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tome 7 hours ago

What's morally indefensible about that?

yawpitch 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Some of that 30% has both directly and indirectly empowered war crimes and has pushed on the accelerator of an unspeakable [and, sadly, irreversible] descent into the kind of mad fascistic experiment that always ends up driving many more. The seizure of means that you turn around and use for rent-seeking is morally indefensible in its own right, but it’s the unintended (yet obvious) consequences of that same self-serving and short-sighted impulse where the real moral trap lies.

AnimalMuppet 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Once they define it as stealing, then it's morally indefensible, by definition.

The question is, is it actually stealing, or is that just their overheated rhetoric? From where I sit, it's hot air.

tome 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> Once they define it as stealing, then it's morally indefensible, by definition.

Right, similar to the equivocation around the meaning of earn in this thread. I've started to wonder whether it's possible to push by accepting that framing and then asking for a justification rather than quibbling about what "stealing" is.

inigyou an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Does the highwayman earn his toll or does he steal it?

AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I doubt it. "Stealing" functions as a thought-terminating cliche; I suspect that very few people will think past it.

yawpitch 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Especially amongst those who think of taxes as a form of stealing.

tome 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I fear you are right, but I feel like trying it anyway.