So all roads are tolled? Heh.

And all the poor people stop grocery shopping because their food stamps don't pay for toll roads.

Taxes are the price you pay for the three amenities the government affords you - infrastructure, social services, and defense.

you learn this in seventh grade

You're serious. You're bona-fide serious in that you think the government has unlimited resources.

Your libertarianism is an affected youth reading Mein Kampf in the only non-Starbucks coffee shop in town.

Additional Spam:
Laws are also non-consentual.

that is so unfair

Only in Western countries, where people are fat and lazy. People ride bikes everywhere in China, and I bet those Chinese people that ride to work, work longer days doing more strenuous things than we Americans that sit our fat asses in cubicles and type on computers all day long.

Cycling is practical, but people don't like doing things that require effort. It's very practical in the sense that it costs nothing and it gets you from point A to point B in a substantially shorter amount of time than walking would.

Of course, it's not practical if people absolutely must live 30 miles away from where they work. But the only reason people live that far away is for impractical reasons, like wanting to live in a big house that they don't really need. One impracticality begets another.

In short, the suburbs are making people fat.

Guru: Places like Europe and China are much tighter together than the American suburban communities. The Chinese don't bike 20-60 miles to work.

I realize this. Still, nobody is ever really forced to live that far away from where they work. By and large it's a personal decision, and usually one rooted in luxury.

Which is why, obviously, that I think it's OK that if people want to live extravagant, impractical lives (by living in big houses 50 miles away from work), that they shouldn't gripe about being taxed on infrastructure. (To keep with the context of the thread, at least).

Maybe I missed someone, but I only saw one person here who was griping about being taxed for infrastructure. The people who would be biking in from the suburbs are just those who would be told to suck it up so he doesn't have to pay those taxes.

Styphon: Regardless of whether there aren't real alternatives to the corporation's roads, the corporation must still anticipate and compete with potential alternatives. If the incentives are there, then people will develop alternative forms of transit which do not require the use of roads, such as private rail or cheaper air travel. It's the same reason monopolies are not absolute, since they must constantly compete with upstarts and anticipate new substitute industries.

I think a good solution for the case you pointed out, where the corporation controls all forms of transit, is to seperate each primary form of transit between their own corporations. The problems of shareholder complication is ruled out, since people will gravitate to participate in the corporations concerning their preferred mode of transit.

As Guru points out, cycling is very practical in the immediate area. The reason people drive everywhere in this country is because gas is so cheap. If we remove the subsidies for gas, and people decide to live in closer proximity to their place of work, then the incentives for cycling increase.

It is not about payment, it's about the mode of extraction. Taxes are a form of theft, because they are extracted by force as opposed to consent. Even if people think they do consent to be taxed, they haven't really because there is no way to opt out of the system.

Taxes are bad, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they should be eradicated. It's practical to view taxes as a necessary evil which enables the collectivization of national power so that we're not overrun by the Turks and whatnot. It's key to understand, however, that because they are theft, the government does not experience loss.

Sorry, I think I misinterpreted what you were saying. What I would like to know, though, is whether the problem lies in the lack of taxes collected, or the lack of funding to maintenance. Are you voting specifically for taxes which concern road maintenance, or general budgets for transportation?

For the record, I live within the city limits and have a job which is within cycling distance, but I do not cycle to because doing so would mean that I'd have to ride on the highway.

The issue, though, is not necessarily taxation, but how those funds are distributed.

No, I'm saying that the government does not lose anything, because it does not create. The resources of a government are only as great as the wealth of its citizens, and its ability to extract that wealth. Because governments do not create wealth, they do not experience financial risk. If you don't gain anything, you have nothing to lose.

Ultimately a government can experience loss, as recessions or overtaxation reduce the general creation of wealth, but governments aren't generally that farsighted.

Can you stop using ad-hom and start talking to me like a person?

Yup, but laws aren't theft. People tolerate laws in the same way they tolerate taxes. So long as laws are considered to be just, the people will tolerate them. So long as taxation isn't excessive, people will tolerate them.

That doesn't counter my point.

Do you feel that companies who sell services do not create?

Additional Spam:
You said taxes are theft. They are as much theft as laws are.

yeah but the problem with that is that if you think taxes are excessive, you can't just claim they're theft.

Your libertarianism is a six year old who can't understand why mommy won't buy a barbie doll with the grocery money.

No, I do, because companies have to compete to create the wealth which they invest in themselves. The wealth created through services may not be material, (though the end result can be), but that doesn't mean that the service has not generated wealth in one form or another.

A government does not have to compete to acquire the wealth it uses. It doesn't even have to trade for the wealth. Government is ultimately the will of the people, and it is because of that will that the people create highways, armies, and other infrastructure and institutions with government as the middle man. If a government does not represent the will of the people, then it is overthrown.

That's the way government is supposed to work in this country, as power flows from the bottom up instead of top-down.

Edit:You can't be serious. There is no thing of mine that is taken away simply by virtue of there being a law, unless you want to define laws as the "theft of freedom."

Taxes are always theft, regardless of whether or not they are excessive. You're making a big deal over nothing, considering that I've expressly stated that taxes shouldn't be abolished.

NO U

But you say that taxes are theft. Theft, by definition, is wrongful. If taxes shouldn't be abolished, they must not be overly wrongful in your eyes.

Given that, why are you insisting that they're theft?

I don't think you and Guru understand how impractical it is to say, "Well, everyone, why don't you just live closer to where you work??" What about the janitors and food wokers who are employed in rich parts of town but can't afford living there (and don't say buses, when you increase gas, you decrease their ability to ride buses)? What about the people who work hard to be well off but work in places that aren't close to anywhere but slums (see: people who work in downtown LA)?

I love how the more you branch out in your little Libertarian fantasy island, the more you attempt to completely destroy the entire United States economy.

Because they are by definition theft. It is an injustice, but a necessary one. It'd be nice if we lived in the ideal where the world exists in a state of anarchy, but the reality is that nations and states have established themselves as competing powers.

It's within that context that taxation becomes necessary, and we have to insure that the funds acquired through taxation are used to our benefit. If maintenance of infrastructure loses priority because of the state of politics, then taxes are not being used appropriately.

Yeah, it's going to be impractical for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that the incentive isn't there, and presents an alternative.

And by that same virtue it would supposedly be non cost-effective because the harm they do to roads can be equated to headcount. Busses present an affordable alternative to transit because the same amount of gasoline is being used to transport a much larger amount of people. Removing subsidies on oil and gas isn't going to cause the price to double.

Then their investment in the area raises the general quality of living. If somebody works in LA, there's a good damn chance that they can get to LA without using a car, so it's not as if they necessarily have to live right there, it's only the case if they really want to ride a bicycle.

Or not enough are collected!

You can't just make a blanket statement that maintenance ALWAYS comes before new. That's absurd. What if new things were the priority without political motive, would you care then?

La la, I understand that not everyone has the means or adequate justification to ride their bikes to work. But I still contend that a lot of people who don't, easily could.

Don't read too far into it guys.

Brady, you keep saying this. Do you feel that there is one government only? If that is so, can you provide a quick definition of what that government is?

Don't give me that. It is impossible to opt out of any form of taxation because there is no frontier. All areas with the exception of the Antarctic (uninhabitable) are under the control of a government.

If the government didn't extract taxes, then it would maybe have to compete for wealth. Government-as-business. Or even a government that exists based on gambling. The fact is, though, that all governments as they exist extract taxes.

Too bad. I just did. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that existing infrastructure should be insured not to fail before remaining funds are used to expand the infrastructure or be used in other, non-infrastructure related things.

Oh. So, since all governments impose taxes, no government competes?

Additional Spam:
No they're not.

Things fail. I mean, what more do you want? Accidents happen. Take an engineering course or two.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this is a completely isolated incident and that another one won't happen for another 20 years (which is almost how long it took this one to fail after someone said it was deficient).

You're telling me that we should halt all new projects until we fix the things that are in need of repair, even though they fail at an astonishingly slow rate??

It is obvious to me that you are just trying to apply some Libertarian ideal to something you clearly have no clue of what the fuck you're talking about.

It's not entirely accurate to view the maintenance of infrastructure as the repairing of already existing roads and rails. If a bridge cannot be repaired, then it is in the general interest to replace that bridge and remove the liability. In that sense, replacing an old bridge with a new one does not equate an expansion of the infrastructure, because the routes have not been expanded.

If a cost is unavoidable, it should be incurred before the potential for greater damages, and even fatalities. If the cost can be avoided, as was the case with the Viaduct and possibly the case here with the Minnesota bridge, then the retrofits should be given priority.

They knew this bridge was unsound for 17 years, so why then shouldn't efforts have been made to retrofit or replace it before there are fatalities?

Yes, I think that the preservation of lives should take priority over their betterment through an expansion of infrastructure. In the long-term, there is no difference between the infrastructure as it exists in the present, and the infrastructure that would exist by neglecting the bridge. You could argue that the benefits derived from expanded infrastructure before the collapse makes up for the loss, but then you're justifying fatalities.

If everybody owned a controlling interest in Haliburton, it might actually be better than a representative government. Of course, it's not as good as no government.

Governments compete for immigrants by virtue of their policies, but they do not have to compete for revenue.

From my perspective, any initiation of force is wrong, and since taxation is the forceful seizure of wealth, then I consider it to be theft. It is no less wrong, no matter how one justifies it, for the same reason that killing a person is wrong even though it may be justified within context.

Do you think that foreign nationals are the only people governments compete for?

Furthermore, getting back to an earlier point, how are governments not producers of services?

So are all obligations 'theft' to you?

They are producers of services, the nature of the thing is that the government does not trade for its revenue, so the funds cannot be considered government property. In that sense, the wealth created by government services has actually been created by the taxpayers, since it is their money being invested.

Taxation is not an obligation. An obligation is something that you are compelled to do based on any criteria, but which you have a choice to fulfill. Being taxed is not a choice. Fulfilling an obligation is.

It is at once both the property of the government and the property of the taxpayers, by virtue of their funds. It is Public. I'll ask again; why do you think the government has unlimited resources?

It is absolutely an obligation. It is not an obligation that holds no consequence for breaking, but very few obligations are.

Do you think that 'immigrants' are the only people for whom governments compete with each other over, and furthermore, how do you define an immigrant who has not yet left his current country?