Pro-choicers must be anti-tax, no?

[doucy]

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The prisoner's dillema. If you believe the government can act as a useful tool to force people to cooperate, this could be better than everyone on their own.

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Better for whom, and by what definition of "better"? You might think you're making things better, but the people you are coercing might think otherwise.

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On the other hand, no one is forcing you to live in a particular country... You can just leave.

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True. But then I guess all authoritative activity can be justified. The government wants to murder you? Quit yer bitchin, you can always leave.

[soon2bepro]

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The prisoner's dillema. If you believe the government can act as a useful tool to force people to cooperate, this could be better than everyone on their own.

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Better for whom, and by what definition of "better"? You might think you're making things better, but the people you are coercing might think otherwise.


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

Better for all individuals.

I agree with most of what AC proposes, but I can't yet get around the prisoner's dillema. Sure you can say the iterated prisoner's dillema, but I don't think that works.

See for example, if you and me and 2,000,000 other americans are concerned about national security, we can pay for it if it's +EV. I understand that. But if I choose to claim I don't care about it, you can never know that I'm just freeriding on the rest of you.

You can say that it's still +EV for you to pay for it, but that doesn't mean I haven't stold from you.

If it's +EV for you to run a company even when I'm stealing profit from it, that doesn't mean you're ok with me stealing a portion of your company's profits.

This applies to other areas aswell, such as outright theft, violence, enviromental issues, etc.

Now I'm not saying a government is great at preventing these, but at least theoretically it should be better than no government at all. However that doesn't mean I think it's ok for a few people to take decisions for many. I think it'd be better if everyone had a say in decisions. Direct democracy FTW. Though not necessarily 1 man = 1 vote: I think what each person is considered to contribute to society should have at least some weight here.

Also as others may have pointed out, when you can own land, you can easily establish unpenetrable monopolies in mostly every field in the market.
You say taxation is theft, and I partially agree with that, but land ownership is a much more serious and undeniable theft.

Bottomline is, I'm a pro-choicer because I don't think abortions can be said to directly, materially affect anyone else other than the mother. (I don't consider fetuses to be a "someone"). I'm not so sure about being anti-tax because your not being taxated does materially affect others. And I don't think taxation is fundamentally wrong, even though it tends to be.