It's a deep denial of the reality when you say that.
Both my and your lives are 95% peaceful anarchy - we voluntarily interact with who we want and ignore people we dislike or disapprove of. The remaining 5% - is when some dudes in costumes brainwash us to comply with a well-hidden gun. Try to "disagree" by not paying your taxes and see what happens.
If you never intend to pay your taxes the government can garnish your wages. The individual state governments are far more vigilant about this than the federal government, however. California will dip into your Wells Fargo account almost immediately but one can not pay federal taxes for quite some time. You occasionally hear about some celebrity or fiancier getting busted for not paying their taxes for the past 20 years. Your passport is never revoked, though. Congress has tried to get a bill to do that but it has never passed. Certainly "men with guns" do not show up at your house if you miss the April 15 deadline as seems to be suggested in these ridiculous discussions. This is a country where at least half of the government officials themselves also hate taxes and dodge them as much as possible.
That you might pay your taxes voluntarily is charming, but do you really think that if all enforcement behind tax collection is lost that most of the population will pay their taxes?
Enforcement of laws does not require threat of violence except against those who threaten violence in response to enforcement. Wage garnishment, liens, and asset forfeiture are effective means of collecting sums owed without anybody pointing a gun. Even if you are arrested for tax evasion, violence will not be used unless you appear to pose a threat.
All I hear when someone talks about how laws are enforced with guns is "I am civilized only so long as someone has the capacity to be more violent than I.". To me, this is madness.
If you fail to pay taxes that you owe (and I have not heard you dispute owing them), then you are in violation of the law that you agree to when you remain in your country of residence.
If you ignore liens, you have forfeited the right to live in that home by not paying your financial obligations.
Your arguments imply that the men with guns are the cause of the use of force. In reality, the men with guns are the consequence for disobeying the rules of a civil society.
You continue to equate the person possessing a gun with the gun being used against you.
The gun isn't there to be used against you unless you're going to be violent. The gun is there because they can never be sure when someone might become violent.
A robber comes to you on the street with a gun in his pocket. He kindly suggests you hand him your wallet and that'd be the end of it, no violence is going to happen, he promises. He also points out that if you decide to fight back, he's probably gonna shoot you. So what we have here is a threat of violence. It may be not as awful as violence itself, but it's still immoral, don't you agree? And a robber is still a criminal because he takes away things you don't want to give him voluntarily.
Let's look at this carefully. According to the scenario you've outlined, the "robber" has asked for my wallet, and indicated that if I am violent towards him, he will respond with violence.
It is not a crime for anyone to ask me for my wallet. Nor is it a crime for anyone to tell me they will shoot me if I attack them.
It appears I can simply walk away. Neither crime nor violence will have occurred.
A crime occurs when the robber threatens to shoot me unless I comply with demands he has no right to make.
On the other hand, an IRS agent telling you to pay your taxes has every right to demand that you pay your taxes, and will never threaten to shoot you if you do not. He will threaten to shoot you if it looks like you're about to physically threaten him.
You can put your theory into practice by walking into a bank with a gun (in states where it's legal) and kindly asking them to hand you a million dollars. It'd be interesting to see what happens next.
But, more importantly, it seems to be that your point is that crime is not a crime as long as it appears to not be one. As long as a robber asks and I cooperate, it's not a crime. As long as IRS doesn't use force first, it's okay to steal things from me. I don't agree with that. What right on earth does anyone have to take away from me the money I honestly made? Who gave anyone this right? Why should I comply except for the reason that if I don't, they will make my life difficult and will still manage to take things away from me? I haven't stripped anyone off their money, I created value and sold it to people who were willing to buy. Explain to me: why does anyone have the right to take money from me?
The IRS is not stealing from you. The money does not belong to you, it belongs to society, which has authorized its agents to collect its property.
This is the reality of human society. We are herd animals, and the herd has spoken. Your extreme anti-social views have not and will not prevail, for the logical (and observed) results are intensely undesirable to those of us who wish to live in relative peace.
Who makes up this society? Just the people in your political borders? What about the people in other countries? Or would they count only after their military successfully invades your country? And when their military does this, everyone in that country is responsible, right? Cause it's their "agents", right? So if it is an illegitimate invasion, they are all guilty? Or would the guilty just consist of the immature and irresponsible anarchists who didn't support any of the warmongers up for election? How would we know if it is an illegitimate invasion? Society decides, I guess?
It's amazing how the blatant conflation of state and society that you make is allowed to pass in debates about anarchism with such frequency. And how often the people who make that conflation pat themselves on the back for being all "nuanced" and mature when in fact, through sloppy thinking, they managed to avoid dealing with all the problems that the anarchist has had to work through in order to arrive at his position.
So if tomorrow the herd decided it is acceptable to send you to uranium mines to work for free for the rest of your life because it is better for the society, you'd have no objections to it? And, mind you, it is exactly what the herd had been doing for thousands of years, staying willfully ignorant of the horrors of slavery, religious wars and inquisition.
You are confusing acceptance of the need for laws and their enforcement with belief that law is infallible. This intense inability to deal with nuance is both a cause of Randroid philosophy, and one of its most aggravating characteristics.
> This intense inability to deal with nuance is both a cause of Randroid philosophy, and one of its most aggravating characteristics.
And this is, I believe, why it's so comparatively common with computeristas; it is a worldview which is much more logical and binary than the current one, with the implication that such a worldview is obviously better. No nuance is necessary but there are no nuances to perceive in this system.
This is, of course, why the system is not suitable for general implementation. It will be quickly and immediately co-opted by those who can perceive nuance where others see only black/white, who will eventually bring the whole edifice crashing back down again.
> And a robber is still a criminal because he takes away things you don't want to give him voluntarily.
He takes away things that aren't rightfully his.
The robber has not performed services for you. He hasn't maintained your street, educated your children, or ensured the safety of your food. He's not saving for your retirement or using your money to create a social safety net for those in need. You don't owe him anything.
All US citizens benefit from government services in some form. If you'd like to opt out, you are free to move to Somalia and renounce your citizenship. But as long as you're living in a civilization, you have to help maintain it.
While a completely pacifist person would likely not face the gun, force is still applied, and the threat is still present. A person in their own home who fails to pay their taxes will be removed with as much force as the government needs to achieve compliance, whether that only needs a polite asking, handcuffs, handguns, machine guns, or rocket launchers.
If you won't stop committing an illegal act, yes, they will eventually use some form of force to stop you. Guns will not be necessary unless you are actually threatening them with violence.
That is my point. By indicating you expect guns to be used, you indicate that you expect to be violent. At that point, you have surrendered your right to not be subjected to violence.
So if you keep peacefully not paying your taxes, you will be subjected to violence, yes? A person grabbing you and throwing you out of your house is violence, is it not?
Violence and force are not the same thing, no. Violence is force or the threat of force intended or likely to cause injury. They will not "throw" you. They will carry you.
If you feel that you don't get enough of gov "care" when someone doesn't pay taxes, it means you are personally entitled to that amount that he didn't pay, right?
If you feel you are personally entitled, will you consider it moral to come and get what's yours? Will you allow other citizens to do so towards you?
About income tax: imagine I work an hour and sell some artwork to a friend. How did this affect anyone on the planet so that government is entitled for an income tax from what my friend gave me? If I tell you about that transaction, will you consider it moral and good to report it to IRS? Will you do that to any of your friends, or only people you don't like much?
Blindly equating the actions of society and the actions of individuals is at the heart of the problem with your worldview, and one of the many reasons I disagree with it.
Both my and your lives are 95% peaceful anarchy - we voluntarily interact with who we want and ignore people we dislike or disapprove of. The remaining 5% - is when some dudes in costumes brainwash us to comply with a well-hidden gun. Try to "disagree" by not paying your taxes and see what happens.