Quote of the Day
Taxes are nothing more than time-share slavery.
Mike Hines
July 8, 2026
Comment to It is Not a Right if Someone Else has to Provide It
To be fair, Mike was rephrasing Divemedic.
In related news, communism is full-time slavery.
The View From North Central Idaho
Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
Particularly when it is supporting people living in idleness.
You work 106 days before your tax burden is fulfilled; two-thirds of that is on entitlement programs. So call it 71 days working so other people can eat 365. You’re 19.3% a slave.
Might quibble about exactly which part of entitlement programs constitute you working in bondage to pay for someone else’s bread, but to be sure, it’s not a small percentage of your life.
In essence, this means that it takes five and change productive tax payers to fund a single parasite.
Joy.
Sort of like “those who you are not allowed to criticize without serious consequences” are the ones in charge, when significant portions of that money is being paid to foreigners here grafting the system, it’s not just slavery it’s also tribute.
That is overstatement…
… but not by nearly as much as I’d like.
Um, no. Taxes are a method for achieving common goals, and that method was established and agreed upon by your ancestors. We have a process for increasing or decreasing them, including to zero. You may not like them, and you’re free to present your argument to everyone else as to why we should get rid of them, and if your argument is good you’ll win the vote and taxes will go away. That’s not slavery.
We have taxes because nobody’s come up with a better idea for achieving common goals in a monetary economy. Are you suggesting we privatize the military? The court system? Feel free to make the argument, but the fact that you’re not winning that argument doesn’t mean you’re a slave.
Your argument is not “slavery is the wrong word”, but “this is a good thing that we are doing”.
Perhaps it makes you uncomfortable to see “slavery” used for it (it certainly does me), but that doesn’t definitionally mean it is inaccurate.
I made no judgement as to whether taxes are good or bad, only that they aren’t slavery.
Correct. Not slavery. Time-share slavery. By agreeing to keep your citizenship, you buy into the time-share, with all of its benefits and costs. And good luck changing the deal if you decide you don’t like it. You’ll be punished severely for failing to make your contribution in both cases.
Slavery by any historical definition includes the notion that you can’t escape, and that it’s involuntary. It’s not something you “buy in” to. You can make an argument we should re-define the word, but I think it does a rather profound disservice to those people brought to the Americas chained in a boat’s cargo hold, and to anyone in modern times who is subjected to something similar, when you compare their experience to buying a bad deal on a condo.
I wasn’t questioning your judgement, only your argument – you didn’t touch on the actual point.
Really? ’cause the OP is “taxes are x” where x is a word that doesn’t make sense in that construction. I just pointed out that fact. Seems pretty on point to me.
I suppose having the Federal government fund itself from import tariffs and export fees like it did for the first several decades of the nation along with an absolutely draconian cut in Federal spending is not worth considering?
If the tax was 100% of your income and the government gave you your life necessities in return, would that be slavery?
Depends. Was my entry into that situation involuntary, and/or can I leave it? Both are requirements under any historical definition of the word. If I voted the tax in, and have the opportunity to vote the tax out, then no. If I can leave the country for a different one with different rules, then no.
There was a time I’d have felt worse about a non-binary definition of slavery, but since the word Fascist has been used to describe just about everything (including my old vet for participating in animal domestication and enslavement), I’m willing to be less rigid with my usage in this case.
Re: “We have taxes because nobody’s come up with a better idea for achieving common goals in a monetary economy. Are you suggesting we privatize the military? The court system? Feel free to make the argument, but the fact that you’re not winning that argument doesn’t mean you’re a slave.”
You can put all of the lipstick on a pig that you like, but it is still a pig.
You mention “common goals,” but that’s a cop-out. Taxes fund programs that were started long before most of us were born and about which we had no voice yea or nay – yet we are compelled under force of law (by men with guns and badges) to pay money into that system anyway.
You’ve lived so long under the current model of how services are provided that you seem incapable of imagining fairer and better-working alternatives. Almost all of the so-called “services” provided by the govt. can be provided by private-sector alternatives which would be voluntary in terms of participation.
My spouse and I don’t have children, yet every year a portion of what we make goes to pay for public schooling. Why should we be on the hook for the cost of educating someone else’s child? What’s worse, the schools aren’t even doing that well, but that’s another matter. If it isn’t slavery – involuntary servitude – to be compelled to take part in such an arrangement, then what should we call it?
The “government” is a racket in which ordinary people are compelled to participate. They have a pretty sweet gig going. Quite honestly, the mafia are nothing compared to them.
Care to guess who the biggest breaker of laws in the U.S. happens to be? Yep, the U.S. govt. itself.
Case in point: If the Fed decides to “increase the money supply,” they create a few billion more in some computer someplace and disburse it. Maybe they even fire up the presses at the Treasury Dept. and print off some “Federal Reserve Notes,” a.k.a. dollars.
It’s all legal and on the up-and-up they tell us, since govt. is doing it.
You or me, on the other hand, if we “print money” to increase the money supply, agents from the Secret Service raid our homes and charge us with counterfeiting.
Rules, doncha know, are for the little people….
Don’t even get me started about the injustice of a system that compels Joe/Jane Sixpack to work to support illegal aliens with their hard-earned tax dollars. If that isn’t slavery, please tell me what is!
You seem to be ignoring the election system: if you don’t like what we’re funding, get out there and support candidates who will change it, or better yet run for office yourself and make it happen. The budget isn’t set in stone, in fact it changes every year quite radically.
You’re also ignoring the option of leaving: slaves don’t get to leave, that’s the whole point of the chains. And yet you stay…I’m guessing because it’s better here than anywhere else. Just because there isn’t a better option doesn’t mean there are *no* options, which means you’re not a slave to anything but your own desires.
John brings up an interest point. Taxes are the only way to fund government services. He also mentioned disagreeing about how much taxes should be collected at what is effectively gunpoint by government revenue agents, and what it should be spent on.
His statements make a very persuasive argument for “Minarchist” government. Absolutely bare bones, because a far greater number of taxpayers can agree on that. I’m a firm believer is “Sic vis pacem, para bellum”. So I believe in funding a strong and effective military, if possible without bloating the defense industry with my money. I also believe in well equipped and trained fire departments / emergency medical staff. I think government should set standards and enforce patents and regulate the “Commonwealth”. I’m unhappy with the politicalization of the FCC but someone must apportion radio frequencies or it becomes very unusable for all. I think most other things the Federal government currently controls should be uncontrolled or left to the individual states to regulate as stated in the 10th Amendment. I figure Federal taxes should max out at 6 or 7 percent of gross income for billionaires. And everyone who’s a voting citizen should pay 1 or 2 percent minimum. If you don’t pay property taxes, you don’t vote!
Armed robbery really.