Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 19 May 2009, 20:48 · from 2009-May.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 13:48:02 -0700
Subject: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)
In-Reply-To: <10067.67.142.130.18.1242765830.squirrel at brunians.org>
References: <mailman.68838.1242757770.12296.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
	<4A1304A1.1000901 at verizon.net>
	<13409.67.142.130.18.1242761222.squirrel at brunians.org>
	<2BCC6FAA-905B-4A04-BFAE-817E0EDE9BD8 at io.com>
	<10067.67.142.130.18.1242765830.squirrel at brunians.org>
Message-ID: <1f7617370905191348w255b5f18ic401923d2afbf8d5 at mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 1:43 PM,  <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
> The government wants you to pay taxes, which they are going to spend on
> whatever. You or I may approve of everything they spend it on, or we may
> approve of some of it, or we may approve of none of it. No matter: we must
> pay. If we do not, legal processes will be begun against us, and we may be
> forced to pay fines, or sent to prison or even (if we are extremely
> unlucky) killed.
>
> What I would like you (or someone) to explain to me is how this process
> can be described as consensual. It seems to me much more like extortion by
> threat of violence.

It's not very complicated, actually.

One chooses to be a member of a society. If one does not like that
society, one leaves. If one chooses to remain, one has agreed to
"play" by the rules of that society's "game." (Note: the US is not like
the CCCP, where people needed permission to leave, and even then
were stripped of most-to-all their possessions when doing so.)

The advantage of a democratic "game" is that the rules can be
changed to suit the people "playing." Nobody will always get all
the rules they want - that's the art of the compromise.

As it happens, one of the rules by which we choose to "play" is
taxation. If you don't like it, strongly enough, you are encouraged
to go live in Somalia.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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