Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Dunedan
However, can you point to any passage (and I'm Catholic, so you've got an awful lot of leeway plus several more books I'll consider that most Protestants won't) in which Jesus tells his Disciples (or anyone else) to go out, take people's money from them by force, and use that money to pay for such things?
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It's not "by force", it's by contract. By being a citizen of a country, you are required to pay taxes to pay for services provided to you as a citizen. A government no more takes money by force than McDonalds takes your money by force when you order a hamburger and fries. You've agreed to an arrangement, and as such you are required to live up to your end. If you receive the services but do not pay, you are in breach of contract and thus are obviously subject to punitive measures. In the more fortunate countries, you can choose the legislators that put in place the rules and can vote on state and local government rules yourself, thus having the freedom to control your contract to a point.
If you do not want to pay the government for the services they provide, you can find another country with another contract more to your liking. I should warn you, though, a country with a very small government in which most are armed, taxes are very low, there are few to no social programs and there are no unions looks more like Somalia than it does the conservative's romanticized notion of pre-industrial America.