Amusingly, Vance refers to me as "one guy—a blogger" in a lame at ad hominem as if blogger is a pejorative and Vance someone how must be my superior because he is a writer. Vance seems to be one of those over-educated guys — too many college degrees — who lacks an intellect strong enough for rational, independent, original thinking.
In my original work, which prompted Vance's weak attempt at rebuttal, I revealed how residents of states whose lawgivers impose high income taxes are free-riding on residents of states with no or low income taxes precisely because Congress lets high-tax state residents pay less in federal taxes. In effect, high-tax state residents get to enjoy the benefits of the U.S. Congress and its agencies while letting residents of low-tax states pay the bills.
Vance ponders:
Are tax deductions subsidies? Do tax deductions violate the libertarian non-aggression principle?
And then he claims to have answered such questions previously with a resounding "no."
Vance spews a long silly list of examples about deductions and anoints himself the winner by declaring "I think my point is clear." In truth, Vance lacks a point. Vance has scored none.
If five co-workers eat lunch at their local haunt and each eat and drink about $20 worth, but three only have $10 each to ante up for the bill, the other two must shell out $35 each to cover the bill otherwise they're all washing dishes. Each of the two who pay 3.5 times as much as any of the other three are subsidizing each of the other three. All five enjoyed the equivalent amount of service and product, $20 worth, but three have engaged in free-riding at the expense of the other two.
If two start out with a tax bill of $1,000 and the law givers set the rules so that one pays the full $1,000 but another pays $500 and yet both benefit from $1,500 of spending by law givers, the one paying less is free-riding on the one paying more.
Vance seems to be daft for failing to see that those who get to reduce their tax burdens are free-riding on those who can not. Both get interstate highways, NOAA weather forecasts, military defense, and a million of other things, but one pays more.
Vance argues that residents of high-tax states are right to compel residents of low-tax states disproportionately to fund Congress. If that fails to violate the NAP, then was does?
To justify his silliness, Vance cites his demi-God of libertarianism, Murray Rothbard. Rothbard defined the non-agression principle (NAP) so:
The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another man’s person or property.And it is from the NAP, that Vance and other dopey libertarians claim this:
Taxation is theft. It is theft on a grand scale.Libertarians simply reveal their stupidity with respect to law. They do not know what theft means. They are as stupid as the anarchists and socialists who claim property is theft.
So what is theft?
Theft is the act of dealing from any motive whatever unlawfully and without claim of right with anything capable of being stolen in any of the ways in which theft can be committed with the intention of permanently converting that thing to the use of any person other than the general or special owner thereof.By the rules upon which Americans have agreed, Congress has the right to impose taxation on whomever by the rules Congress devises. Those who Congress imposes taxes upon have a duty to Congress to pay those taxes.
Congress' taxing authority is not theft. It's law.
It fails to surprise that Vance would be misled by Murray Rothbard. While a solid historian, Rothbard was a fool with respect to commercial banking. The libertarian-beloved Rothbard misled far too many because Rothbard suffered from many intellectual fallacies.
Throughout the relevant part of his life, Rothbard foolishly claimed there exists double claims of ownership on deposits. Rothbard simply did not understand commercial banking precisely because Rothbard failed to understand jurisprudence.
Anyone who knows about Commercial Law knows that a banker is a trader who buys cash and debt by selling bank credits. In a purchase and sale, a customer, known as a depositor sells property in cash or receivables to a banker and buys property in bank credits.
With property in bank credits, the bank customer has a right of action to demand an amount of cash from his banker at a future date. Evidences of such right includes checking account bank statements and passbook savings books. In commercial banking law, a deposit isn't a depositum, but actually a mutuum in law of a purchase and sale of cash for deposits.
There are no double claims of ownership as the commerce-illiterate Rothbard believed. Bankers own deposits. Depositors own rights of action.
In the end of his failed rebuttal, Vance commits the fallacies of appeal to emotion by this gem:
It doesn’t matter the amount of the tax deduction, what it is for, whom it benefits, or why it was instituted—the result is the same: Government takes less of Americans’ money to fund its bureaucrats, agencies, departments, bureaus, military adventures, global empire, corporate welfare, subsidies, welfare programs, income redistribution schemes, and myriad of wasteful, inefficient, and unconstitutional programs that shouldn’t exist. Because the income tax isn’t likely to be eliminated or tax rates substantially reduced, Americans need all the tax deductions they can get.
The overly educated, Lew Rockwell (ranked 8,528th by Alexa) writer Vance seems to be confused about too many concepts, which holds true for adherents of libertarianism. Thus, Vance seemingly does not know key concepts of jurisprudence:
- property means the right of ownership and never the thing owned
- for every law, there must be a duty and a matching right, a right and a matching duty
As well, Vance seems not to know at least one key concept of commerce: taxation is an unearned share of profit.
Money is coined metal by weight and fineness. Americans have lacked money for decades. Money, if it were to exist, could exist without bankers or government. Cash requires bankers. Legal tender cash requires bankers, law givers and their agents.
Also, Vance could be right in at least one aspect if he had written something like this: Americans ought hardly to pay taxes precisely because there should be a preference for freedom — living by the absence of law in the presence of law givers — over officialdom law — duties and rights.
Libertarians suffer from much contradiction precisely because they lack a proper understanding of jurisprudence as well as commerce. Here are a few of my works on dopey libertarians and their fallacious beliefs:
- WHOA DUDE, WHAT? LEGALIZING ISN'T LIBERTARIAN? PASS ME THE BONG. GOO GOO GOO JOOB.
- STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES AND THE STUPIDITY OF THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
- REASONOIDS OF REASON.COM, AMERICA'S CRYPTO-NEOCON REPUBLICANS
- SOPHIE'S CHOICE OF CAPITAL OR LABOR. A FREE-MARKETS LIBERTARIAN BECOMES AN ANTI-CAPITALIST AND PERPETUATES AN ECONOMICS MYTH
President Calvin Coolidge had it right when he said:
The collection of taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this Republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them.
I say it thus: We're living in the 21st century. The goal should be to have the least governance as needed rather than the most governance as tolerable (before revolution happens).
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