All the posers here thinking they are very smart, while never asking similar “stupid” questions about their own political ideologies.
In general, smart people ask stupid questions about everything.
As of this specific question, there are various possible answers:
Crowdfunding;
Custom fees as a source of income;
Close to taxes, but paying some fixed fee, like a membership fee.
Variants which are taxes, but relevant for the question in spirit:
Georgism;
Only one simple income tax, only one simple property tax, no other taxes;
Deciding every citizen’s payment into budget on a popular vote every N years (may even make it not a sum, but a percentage of property or something), as the average of submitted numbers or something.
Not a sovcit, but they do have a point in saying “fuck you” to the authority.
Not a sovcit, but they do have a point in saying “fuck you” to the authority.
No they don’t. Fighting “authority” for the sake of it stupid and meaningless because it’s so vague it’s dangerous. You fight the injustice or the lack of transparency, but what you prescribe as “authority” could be anything from schools that educate to laws that protect to support of groups you don’t belong to.
If you said “Authoritarianism”, you’d have a point.
I think this person just assumes, whether consciously or not, that everyone questioning them is just a big, monolithic, mass that they are superior to, and therefore it doesn’t matter that they are addressing a number of different people, and critiques, the same way.
To be fair to this idiot, social media can feel like that sometimes when everybody disagrees with you. Different people have different techniques to handle that. Some just shut up, others like them just double down and get absolutely rekt.
What part of “Nope, they’re right. You are not owed any respect by anyone” makes me singled out for you not wanted to be respected by? Because that is the comment I authored and you said that is why you didn’t want respect from me.
Archimedes designed siege devices and died at Siracuse. Him designing siege devices is not the reason for him dying.
I agree that nobody owes me respect (I actually like it, because it removes the balancing part) and I’d not want respect from you. The latter is not a consequence of the former.
Also “I’d not want respect from you” in natural languages can mean “I want no respect from you” or literal meaning, I meant the latter.
Either you don’t want my respect because I agree with you or you don’t want my respect because you think Jiggle_Physics and I are the same person. There is no third option here, sorry. A follows B.
A company may not be able to afford prolonging contracts without raising prices, but otherwise be able to fulfill this role.
Maybe people shouldn’t settle in places too prone to fires.
Maybe there’s some regulation involved in the first sentence which won’t be in ancap.
Whatever. Ancap being worse than alternative in some criterion doesn’t mean defeat of ancap, ancap being better in some other criterion doesn’t mean victory of ancap.
Dude, you can’t solve the problem of fighting fires for everyone regardless of where they live or how much money they have, something we’ve already solved.
From where? You didn’t fund enough to have a fire department. And since you’re so clever as to not pay for support services, wait to you see the cost of your exceptional insurance…
Folks, we either have a sovcit who discovered this group or an anarchist-type just stirring up shit.
This person said below that people should be forced to live in an ancap world even though almost no one wants to, so I think this is some weird form of fascism.
You are ignorant of basic facts about markets. You guys need to go out more, you’d understand why the world is the way it is, and what can be done about it, instead of fantasizing about dystopic worlds. You really are the flat-Earthers of politics.
Also, what road are the trucks gunna drive on? Cause the trucks are gunna have to carry their own water since there’s no public water lines running for them to use. And all that weight is gunna be hell to drive on dirt roads
Did you really choose which firestation was gonna send a truck?? That’s the problem with using a “free market” argument for emergencies, yeah sure it’s great to choose between different emergency providers when there’s nothing happening.
But when a fire starts or you have a heart attack? The nearest Ambulance or Fire Truck that can get you is coming to get you, and you don’t (and can’t) have a choice in which Hospital they’re gonna rush you to, or which fire station that truck came from, all that matters is that it came
Imagine being the first person to answer without insults or smug stupidity since I first commented under this post, and I wasn’t insulting others then.
Did you really choose which firestation was gonna send a truck?? That’s the problem with using a “free market” argument for emergencies, yeah sure it’s great to choose between different emergency providers when there’s nothing happening.
Yes. You need to have at least twice as many firestations to have a choice, if you want to choose between fire services, though.
Or if we are talking only about choosing between insurance companies, then there’s no problem, but with only one fire service and some imagined jungle capitalism you’ll have a problem, because it’ll be very expensive as a monopolist.
I don’t see a problem with having twice as many firestations, as in two parallel services. They don’t have only one landline at the firestation after all. They have HA in any mass service system.
This all is unimportant, though, since it ignores the fact that something like a state fire service, only one separate from police, military and others and with administration formed separately from them is still allowable for ancap. Where membership would be like citizenship in our world, and a member gets the service on usual conditions (but pays something like taxes), while a non-member will pay a lot that one time. It’s similar to state healthcare being free for citizens, but not for foreign nationals in some countries.
Notice how it requires no coercion or monopoly, so perfectly acceptable for ancap.
But when a fire starts or you have a heart attack?
Yes. You need to have at least twice as many firestations to have a choice, if you want to choose between fire services, though.
You’re gonna sit there on your phone trying to decide which fire service to use while your house is literally burning down?
What about people who rent? It’s not their own private property, are they supposed to pay for the whole building being saved? Does it get put on the landlord? He never consented to having his building saved, his tenants just called the fire station when a fire started. Are the tenants supposed to contact their landlord first so that he can properly consent to having a fire station save his property?
I don’t see a problem with having twice as many firestations, as in two parallel services. They don’t have only one landline at the firestation after all. They have HA in any mass service system.
Well other than now having to pay for double the amount of infrastructure, you now also probably have people who own and profit off the stations, which introduces every normal market pressure, positive and corrupting.
Notice how it requires no coercion
“Pay our massive fee or your house burns down” certainly sounds coercive. You’ve also not established anything to guarantee that a fire station doesn’t develop a monopoly.
See my solution.
If your solution to serious and urgent emergencies like “Oh my god, my house is on fire” or “Oh my god, I’m having a heart attack” is several paragraphs long, you’ve not actually developed a solution, just a hypothetical which shows painfully obviously why we stopped running society like this millenia ago.
You’re gonna sit there on your phone trying to decide which fire service to use while your house is literally burning down?
Why “trying to decide”? One may have some kind of subscription etc. Also finding one quickly, like with taxi and food delivery services, is a demand to be filled. Markets and such.
What about people who rent? It’s not their own private property, are they supposed to pay for the whole building being saved? Does it get put on the landlord? He never consented to having his building saved, his tenants just called the fire station when a fire started. Are the tenants supposed to contact their landlord first so that he can properly consent to having a fire station save his property?
It seems you haven’t read the paragraph about separation.
Well other than now having to pay for double the amount of infrastructure, you now also probably have people who own and profit off the stations, which introduces every normal market pressure, positive and corrupting.
You’ll pay less, that’s for sure, ask anyone who’ve worked with state services and big organizations. At their job, I mean. I have.
“Pay our massive fee or your house burns down” certainly sounds coercive. You’ve also not established anything to guarantee that a fire station doesn’t develop a monopoly.
It seems you haven’t read the paragraph about separation.
If your solution to serious and urgent emergencies like “Oh my god, my house is on fire” or “Oh my god, I’m having a heart attack” is several paragraphs long, you’ve not actually developed a solution, just a hypothetical which shows painfully obviously why we stopped running society like this millenia ago.
It seems you haven’t read the paragraph about separation. Which is one (1) paragraph, not several. Also no, it doesn’t show anything, because you haven’t read it and can’t make such claims.
The paragraph about separation:
This all is unimportant, though, since it ignores the fact that something like a state fire service, only one separate from police, military and others and with administration formed separately from them is still allowable for ancap. Where membership would be like citizenship in our world, and a member gets the service on usual conditions (but pays something like taxes), while a non-member will pay a lot that one time. It’s similar to state healthcare being free for citizens, but not for foreign nationals in some countries.
Now what I don’t understand is why you all refuse to read before commenting.
Why “trying to decide”? One may have some kind of subscription etc. Also finding one quickly, like with taxi and food delivery services, is a demand to be filled. Markets and such.
So you want every person to have to pay for a fire subscription? And if they don’t have one their house burns down or they get extorted?
You’ll pay less, that’s for sure, ask anyone who’ve worked with state services and big organizations. At their job, I mean. I have.
You certainly may have interacted with government during your career, but hearing this is all I needed to hear. There’s nothing objectively different between Government and Private products, sure the private product may be cheaper sometimes, but there’s also plenty of ways the private service could be more expensive, that’s why every business, including the one I used to run, has conversations about cost vs. benefit of private vs. public for certain services.
It seems you haven’t read the paragraph about separation. Which is one (1) paragraph, not several. Also no, it doesn’t show anything, because you haven’t read it and can’t make such claims.
I have read it, I just didn’t mention it because not only was it irrelevant, it was also wildly incorrect, government services can compete with eachother, and private companies can have a monopoly even without government intervention.
So you want every person to have to pay for a fire subscription? And if they don’t have one their house burns down or they get extorted?
That’s what you have now, only it’s provided by the state. Well, if you don’t have one, you are either an illegal alien or have it free or prosecuted for not paying taxes.
There’s nothing objectively different between Government and Private products, sure the private product may be cheaper sometimes, but there’s also plenty of ways the private service could be more expensive, that’s why every business, including the one I used to run, has conversations about cost vs. benefit of private vs. public for certain services.
I agree, it’s mostly about size and organization, not about ownership.
because not only was it irrelevant, it was also wildly incorrect, government services can compete with eachother, and private companies can have a monopoly even without government intervention.
Well, I’m looking at it and I see it as relevant. Yes, they can, but it’s not necessary for them to be part of the same structure. Yes, they can, but they may be organizations like Mozilla with the supposed goal of delivering the service, not profit. So just like with state services, but separated where no monolithic organization is really required. Also I haven’t said what you are arguing with, so it can’t be wildly incorrect if I haven’t said it, obviously.
There’s a fundamental difference between most private entities and public entities: the profit motive, which is the reason why private companies’ interests are misaligned with the interests of the people they’re meant to serve in a lot of cases.
The search for profit is the source of a lot of waste of resources that would be better used providing actual services (eg. Marketing for a fire station makes zero sense).
Of course, this applies to entities that provide services and not those that build your phones.
There’s a fundamental difference between most private entities and public entities
But not the products they make, a government made screwdriver and a private made screwdriver are gonna be basically the exact same, the only difference being price and the market forces that the producer is impacted by.
The thread was about services (like fire stations, police stations and the likes), so I think it’s relevant to mention that markets are very often ill-suited to provide the best services you can get (and they’re often more expensive than public options, too).
Well other than now having to pay for double the amount of infrastructure, you now also probably have people who own and profit off the stations, which introduces every normal market pressure, positive and corrupting.
But you’re right, maybe I should’ve hammered harder specifically on market forces, but Ancaps treat the market as their god so I was trying to avoid it.
You’re such a clown, mr. Superior. The fact that you can proudly claim you’re smarter than everybody else while arguing for the stupidest shit speaks volumes. Thank you, I needed a good laugh this morning
Honestly at this point you either seem like you’re trolling or you’re very passionate but haven’t done your research beyond reading a few articles years ago without following up or verifying their sources.
Then when people point out the flaws you go into personal attack mode
No one’s distorting your words, that’s literally what you said, you literally said the government could fund themselves through crowdfunding, it’s right there, you said it.
How the hell would that work. People already dodge taxes that they have required to pay, I WAS if you’re not required to pay taxes then they definitely won’t do it at all.
I don’t need to rearrange your words to make them sound stupid.
I said it can be one of the sources of income and it already is in the form of war bonds and donations.
How the hell would that work. People already dodge taxes that they have required to pay, I WAS if you’re not required to pay taxes then they definitely won’t do it at all.
Some dodge taxes, some donate. I’ve donated to some things. Many others did.
You need something, you want something done, you have a motivation.
But how is any of that better than the current system of taxes which will ensure they get money?
It doesn’t seem like relying on the good will of people could possibly work. And I don’t see how the richer incentivized to pay literally anybody anything at all.
This all seems like the sort of thing a hippie comes out with, but they’re allowed to come out with that kind of rubbish because their brains are permanently suzzled, so what’s your excuse?
But how is any of that better than the current system of taxes which will ensure they get money?
Ideological problem, where you can’t opt out.
It doesn’t seem like relying on the good will of people could possibly work. And I don’t see how the richer incentivized to pay literally anybody anything at all.
This has some similarities with wind as a source of renewable energy. It’s one of the inputs, not all of the budget.
In this particular line of the list there’s no incentive other than goodwill.
This all seems like the sort of thing a hippie comes out with, but they’re allowed to come out with that kind of rubbish because their brains are permanently suzzled, so what’s your excuse?
I don’t need any excuse for thinking about possible solutions. I’d argue people with such reactions to those do.
And since you said “this all”, other points are not reliant on goodwill. If by excuse you jokingly meant the reason we can’t do with usual taxes - because of corruption in the wide sense. Unfair advantages gotten by some companies paying full taxes and other getting exemptions in various ways, bribe money finding more targets in a complex bendable system, imbalance of interests affecting lawmakers though the way the budget is comprised.
Wrong post. All things mentioned are about one centralized state.
The reason for them instead of usual taxes is to make it harder to embezzle taxes and reduce motivation to corrupt the state apparatus. You’ve heard that before, it was the usual republican shit.
they do have a point in saying “fuck you” to the authority.
The don’t say “fuck you” though - they say “gotcha!”. The way I understand it, the Sovereign Citizens Movement is a cargo cult. They hear about all the billionaires who barely pay taxes thanks to clever accounting and all the criminals who escape punishment on technicalities, and figure that “if the law can be manipulated - why can’t we manipulate it?”
Do they “have a point”? Maybe, in the same way alchemy had a point that lead and gold are made of the same fundamental matter and therefore one can be converted to the other. In the same way humoralist medicine had a point that the human body has various substances that must be balanced to maintain health. They’ve all had a point in that they’ve managed to glimpse at the nature of the problem - and they all fail by grossly underestimating the actual complexity of the model and the amount of effort, resources and expertise required to achieve their goals.
I wouldn’t be surprised if an expert legal team could achieve some of the things SovCits are trying to achieve. But that would require lots of hard work from them, and SovCits have managed to convince themselves that all it takes is a few magic phrases. I leave it to anthropologists to figure out how they came to think they could so easily figure out what these magic phrases are.
The way I understand it, the Sovereign Citizens Movement is a cargo cult. They hear about all the billionaires who barely pay taxes thanks to clever accounting and all the criminals who escape punishment on technicalities, and figure that “if the law can be manipulated - why can’t we manipulate it?”
Ah, there is that, yes. There are people who believe that law is some magic where they can prove anything if they know it well enough and know some secrets.
It’s not a bad belief, frankly. They want to prove something they consider right, so they believe the law would be on their side if they worked hard enough. Just naive, but not worth ridicule.
In the sense that its connection to justice is not 1-to-1 they are right, but there are no secrets that bend it, just raw real power which a sovereign citizen doesn’t possess.
I wouldn’t be surprised if an expert legal team could achieve some of the things SovCits are trying to achieve. But that would require lots of hard work from them, and SovCits have managed to convince themselves that all it takes is a few magic phrases. I leave it to anthropologists to figure out how they came to think they could so easily figure out what these magic phrases are.
Oh, you already said that.
I don’t know what you mean by “figure out” (as in what else there is to figure out), but this is indeed a common enough plot point in fairy tales.
I was talking about the emotional part where right and common sense matter more than the law. The law is supported by force, so it’s morally acceptable to use force to protect right and common sense against it. Oh, well, speaking of USA, that’s in their Constitution anyway, and what’s more important, those founding fathers they like to mention have many times said that this is a natural principle and the Constitution doesn’t create or support it, just mentions it.
Sovcits believe most of the laws are corrupted or something like this, so these things are better as they are simpler and can even be put into constitutional law or something.
I’ve never met one, we have “citizens of USSR” where I live.
You’re definitely misunderstanding this post. Yeah, there’s value in bucking authority. But you’re also just describing taxes. It sounds like you’ve read up on the modern form of libertarianism. Which is another crock.
The problem isn’t that they’re questioning authority. Generally most people (especially on lemmy) are down with that. We’re talking about the leaps of illogic that sovcits rest their entire belief system on. This post is to highlight the absurd hypocrisy in what they preach. Not to call their disobedience of authority foolish, but their methods and entirely unfounded beliefs.
You mean that they are imagining a phantom republic so resilient that they can live by its “true” laws while most people violate them day and night, and that these “true” laws make functioning of said republic impossible?
Many people believe in rule of law, yet revolutions and forceful changes are a necessity, states recognize facts made against existing law all the time, every state and system in existence has been erected by illegal violence, and with all that many say that another revolution (in hypothetical scenario, not right now) would somehow be less legal than existing systems. There’s a clear contradiction here, the only answer to which is usually that the current situation is in common interest and you can’t do that, because “fuck around and find out”.
There are such contradictions in free speech, of which everyone here certainly knows - one can use free speech to kill free speech. There are such contradictions in property rights, as everyone ridiculing ancaps certainly knows. There are such contradictions in personal freedom. There was another example but I think I’m writing too much. Got this habit while learning English at school.
But you’re also just describing taxes. It sounds like you’ve read up on the modern form of libertarianism. Which is another crock.
I’ve read up on many forms of it. Yes, I’m literally listing ways to make taxes acceptable for a libertarian.
TL;DR: Nobody employs pure ideology. If sovcits were to make their own state, they’d have taxes with the reasoning that these are necessary in practice. Same as NEP in Soviet Russia.
How very libertarian of you. Who’s going to make me pay those “not tax” taxes? Your private military? Well, my private military is bigger so I say NO to your desire for my money.
This post is not about libertarianism, idiot. Bunch of lefties overloaded me with their bullshit yesterday and now the slow ones come to have a shot, thinking those of yesterday didn’t buttfuck themselves publicly with triumphant look.
In general when you are doing such things like they did instead of normal discussion, you are robbing yourself of an ability to make a case for your wrong opinion.
You merely stating things doesn’t make them right. But keep believin’ I suppose. You got plenty of rational arguments yesterday, too bad you weren’t able to respond to them 🤷♀️
Are SovCits against the concept of taxation in general? I thought they just convinced themselves they have loopholes that allow them to avoid it personally…
The ones I’ve seen posted here seem to want all of the benefits of living in a society without any of the restrictions or responsibilities that go along with it. Taxation is just one part of that.
Some think they shouldn’t even have to pay other things, basically believing that there’s a part of loans that is voluntary and their esoteric knowledge means they can just get loans and not pay them back, which itself comes from a misunderstanding of how the rich use loans to get to spend their assets and keep them.
That misunderstanding itself is that there’s an overall fair system in place, if you have the esoteric knowledge to use it, and you just have to know what magic words to use to make judges agree with you and police back off. They don’t realize that the rich following a different set of rules isn’t based on fairness under a secret system, it’s based on the soft power that comes with being rich and having the resources to make someone’s life better or worse with a phone call.
Sovereign citizen. People who think the law is magic, and also not at all what it is as printed. They think if they string enough legal references together, they don’t have to pay taxes, have a magic clone of themselves that accrues debt for them and other equally insane bullshit.
The “sovereign citizen” in Russia seem to believe that they are citizens of the Soviet Union, funnily enough:
A Russian movement of conspiracy theorists, known among other names as the Union of Slavic Forces of Russia (Soyuz slavyanskikh sil Rusi), or more informally as “Soviet Citizens”, holds that the Soviet Union still exists de jure and that the current Russian government and legislation are thus illegitimate. One of its beliefs is that the government of the Russian Federation is an offshore company through which the United States illegally controls the country.
Every country seems to have their share of those crackpots. In Germany they think pretty much the same, except it’s the Reich (the WW1 one) that’s still totally real.