Martian: A good analogy, except that this is a "club" which one is not permitted to leave. The US is one of fewer than half a dozen nations which tax income earned outside of its' borders, and expatriating from the US in order not to support imperial wars of aggression (for instance) is a Felony, even if the expat in question has renounced their US Citizenship.
Harry; permit me to respond to your post in detail.
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the government isn't robbing you at gunpoint.
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Am I given a choice? No. Is this lack of choice backed up by the threat of potentially lethal violence? Yes. Ask anybody who's ever been on the receiving end of an IRS CID SWAT team, say Ed and Elaine Brown.
Pay up, or we'll take what you "owe," lock you up, and kill you if you resist. Sounds an awful lot like robbery at gunpoint to me.
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expect to have to follow the social contract
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There is no such contract. Contracts are agreements, negotiated between two informed and consenting parties, and subject to re-negotiation only upon mutual consent. The so-called "Social Contract" is a fraud, a lie, and complete bullshit. It is not negotiated (obey or you'll be imprisoned or shot), it does not take place between two informed and consenting parties (obey or you'll be imprisoned or shot), and it is renegotiated on a near-constant basis by Party A, with legally and socially-legitimated force to back those "re-negotiations" up at will, while Party B is not allowed to renegotiate on any terms, for any reason, at any time. Even attempting to simply leave, to remove onesself from the alleged contract which has been forced upon one and is continually "re-negotiated" in the worst possible faith, is treated as a "crime" despite the lack of an individual human victim.
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It's also not the only thing that is different between the government and civilian law; if I shoot a Muslim in my neighborhood, I'm a murderer. If I shoot one in Afghanistan, I'm a Marine.
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Which is bullshit; murder is murder. To return to Voltaire; "Murder is wrong, and so murderers must be punished...unless, of course, they do their murders in large groups to the sound of trumpets."