In the last thirty years America has been having a very great debate about the legalities and moral issues related to reproductive rights. A few years ago when discussing whether there should be public funding for abortion, President Bush made a statement that people should not have to fund something they are morally opposed to. In this case abortion rights activists would no longer have to pay for abortions that they do not support, but what if someone were opposed to other government programs? What if one was a pacifist, does that mean he or she does not have to support the military? What if one is tired of paying for everyone else’s education and is tired of paying property taxes? Does that mean we no longer have to pay taxes on projects we don’t like?

Of course not. We are forced to pay our “fair share” for each and every government program, no matter how much we enjoy it. There’s really a problem with this. If you were a company that knew everyone would buy your service regardless of how good it was, would you do very much to try to keep them happy and like you? Chances are you would not. This is the same issue that the government finds itself in. Regardless of how bad a service from the government is, people still have to use it. Nearly every single financial person would get out of the Social Security system if they could because it is such a bad investment, but it’s not an option.

That still leaves one question un-answered. Are taxes theft? Let’s say there is a government program that you are vehemently opposed to for whatever reason, it doesn’t matter what the program is. Then you decide that you are not going to support that program and remove whatever percentage of your taxes would go to fund that program when you pay your taxes and include a little not on your tax return that says, “I don’t support program XYZ, so I am not going to pay for it this year.” What would happen?

First you would get a letter from the IRS telling you that you owe them money, and then they would start to tack on fees because you didn’t settle the issue immediately. Eventually they would come after you and arrest you for tax evasion. What if you didn’t want to be arrested and you defended your property because some police officers were trespassing without your permission? You would be labeled an evil cop killer, all because you didn’t want to pay for some lousy government program and you actually had the guts to make a moral stand against something that was forced upon us by the government. If that’s not theft, What is?



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