Earlier quoted context omitted.
please explain how I was in control You're asking me to explain why you weren't in control as an infant? Can you explain to me how you were oppressed by taxes as an infant? You're trying to play the victim so explain yourself: where is this indentured infant servitude you're claiming you suffered under? You're saying that the tax system has no significant difference between it and "the exactions imposed on a slave",…
> "You're asking me to explain why you weren't in control as an infant? Can you explain to me how you were oppressed by taxes as an infant? You're trying to play the victim so explain yourself: where is this indentured infant servitude you're claiming you suffered under?" I am subject to my current tax and legal regimes only because I happened to be born in a state which has them. This is what I mean by my lack of ch…
only because I happened to be born in a state which has them
Such a victim! My guess is that like most libertarians (and your handle plus being on HN), you're white, male, skilled, and with a good income (for the record, I am). You may not be, but the chances are that you are. If so, you're in one of the best-off demographics that has existed in the history of the world, and still you want to claim systematic victimhood. And yet, you're trying to identify with slaves, basking in the reflected anti-glory of the word.
Here's the rub: you have a choice. Particularly if you're in the US. You can go off the grid easily. You can live on public lands, moving around. You can support yourself hunting. Or bartering. You can just not engage in things that connect you to the government. Plenty of people do - witness the huge amount of illegal aliens the US has. Hell, you can even emigrate, no-one's stopping you. Millions of people voluntarily migrate every year, including out of developed nations into developing ones. Move to Vanuatu. Good weather. Happy people. Tiny government. No income tax (unless you're a landlord). You can live the libertarian dream of few government services, choosing to hire your own garbage collectors and whatnot. Other places like that exist all over the world.
But no, you want the lifestyle that taxes provide, but without having to pay taxes. So you join a political movement that has no hope of ever gaining real traction with its ideals, all so you can paint yourself as a victim to make yourself feel better. If you want to live without taxes, you can. Bam, your 'slavery' is over.
Libertarianism has great rhetorics and its members are skilled rhetoricians, but it has no answers for people who don't have plenty of privilege - which is most people, and which is why it'll never gain traction. Take the simple case of someone born with a congenital disease or subject to an accident that wasn't their fault. Most other philosophies would say "hey everyone, chip into the pot and that person can be helped", at least as an ideal. Libertarianism takes the "only child" approach of "sucks to be you. making me share is violent, and therefore immoral!". For all its rhetoric, libertarianism is very short on practical answers.
So no, modern taxation is not slavery or anything like it, and you weaken the impact of the word by saying it is. And you can escape the slavery you see yourself in - you are tacitly choosing to remain within it. However oppressed you think you were as an infant (somehow by the tax you weren't paying), you are now an adult, and you are choosing to remain within the system you despise yet can so easily remove yourself from.