I am told that “If you consent it is no longer a tax.” This is incorrect!! The same person supplies me with a definition of a tax, and I accept that definition:

 “tax. A forced burden, charge, exaction, imposition or contribution assessed in accordance with some reasonable rule of apportionment by authority of a sovereign state upon the persons or property within its jurisdiction to provide for public revenue for the support of the government, the administration of the law, or the payment of public expenses. 51 AmJ1st Tax § 3.” Ballentine’s Law Dictionary, page 1255.”

Notice that a tax is done by the authority of a sovereign state. If the people being taxed accept or consent to that authority, then it means they are consenting to the taxes imposed and forced out of them by that authority. The U.S. Constitution openly gives Congress the power to tax. It is certainly not beyond conceptual understanding that a group of people might willingly bind themselves to a course of action and to create a “force” to make sure that everyone in the group contributes. The idea is that you will go along with it as long as you know that everyone else will go along with it, and a way to be sure of that is to create a force that punishes anyone who does not.

Libertarians who argue that “taxation is theft” can say so for themselves by arguing that they have never signed the Constitution, never agreed to it, consider it invalid, and consider the force being imposed on them invalid, immoral and invasive of their rights. They can say that they are not citizens in their hearts and minds, or that they personally secede from the political governments operating on them coercively. Libertarians can instruct, educate and persuade others to believe the same, feel the same and do the same. What libertarians cannot do is speak for someone else who does not believe this, feel this, and who wants to remain a U.S. citizen. They cannot argue that taxation is theft for that consenting person. And that person will reject that statement as false.

On the other hand, the consenting taxpayer has no grounds to demand that the libertarian pay taxes. Such demanding persons will often make various specious arguments to that effect, such that “we” are all in “one society”, or “you can’t secede”, or “you were born here, so you’re a citizen”, or “if you don’t like it here, then leave”, and so on. None of these arguments when closely examined hold water.

The central difficulty is simple and yet formidable. There are numerous people who accept government force and are willing to use it on the libertarian types that would like to dissociate from the government.

The Best of Michael S. Rozeff