My guess is about half the population will steal from others if the others are grouped [like insurance company money, big business money etc], though they mostly wouldn't steal from individuals. <Typically people want someone other than themselves to pay tax. >
Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that government, for the most part, is part of the Axis of Evil.
Not just in countries like North Korea, Iraq and other totalitarian states, but in the "free" countries too. Unfortunately, democracies seem to be mostly about voting to help yourself to other people's money. The saving grace of it is that they have only themselves to blame.
India can whine about the wicked British all they like, but it's themselves who keep themselves in penury. Any day they like, they can vote for free enterprise, open borders and turn people loose to do what they like without government thieves crushing the life out of them.
Americans have an authoritarian conformist bent and are increasing their self-repression and suffocating smothering of "for your own good" rules and voting for more of the same. With King George II, they seem to have decided to move a bit away from that, but what did they get? Process towards a police state, for your own good of course to protect you against terrorists.
I now consider paying taxes in NZ to be unethical, because they are using that money to fund a social 'welfare' system which is resulting in the terror, sexual abuse, torture and death of young children. The police are mostly fund-raising by giving speeding tickets instead of catching criminals who harm other people and steal their property. We have absurd speed limits and traffic-obstructing rules which mean everyone, and I mean everyone, is unable to avoid breaking and be reasonable. Criminals spend minimal time in prison for the most horrendous offences - though in the past year or two they have been increasing them somewhat.
State schools are bad for children. The health system is a sickness system, with overpaid quacks making a fortune. The taxpayer pays for their education, then pays again when they are charging huge fees. The supply is kept down to keep prices high. Many go to the USA where prices are even higher.
The list is long of financial destruction by the state. NZ has gone from number 3 in per capita GNP and number 1 in quality of life, to about number 25 or something way down there in the bottom of the OECD or top of the third world, to about number 3 in crime rates and number one in some social disasters. Everyone is scared to let their children out on the streets for fear of child murderers. Women cower in their houses at night and don't wander the streets or parks alone. Kyle Jones was knifed to death, naked and left face down in a stream 100 metres from her home at about 6.30 pm [winter, so dark], on the way home from work, along a suburban street, abducted as she walked past a park. The criminal had recently been released from prison - he had even said he didn't want to be released. He was there because he'd raped other women and committed many other crimes, in training for world championships. We [the government] = We the Sheople, let the training programmes run far too long and worse, we pay for it.
It's a literal horror story.
If people didn't pay taxes, it would reduce the amount of money they could give people like Taffy Hotene, the murdering rapist. If I avoid paying $100,000 over a few years, I might save 1 child or one woman. Hmm, no, statistically I wouldn't achieve that, because only a portion of government money contributes to child cruelty and social mayhem. Plenty of welfare is a good idea, which I'd support.
Countries with weak governments are even worse! By weak I don't mean strong-armed and vicious, I mean orderly, well-funded and ensuring protection of people, their property, contracts and that stuff.
It's a hot button for me. Once upon a time, in my youth, I thought it a good idea to have state welfare, because that way, all those needing help could be assured of help, whereas the hit and miss voluntary welfare system would mean people being left aside if they were not able to get help from somebody.
What I didn't know, was how hopeless governments are at doing things. How wasteful, negligent, incompetent and uncaring. Over the decades, I saw up close and personal how bad they are. So, now I'm a supporter of act.org.nz and libertarianz.org.nz
Mqurice
PS: A nephew's 20-something year old girlfriend was picked up off the street, disappeared for several days, and reappeared decomposing behind an industrial building. Marie Jamieson. crime.co.nz Murderer/s unidentified, though I believe they have his DNA. A classmate of my wife, Susan Burdett, was bludgeoned to death in her bedroom by an intruder, using a baseball bat she kept beside her bed for self-defence. We have 3 daughters and the rising panic when one went missing between a bus stop and a few hundred metres to home, was an unpleasant experience. I am old enough and jaded enough to know that people do odd things and yes, she had on the spur of the moment caught a bus back the other way to Newmarket. So, until I found her body in ditch or something, I assumed she was okay, but the feeling that she might right now be suffering the terrors of the process to death is not something Daddies like to have in their heads. We get malevolent feelings towards the perpetrators of such hideous acts. The government is producing more and more enthusiasts for such activity. World champions! |
