Property ownership doesn't exist without threat of violence. What's to stop me taking the phone you're holding? It's the threat of violence from you or society in general.
Money and taxes are just abstractions on top of the property ownership one, if you want to get rid of taxes you'll need to get rid of property ownership. Many cultures were this way.
It's not self defense because you aren't defending yourself in this scenario, you're defending your property. It's only your property because you can defend it, but most of the time you won't have to because we all agree that you own it.
The same goes for money, you're money is your property because we all agree it is, especially in the modern world where their is no physical item and inherent value. All the money you have is worthless if we decide it no longer has value. One of the trade offs for us deciding that your money has value is that we tax it.
> Personally I steal from people as much as I desire to. Which is none at all
That would be great in a universe that never has bad actors, that is not this universe.
>>It's only your property because you can defend it, but most of the time you won't have to because we all agree that you own it.
No, it's your property because you created it, or were willed it by someone who did. The basis of a right to property is the same basis as a right to your person: the inherently moral right for one to make exclusive use of unclaimed matter that they appropriated and reconfigured into more valuable matter.
If we don't have a moral right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources, then we don't have a moral right to our body.
Our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees the granting of a right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources to reconfigure it into higher value economic resources for our own exclusive use, as just.
> Our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees the granting of a right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources to reconfigure it into higher value economic resources for our own exclusive use, as just.
Just as our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees taxation as just. But just because we see something as useful and just doesn't mean there is an inherent moral underpinning to it.
> if we don't have a moral right to appropriate unclaimed and abundant natural resources, then we don't have a moral right to our body.
Maybe we don't have this inherent right? It is a fairly recent development for most humans. That's not to say that we shouldn't uphold this right, just that it's not inherent.
>>Just as our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees taxation as just.
Our commen sense has nothing to do with support for income taxation. The system of taxation is too complex, and has too many intermediaries, for the typical person to fully assess it in all of its moral dimensions.
If it were laid bare, without layers of intermediaries obfuscating its nature, and a multitude of ideological and political rhetoric to euphemize it, I believe the vast majority of people would perceive it the same way they would perceive one party, walking up to another, and demanding he hand over half the items he received in trade for the day, or be beaten up.
>>Maybe we don't have this inherent right?
I think that given this belief arises naturally in all social animals, it is a highly functional belief for social groups, and therefore it is in fact inherent to existence as a sentient social being.
Once the issue at hand got to moral perceptions of governments that operate on codes of law hundreds of thousands of pages in size that are administered by 100,000+ people.
I don't think it's unreasonable for me to suggest that not everything that public opinion supports is a result of a common sense assessment of all of its aspects. If that were actually the case, we wouldn't need to have courts of law decide on cases. We would just let opinion polls do it. But we do need courts of law, because for complex issues, we need a jury of our peers to deliberate on the issue before reaching a judgment on it.
Nobody said "common sense assessment of all of its aspects"; just that the idea of "taxation" appears "just" to the "common sense":
>>>Just as our common sense, which favors functional societies, sees taxation as just.
>>Our commen sense has nothing to do with support for income taxation.
Your goalpost-moving started with inserting "income" here.
Also, "we need a jury of our peers to deliberate on the issue before reaching a judgment" is not a given. That's one way to reach a judgment, but not the only one.
>>It's not self defense because you aren't defending yourself in this scenario, you're defending your property.
Based on the rest of your comments I then assume you reject all Enlightenment based philosophy, Locke, Adam Smith, etc etc
The core of enlightenment based philosophy, aka the foundation of our modern society, is that you do have natural rights. Governments are instituted to secure these natural rights. if you are going to now reject those bedrock principles then you have to completely reject society as we know it as well, and the founding documents of most nations including the US Constitution for the USA, Charter of Rights for Canada, etc etc
Inherent in that foundation is the concept of property, as property is an extension of your self, your labor. If you have no right to property, you have no right to your labor, thus you have no right to your self.
Money and taxes are just abstractions on top of the property ownership one, if you want to get rid of taxes you'll need to get rid of property ownership. Many cultures were this way.