Apparently you oppose taxation for some purposes but not others.

You asked me a personal question about my personal contributions to charities, yet I am not supposed to ask you any questions? Is that how it works?



Believe me, over the years I have contributed both time and money to causes, not expecting other people to pony up the dough for them. If you expect me to say which ones and have such causes trashed here, along with nearly everything else I say, I am not about to do that.

Some of the causes I have supported with my own time and money are in opposition to the government coercion that I am continually accused of supporting here. So, Dave, please don't try to pull a "holier than thou" in the compassion department, based upon what you think "most liberals" do.

Louise,
I am not the only one that notices how you insist that you are conservative or centrist but continuously resort to very left positions.
Ron

Louise,

I'm happy to hear that you put your money where your mouth is ... even though I probably would not care for the causes that you support.

But, I believe I've made my point. You should stop haranguing others for opposing taxation with the accusation that we are uncompassionate because we are conservatives.

Dave

Dave,

Are you against all taxation as theft or do you only consider tax dollars allotted for social programs as theft?

And btw, I think you would care for some of the causes I support. Contrary to the consensus views of some people here, I am not afraid to support liberty in cases where the government denies it. I believe that exercising the rights of citizenship demands it.

This does not mean, however, that I am a libertarian. The libertarian position is so filled with contradictions that I find it nearly incoherent.

I am sorry you think that I have harangued people as lacking compassion BECAUSE they are CONSERVATIVES. I realize that generosity and concern for our fellows is not based on political ideology.

Louise,
"Are you against all taxation as theft or do you only consider tax dollars allotted for social programs as theft?"
When you take money from one person at the point of a gun to give it to another because you feel that is a good thing to do without any authorization in our Constitution I do not consider it theft - it is armed robbery.
If done at all it should be left to the States.
Ron

I was thinking the exact same thing a few weeks ago, Dave.

>>>>>I have not said how everyone else should live. You, however, have said people should live in covenant communities, based, according to you, on the ability to exclude those unlike themselves.<<<<

Do you understand what you have written?

In your first sentence you claim that you have not said how everyone else should live and also misrepresent my statements (I have never said that everyone SHOULD live anyway in particular, only that people have the right to live as they please as long as they do not aggress against others and that this could include covenant communities, clans, etc.).
In the next sentence you imply that there is something wrong with people wanting to freely choose their own associations, to have the liberty to select or avoid other relationships. Your second sentence negates your first sentence. Your second sentence says that there is something WRONG with people excluding "those unlike themselves" from contracted communities....effectively sayiong that you ARE saying how everyone else should live, that they MUST associate with people they'd prefer not to associate with or there is something wrong with them.

What's it to you who lives among who??

It's with your claim that government force is illegitimate, but that private force - to enforce covenant community living - is OK.

I defend pluralism. You defend exclusion.

In the past you have spoken against public zoning laws. Yet here it turns out you want to zone the world into privatized enclaves with KEEP OUT signs. A privatized world based on force and coercion.

Yet you see no contradictions here, only blissful living of like-minded people.

No. You stated that you are not saying how people have to live but you ARE.

>>>It's with your claim that government force is illegitimate, but that private force - to enforce covenant community living - is OK.<<<<<

I am not saying it is OK to force any kind of covenant on anyone. I am saying that is an option some might choose, just as they do now.

>>>>>I defend pluralism. You defend exclusion.<<<<

I am defending the right of free association. If that means excluding someone, then that is a right an individual has. You have no right to insist that someone associate with you, live with you, trade with you. The government forces associations illegitnmately when it chooses to among SOME people. Actually, I am the one defending pluralism and YOU are the one insisting that "we" ALL have to live a certain way, believing the same things, behaving the same way. And that is NOT "pluralism" OR diversity.

>>>>>In the past you have spoken against public zoning laws. Yet here it turns out you want to zone the world into privatized enclaves with KEEP OUT signs.<<<<

Yes. Private property is just that. Private and no one elses business unless their property use interferes with someone elses property right use of THEIR own. Zoning laws generally affect OTHER peoples property. Some people get governments to pass laws prohibiting what OTHER people do with their property. This can be done in a market anarchy, of course, as long as everyone agrees to and contracts for it.

>>> A privatized world based on force and coercion.<<<

VOLUNTARILY agreed upon behaviors should not require very much force at all. If I agree to abide by rules in order to live in a certain community then I won't need to be forced to obey them.

>>>>Yet you see no contradictions here, only blissful living of like-minded people. <<<<

Where's the contradiction?