, though some (like SAIC, credit unions and labor unions) are democracies. We all have one share in our governmental firm, we are all voting members. Convince me I'm wrong and I'll vote with you. Until then, you're a theif if you think that you shouldn't have to pay for the largesse that my fellow member-owners have provided for you.
1Certain things do not traditionally go up for the vote - the most important being allowing the majority to define the rights of a minority. But Libertarians generally agree with progressives on that issue, so I'll tend not to bring it up much
Reposted from zyx.posterous.com