Parking Tickets and the “Consent of the Governed”

[David]

Quote<Question: If I go park in your yard... how will you make me leave without force?
I realize I initiated the aggression by parking on land I did not have claim to... but it would still take force to repel the aggression.>
I'm not a pacifist, so it is pretty easy for me to answer.  But the issue is the gov't frequently arbitrarily declares other persons property as theirs, THEN uses force to enforce their so-called property rights.  When they don't steal peoples land in this way, they force you to pay money, then buy the land with stolen money.  The foundation of gov't is that of theft.  A fundamental violation of any religious tenet I have ever heard of. 
I do not know the specifics of how the gov't got around to claiming a big chunk of downtown as theirs, but I do know the foundation of gov't is theft, so I don't really care. 

[John Edward Mercier]

It may have been donated. Belmont Fire Department was completely donations. Currently eight private roads are on warrant as the owner wishes to donate them to the town, but the residents must accept them. The town can even abandon a road/property, with abutting landowners having first denial if its is a road or small property.

Not sure we'll ever get to a private voluntary system, if means of payment for services is not direct.
The focus on indirect taxation for services will just further secure the present system.

[J’raxis 270145]

The foundation of gov't is that of theft.  A fundamental violation of any religious tenet I have ever heard of. 

Not really. The priests of the Old Testament were pretty grabby about other people's property, as were the established Christian denominations of old Europe—they called it a "tithe," but a tax by any other name is still a tax. I've always liked Thomas Paine's take on the revolt against Moses and Aaron in Numbers 16.

[J’raxis 270145]

I had been parking regularly at the cheaper parking spaces off the main drag, and feeding the meter.  At one point I even paid a batch of unpaid parking tickets I had accumulated.  My reasoning was that the metered spaces were convenient, and if they were privately owned, I would have no issue with dropping some change for the service.  Since I know the policy when I park there, and choose to park there anyway, I am implicitly consenting to their policy -- so I considered it my duty to pay the penalty for not keeping my end of the agreement by keeping the meter fed.

It's a good rationale that a lot of people use; I've done this myself. Even knowing that the "voluntary" fees the government charges are still predicated upon theft, at their base, it's still pretty easy to slip back into this line of thought in order to justify complying.

Another thing I plan to try to avoid is the highway tolls. If you need to map a trip out, Google's avoid highways checkbox comes in handy: For example, here's how to go from Manchester to Concord and avoid the I-93 toll.

[Caleb]

The foundation of gov't is that of theft.  A fundamental violation of any religious tenet I have ever heard of. 

Not really. The priests of the Old Testament were pretty grabby about other people's property, as were the established Christian denominations of old Europe—they called it a "tithe," but a tax by any other name is still a tax. I've always liked Thomas Paine's take on the revolt against Moses and Aaron in Numbers 16.

Wrong. Because it lacked enforcement, and compliance with the tithe was voluntary.
Also, bear in mind that Israel apportioned land by tribe, but that the tribe of Levi received no land inheritance. The tithe was his inheritance for being excluded from land ownership.

[KBCraig]

The priests of the Old Testament were pretty grabby about other people's property, as were the established Christian denominations of old Europe—they called it a "tithe," but a tax by any other name is still a tax.

I don't know about "old Europe", but in modern Europe, the churches are still grabby.

I was stationed in Germany from '86-'89. I always lived off post ("on the economy"), and spent most of my off-duty time with Germans, not Americans. From some friends discussing bills they'd received in the mail, I learned that if they declared a church membership but failed to tithe, the church would send the bill to the local government, which would then enforce payment.

This was a function of "registration", where every resident had to "register" with local government, declaring address, family ties, job, church affiliation (if any), etc. Gee, I was shocked to read that Euros declaring church membership had plummeted. 

[J’raxis 270145]

The foundation of gov't is that of theft.  A fundamental violation of any religious tenet I have ever heard of. 

Not really. The priests of the Old Testament were pretty grabby about other people's property, as were the established Christian denominations of old Europe—they called it a "tithe," but a tax by any other name is still a tax. I've always liked Thomas Paine's take on the revolt against Moses and Aaron in Numbers 16.

Wrong. Because it lacked enforcement, and compliance with the tithe was voluntary.

Wrong. My source. Yours?

Also, bear in mind that Israel apportioned land by tribe, but that the tribe of Levi received no land inheritance. The tithe was his inheritance for being excluded from land ownership.

I could go off on what right they had to "apportion" that land in the first place, too, but we're threadjacking so I won't.

[J’raxis 270145]

The priests of the Old Testament were pretty grabby about other people's property, as were the established Christian denominations of old Europe—they called it a "tithe," but a tax by any other name is still a tax.

I don't know about "old Europe", but in modern Europe, the churches are still grabby.

I was stationed in Germany from '86-'89. I always lived off post ("on the economy"), and spent most of my off-duty time with Germans, not Americans. From some friends discussing bills they'd received in the mail, I learned that if they declared a church membership but failed to tithe, the church would send the bill to the local government, which would then enforce payment.

This was a function of "registration", where every resident had to "register" with local government, declaring address, family ties, job, church affiliation (if any), etc. Gee, I was shocked to read that Euros declaring church membership had plummeted. 

The tithing in modern Europe is voluntary—it's collected by the government on behalf of the Church, and if you don't pay it, the Church simply denies services and expels you as a member. In mediæval times and up until Church membership became voluntary (what I was referring to as old Europe), the tithing wasn't voluntary either.

From the Wikipedia article I linked in the previous post, it looks like they extracted tithes in some cases by attaching the obligation to property titles. So I can see someone making an argument for them being "voluntary," but only if one similarly believes modern property taxes, environmental restrictions, &c., on property, is "voluntary."

[Caleb]

Wrong. My source. Yours?

Well, how can I compete with a wikipedia entry?

The great thing about Jewish law is that it is codified in a book with the largest circulation in the history of the world. At the risk of sounding like Ed Brown:  Show me the law!  Show me the enforcement provision of the tithe. The tithe was often not payed, and if you read prophets like Malachi, the people were told things like "If you pay the tithe, God will bless you with more than you can ever want". Israel didn't have prisons, for chrissakes. Other than the routine stoning for sexual "sins", it was a libertarian paradise.

[J’raxis 270145]

Wrong. My source. Yours?

Well, how can I compete with a wikipedia entry?

The great thing about Jewish law is that it is codified in a book with the largest circulation in the history of the world. At the risk of sounding like Ed Brown:  Show me the law!  Show me the enforcement provision of the tithe. The tithe was often not payed, and if you read prophets like Malachi, the people were told things like "If you pay the tithe, God will bless you with more than you can ever want". Israel didn't have prisons, for chrissakes. Other than the routine stoning for sexual "sins", it was a libertarian paradise.

The Wikipedia entry linked to the actual sources in the Old Testament, for example, Numbers 18:21–28. Note all the uses of shall in the various verses mentioning the tithe—shall indicates something is mandatory.

Your request for evidence of enforcement clauses is beyond what should be required to prove the mandatory nature of the tithe—our secular laws are considered mandatory due to their use of shall, and usually contain no enforcement clauses. The enforcement is usually in an entirely separate chapter defining police forces and their purposes, &c.. So, if you need to see specific enforcement clauses, I'd only have to locate one of the many clauses in the book describing what God does to people who disobey his law, in general.

That it was often not paid says nothing about its being mandated. People break the law and get away with it all the time.

That Israel had no prisons says nothing, either—punishments back then usually involved death, corporal punishment, fines, or ostracism.

[Caleb]

Well, I think we're parsing words here. The fact of the matter is that, in Israel, tithes were "mandatory" in the sense that God said to pay them, and it was generally agreed that people should do what God said. It wasn't mandatory in the sense that, if people didn't pay them, nothing happened to them. Which is ultimately what I care about.

I also differ with you because I think it was unjust *not* to pay the tithe. If you exclude a whole group of people from land ownership, what obligations does that put on you for those people's welfare? It's not like the levites were the wealthy class. Nor were they particularly influential. Most of the time, they were not carrying out priestly duties, as they would go to Jerusalem for their prescribed time of service, and then leave when it was over. Where were they supposed to live? There was a land tithe, and levite cities, but nothing approaching the land apportionment of the other tribes. In an agricultural society, what were these people supposed to do? And keep in mind that the levite cities were the cities of refuge, so they also had the burden to care for refugees.

You can make a good case that the Levites should have been given a land apportionment. But given that they weren't, I don't think that the tithe (which was in all practical terms optional) was a "greedy" or "grabby" provision.

[J’raxis 270145]

Well, that gets to the underlying thing about priests, in most any religion—instead of working for a living, they get to live off of the backs of others, while providing "services" that they themselves claim that you need. The parallels with modern bureaucrats really are amazing.

I should have known not to use a biblical example on a forum with so many Christian Anarchists. If I'd made my point about priests and taxes by picking on the Romans or Egyptians or somesuch, no one would've argued and I probably wouldn't have caused this threadjack.

[Russell Kanning]

but you didn't have to pay ... you could be a visitor or just noncooperator ... and you were not jailed or stoned. It was a contract ... a group you joined or left. In early american history they punished people for not paying church taxes or tithes ... I don't think we should follow that example.

[Caleb]

Well, that gets to the underlying thing about priests, in most any religion—instead of working for a living, they get to live off of the backs of others, while providing "services" that they themselves claim that you need. The parallels with modern bureaucrats really are amazing.

The parallels are only amazing if you don't consider spiritual services to be anything of value. I believe that a good pastor renders an amazingly undervalued service to the community, and ought to be compensated just as a good doctor or a good carpenter would be, by those who find value in his service.

[Russell Kanning]

and if not ... he will have to do something else