Part of the long, strenuous journey of a college career is not just learning from books and classes, but also from life lessons and experiences.
It’s also a time to discover and evaluate one's own lifestyle and morals. Which is why this tax season, I challenge the morality of taxes.
What do you hold as moral? It seems like this worldwide question separates and puts groups in aggressive opposition. It is impossible to refuse and not use morals. Everyday people have to make choices based on what they believe to be right or wrong.
Walking around campus offers a great illustration of the different religious groups, student political clubs and social fraternities wanting your membership into their community and subsequently their philosophy.
One of the advantages of living in America is the coexistence of a diverse group of people. Even if we are religiously and politically different, there are a number of values and principles to which we all enlist. The value that is essential in holding society and communities together is the immorality of theft.
Arriving at the conclusion that theft is wrong necessitates one factor: property. Does ownership imply you can do anything you’d like with your property, including not giving it away?
It is important to note that just because something is practical does not mean that it is right or moral. If a thief steals a small amount of cash from a rich man and uses the money to survive, theft is still not justified. Something that is immoral does not become right just because both involved parties are essentially OK. One can argue that government uses what it takes for useful purposes, but this argument alone does not justify taxation.
Not only is government capable of taking by force, but also it is the only other institution that has all the attributes of organized crime. Unlike individuals who must work and produce a product, service or voluntarily trade to make an income – the government exists on the idea that it presumes a higher claim on your property than you do.
The excuse used as a tool to justify taxes rests on a geographical factor. The social contract states that living here is an automatic assertion one will subscribe to the laws and regulations of the state. This seems reasonable, right?
What if you told that to a person that lived in Soviet Russia? Would people living in Iran today or Nazi Germany 70 years ago accept that justification?
If the government or the whim of the majority can take your property away, do you really own anything? If you consider theft to be wrong or immoral, then the foundation of our government institutions is what you disagree with. So we can either see taxes and government as a necessary evil, or we can try to find a system that is based on real cooperation and voluntary association - a system that does not bind people by force but rather by liberty.
Is such a system possible?
Twitter Facebook Click here State Press
