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Check out this solo performance from our v. own Jack Kerrigan AKA Cloud Street Station

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Libertarianism in a 300-word rant

You have no principles, unless you are a voluntarist.

For example, most supporters of foreign intervention — if not in Iraq, then in Afghanistan or Libya — oppose conscription of citizens to fight, but do not oppose conscription of citizens’ money, through taxation, to fund it. Tax-funded foreign intervention amounts to compromising the property of people at home in the name of protecting the property of people abroad. Some claim that taxation is voluntary, but if it was voluntary how come evaders are jailed? The payment of tax no more proves consent than the payment of a ransom transforms kidnapping into babysitting.

Many claim taxation is justified by the Constitution, yet no one signed it to say they are bound by it, making the supposed contract it represents null and void. Others claim that elections prove consent, yet those who vote for the losing candidate cannot be said to support the policies of the winning candidate. The common analogy with a public company in justification fails, because those who buy shares in a company do so voluntarily, whereas those who do so in the public sector are not given a choice and can never sell their share and keep the proceeds for themselves.

Yet that taxation is justified is maintained by academics, journalists and politicians. They might be sincere, but they are not sincere enough. They might be well-intentioned, but many historic figures they would agree were evil also thought they were doing the right thing, or else they would have acted differently. And perhaps those who defend their good-intentions, instead of their good-results or a logical defence of their position, aren’t as good-intentioned as they unashamedly claim. Perhaps such self-righteous hypocrites deserve a little less respect than they receive.