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That's a pretty big claim that like all of philosophy is the "approved" narrative. I don't have a degree in history or philosophy, but maybe read up on like Hobbes and Kant?

You didn't respond to my part in the middle asking if you're just cherry-picking laws.

(Also I have to go get dinner and such, so I'm going to stop responding in a bit. This has been interesting.)

If they thought about things and came to good conclusions afterwards, they probably wouldn't be driving this kind of car to begin with. The people who are driving it are probably not good thinkers.

Progressive taxation has been systematically attacked by conservatives for years. That's why you see people saying we should make the top marginal tax rate back to 90% like it was in the 60s. https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates

You also need to address problems like stepped-up-basis, and buy-borrow-die strategies. I think there are also unpatched problems with corporate income, but I'm less familiar with the details there.

This is a complicated and storied part of humanity. I really recommend reading more about it.

That's not what criminal act means. Criminal means it's a violation of a law.

Tax policy comes from the laws that are made (typically) by elected representatives. That's the government we live under, which is allegedly maintained by the consent of the people. If you knock that pillar out and just say "Government only applies to people who explicitly consent" then you're going to get some hellish mix of sovereign citizens and the purge.

Like, if you're not consenting to the laws of the US, can I just shoot you dead? Why not? Are you cherry-picking which laws you want to apply?

You can't really seriously be making the "I didn't ask to be born and thus I'm not subject to the rules of the land" argument, can you? I feel like every teenager comes up with that point, and then takes like a history class or philosophy class.

I think we should organize and go demand everyone working for DOGE... stop. And not demand like with funny signs and chants, but like with 2nd amendment arms.

That doesn't explain how they are "criminal". that was the word you used.

Many things are either subject to penalties or legitimacy based on context. If you cut someone open and take out their kidney, that's probably a crime! Unless you're a doctor doing a surgery in a hospital. Context matters.

Ok, I kind of get what you're going for, but that's still a very regressive taxation model. Assuming we could reach some consensus on "taxation has a place in government", in my opinion you want to tax people who can better afford it. This is why flat taxes kind of suck.

Like let's say we did a flat 10% tax of money. Someone who makes $10,000 pays $1000, and is left with $9000. Barely enough to live on. Someone who makes $1,000,000 pays $100,000 and is left with $900,000, which is a shit load of money. This is why progressive taxation is more popular. We say, don't tax the first $10,000 at all, then tax stuff from like $10,001 to $100,000 at 10%, then $100,001 to $500,000 at 20%, and everything above that at 50%. (Numbers made up). Now people who have a lot of money pay more, and the cost of being rich scales.

We don't really want very wealthy people. We don't want money and power to consolidate in the hands of a few people. We want a flatter distribution of wealth. Now you have more people living life, having ideas, making inventions and art. If you put all the money in the hands of a few, and everyone else struggles to meet their basic needs, your society isn't going to thrive.

Taxing what people purchase would be regressive, because there's a certain floor for what everyone needs to buy. Some rich guy just isn't buying so much more stuff that it's going to work out.

Why are they both criminals? What law are they going breaking? I think the IRS, as part of the sovereign government of the US, cannot really be criminal. I think that's getting into some like philosophy of "what is the state?" stuff though, which is beyond my expertise.

You seem to be rejecting the whole idea of social contracts and representative government. Which, ok, but that's going against quite a long history.

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. No one is talking about poor people buying five cars and yachts. I'm talking about how when you're poor, and you're trying to make what little you have cover (for example) clothing, paying $10 in taxes is a bigger portion, and thus hurts more, than if you were rich and had to pay the same tax.

Do you know how money works? How the more money you have, the less each dollar matters?

Because conservatives have been trying to kill social security since its inception. It shouldn't really be in any danger of insolvency, barring conservative sabotage. A trivial search finds many articles about this: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/retirement/social-security-bankrupt/

If pushing taxation down to the state level makes a project impossible to do, then perhaps that project should not have been done to begin with.

This is clearly pants on head stupid. Postal service. Interstate transit systems. Weather forecasting. Just off the top of my head.

And again, one more time, you haven't backed up your initial claim that "Taxation is theft".

That's really bad. You might get other people sick with what you have, but if they're immune compromised or otherwise vulnerable they could have a really bad, possibly fatal, time.

Are you Elon Musk? Because "cut 99% of the government" is the kind of uninformed ass-pull I would epxect from him.

Consumption taxes on goods is extremely regressive. That will tremendously impact the poor.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.