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How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

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Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#431

Post by Frondo »

itistoday2 wrote: post #430
Frondo wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, taxation does not start out as theft. The government provides you services, and you consent to paying for them by continuing to live here. Before you were old enough to give consent, your parents made that decision for you. As an infant, you weren't capable of making such decisions, and as your guardians, your folks made it for you. Now that you're (presumably) old enough to give consent, you are doing so by rema…

You're just repeating yourself now. You are not making logical arguments or responding to arguments made before. > That you don't like the other countries out there (they aren't "fair alternatives") does not mean that, suddenly, taxation here is actually theft. Yes, it does. The word for it is extortion. 1. No consent existed to begin with and money was taken forcibly. Theft. By definition. Go argue with a dictionary…

I'm repeating myself because taxation isn't theft, and you keep coming up with a variety of statements that don't actually support the false assertion that it is.

You also keep ignoring the facts that: 1) You consent to taxation by living here, 2) And your parents consented for you when you were too young to do on your own.

You keep saying "no consent existed" but it has existed all your life, first by your legal guardians, and now by you.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#432

Post by itistoday2 »

Frondo wrote: post #431
itistoday2 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just repeating yourself now. You are not making logical arguments or responding to arguments made before. > That you don't like the other countries out there (they aren't "fair alternatives") does not mean that, suddenly, taxation here is actually theft. Yes, it does. The word for it is extortion. 1. No consent existed to begin with and money was taken forcibly. Theft. By definition. Go argue with a dictionary…

I'm repeating myself because taxation isn't theft, and you keep coming up with a variety of statements that don't actually support the false assertion that it is. You also keep ignoring the facts that: 1) You consent to taxation by living here, 2) And your parents consented for you when you were too young to do on your own. You keep saying "no consent existed" but it has existed all your life, first by your legal gua…

> You consent to taxation by living here

Why this is wrong was addressed previously so not gonna repeat myself.

> And your parents consented for you when you were too young to do on your own.

Your parents cannot give this consent for you. Can they consent for you to be raped? Would their approval of you being raped suddenly make it not rape?

No. You're arguments are nonsensical. Go home. I'm done here.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#433

Post by godzilla82 »

dba7dba wrote: post #347
Houshalter wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Orwell wrote a fantastic essay on this that is worth reading: >In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the profes…

dropping of the atom bombs on Japan I respectfully disagree that it's indefensible. It was either 100,000 Japanese civilians in those 2 cities OR million or more American casualties. AND if the invasion had taken place, millions and millions of Japanese civilians would've died also. I agree, with proper PR language, anything can be made look half decent and therefore tolerable.

>million or more American casualties ?? Isn't that PR language itself?

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#434

Post by DaFranker »

obsurveyor wrote: post #322
DaFranker wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the money were sentient and capable of arguing for itself and defending its own case better than a good lawyer, here's what would happen: You can only authorize a legal person to use computer equipment. It is impossible to authorize a pile of money to use computer equipment. Therefore any computer equipment that is used by the pile of money (including that of the owner of the money) is used without consent, a…

What if the money was incorporated?

Oh, then that's simple. The $30,000 USD corporation pays a fine of $374, reparations for the officer's time to the tune of $41.75, and then is severely reprimanded with a warning not to do it again on threat of further monetary retribution.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#435

Post by DaFranker »

yellowapple wrote: post #390
DaFranker wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the money were sentient and capable of arguing for itself and defending its own case better than a good lawyer, here's what would happen: You can only authorize a legal person to use computer equipment. It is impossible to authorize a pile of money to use computer equipment. Therefore any computer equipment that is used by the pile of money (including that of the owner of the money) is used without consent, a…

> Since the money is not a legal person, legal responsibility would probably fall to the owner at the time of the crime (just like it falls to the "owner" of a child, their parents) and you would get punished along with your money. Right, but at least now you've managed to get yourself involved in the case, meaning that you can now invoke things like "right to counsel", no?

Yes, but if you do so you become eligible for charges of Conspiracy for High Tech Fraud, and a Conspiracy charge opens up a whole other can of worms you really don't want to mess with.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#437

Post by techlibertarian »

Frondo wrote: post #425
techlibertarian wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many transactions in the world where people pay for things they didn't specifically want, e.g. buying a car and getting all the seats and safety features, or ordering a meal and paying the full price even if you ask for some ingredient to be omitted. The difference is consent. People consent to paying for those meals or the car. But nobody ever consented to taxation. That's all part of the "social contrac…

You consent by continuing to live here. You're right that initial decision of consent was made for you by someone else--it was made for you by your parents, when you were a child and they had custody of you. As an adult, you are free to revoke your consent by leaving the country and ceasing to enjoy the benefits its government provides. (And as for "nobody consented to taxation," I consented, and continue to do so, b…

It's not that easy. It costs money to leave the country. As in, Uncle Sam wants me to pay. So exactly how free am I?

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#438

Post by mikeash »

mikeash wrote: post #384
bcook wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I bought my first vehicle, friends and family told me to get a cashier's check and not carry a large sum of cash across state lines, for a few reasons. Yes, I had the right to do otherwise, but without a logical reason to do so, why? I am honestly wondering if there are any good reasons to carry cash like that. Ignorance, perhaps.

There are a lot of people who distrust banks. Maybe they've never interacted with banks at all. Maybe their only experience with banks is having their meager earnings and savings whittled away by fees. I'd never carry around such a wad of cash. But if I ever chose to, I should only have to fear losing it to criminals or absentmindedness, not the government.

Just following up on this, I heard a report on the radio about "banking deserts" where there are no local bank branches for sometimes miles around in poor parts of cities. For people without a car, that's going to make banking pretty tough.

If you're effectively criminalizing large amounts of cash, and poor people are likely not to have a local bank branch, then you're almost criminalizing savings by people in poor communities.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#439

Post by LordKano »

Goronmon wrote: post #64
thedufer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation.

You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. I would say that calling civil forfeiture as theft makes more sense then comparing civil forfeiture to taxation. Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th. Honestly, I don't really buy the argument th…

Unless you live in an area where "taxation" means armed men come to your house and demand all your cash on April 15th.

It's the threat of armed men being sent for them that compels most people to pay their taxes and file the return.

Both taxation and civil forfeiture have much in common with theft.

Re: How the DEA took a young man’s life savings without charging him with a crime

#440

Post by patrickaljord »

bruceb wrote: post #378
patrickaljord wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ObamaCare was pretty much the same thing as RomneyCare so yes, we'd probably have the same thing. Can we stop pretending there's a difference?

I didn't see McCain proposing RomneyCare, hell didn't see Romeny proposing RomneyCare. So no we would not have had the same thing.

Romney basically implemented Obamacare before Obamacare even existed in his own state. Had he won, he would have implemented it at the federal level. The only reason he was against Obamacare during the campaign was because he was running against Obama. ObamaCare by the way isn't that great, it's more of a kayak for private insurances than anything else and it benefits them more than anyone else, it's kind of yet another extra tax that benefits a few corporations.
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