I am getting increasingly frustrated because so very few seem to comprehend my moral argument that taxation is theft. Even members of my own family don’t seem to get it. It appears to me that there are two components to the argument that taxation is theft.First is the moral argument: If you define theft as…
Category: Items of Note
Re: The Socialization of Children
Writes Justin Bell in response to this post, “I absolutely believe in raising children as small adults. I have some friends who do exactly that and their children are wonderful. However, when I leave the house later today to interact with ‘adults’ I’ll be treating them like overgrown children – because that is how they…
Free Online Education
All education is self-education. Period. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop. We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn. Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world. Take…
The Socialization of Children
From time to time when asked, I tell someone who doesn’t already know, usually extended family or new acquaintances, that we are keeping our kids home from school. They look puzzled until I use the word “homeschooling”. Like clockwork, sooner or later, they mention the social aspect of schooling and why it’s important that kids…
Re: A Parental Right?
I have to say, I share Idzie D.’s feeling of uneasiness when I hear the term “parental rights”. It’s a great term when considering parental rights relative to the state, but relative to children, we should tread very lightly. My voluntaryist journey only recently lead me to consider more and more the rights of children.…
Re: The Role of War in a Voluntaryist Society
Thank you Ben for that excellent essay on Just War Theory and voluntaryism. Murray Rothbard wrote a piece on libertarian theory of war that I’d like to add to your argument. An excerpt: The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another man’s person or property.…
Re: Born to Explore
Too often we (society) bring kids to places they shouldn’t be brought, and then restrict their curiosity. They learn something with that, something bad, methinks. We made a new rule recently, if we bring our kids somewhere, we’ll let them do as they please, so long as they don’t damage anything, or themselves. If it…
Jurors Can Say No
Every voluntaryist should have within his tool belt the principle of “jury nullification”: If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power…
There’s No Such Thing as “Identity Theft”
There’s no such thing as identity theft. When Person A claims to be Person B and obtains a loan, he’s defrauded the bank, not Person B. Person B is only harmed when the government fails to protect him from the bank that was defrauded. How so? Person A has defrauded the bank, not Person B.…
Government Laid Bare
The true nature of Government laid bare in one masterful paragraph… It is time now to bring the State into our discussion. The State is a group of people who have managed to acquire a virtual monopoly of the use of violence throughout a given territorial area. In particular, it has acquired a monopoly of…