I also believe there are other ways for the government to fund itself.
The government doesn’t just need to fund itself, it needs the resources to provide collective goods like a social safety net (unemployment, health care, legal assistance, and other fundamental rights). No matter how you twist it, those resources have to eventually come from the population. We can call that resource acquisition “taxing the population”, disregarding the details of how it’s done. In that case, taxes are an absolutely fundamental part of implementing a social contract that involves the collective helping each other provide collective goods. If you remove taxation (in this expanded sense) completely, you are no longer capable of sustaining a government of any kind: You’re left with a collection of individuals with no common programs. Note: I’m saying here that any common program implies that people are providing resources to the collective, which is a de facto form of taxation in the expanded sense.
Would you expect me to fight a European army if I was in the US and they were invading to stop US war crimes?
Disclaimer: The following retort is conceptual, not tied to your concrete example. If russia, or israel, or china, etc… invaded your country to displace your people, steal your homes and resources, and kill those in the way, do you believe that your government has any obligation to protect you? If so, who should risk their life to enact that protection? Who should decide whether to resist or not in the first place?
The point of these questions is that if we believe that we have a right to protection, we are implying that someone has an obligation to protect. Furthermore, that someone’s obligation to protect is tied to your right to protection, not their personal opinion on who they want to protect you from. Basically, stating that you would only conditionally fight to protect your country against an invading force is incompatible with believing you have the right to protection from any invading force. If it comes down to opinion, there’s nothing in the way of everyone else stepping aside when your house is the one being bombed, because they personally feel that particular bombing is justified. If that can happen, you have no right to protection.
Furthermore, unless someone is obliged to protect, nobody can have a right to protection. These are two sides of the same coin. What I advocate for is that everyone in a society should have equal rights to protection, and that we should collectively share the attached obligation to protect.
Someone coming from Norway is familiar with other ways a government can fund itself having one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
Some of the more obvious ones are relying on natural resource revenues, consumption and value-added taxes (VAT), corporate taxes, fees for services, taxing land, fines, or heavy customs duties.
Some of the more non-traditional are state owned companies, taxing pollution, lotteries, etc.
The whole philosophy that governments needs to tax citizens is honestly questionable.
As far as your conceptual example, no. The government does not have a duty to defend you at least in the US.
“DeShaney v. Winnebago County and Castle Rock v. Gonzales established that the government has a general duty to protect the public at large, but no legal mandate to protect any specific, individual citizen from violence.”
I would generally agree with you premise around everyone having an equal right to protection and in turn a obligation to defend but only in a perfect world where wars are not fought to enrich the military industrial complex.
Modern warfare is unnecessary and driven by profit and propaganda. In this respect our rights have been usurped by corporations and politicians who make money from killing people.
The government doesn’t just need to fund itself, it needs the resources to provide collective goods like a social safety net (unemployment, health care, legal assistance, and other fundamental rights). No matter how you twist it, those resources have to eventually come from the population. We can call that resource acquisition “taxing the population”, disregarding the details of how it’s done. In that case, taxes are an absolutely fundamental part of implementing a social contract that involves the collective helping each other provide collective goods. If you remove taxation (in this expanded sense) completely, you are no longer capable of sustaining a government of any kind: You’re left with a collection of individuals with no common programs. Note: I’m saying here that any common program implies that people are providing resources to the collective, which is a de facto form of taxation in the expanded sense.
Disclaimer: The following retort is conceptual, not tied to your concrete example. If russia, or israel, or china, etc… invaded your country to displace your people, steal your homes and resources, and kill those in the way, do you believe that your government has any obligation to protect you? If so, who should risk their life to enact that protection? Who should decide whether to resist or not in the first place?
The point of these questions is that if we believe that we have a right to protection, we are implying that someone has an obligation to protect. Furthermore, that someone’s obligation to protect is tied to your right to protection, not their personal opinion on who they want to protect you from. Basically, stating that you would only conditionally fight to protect your country against an invading force is incompatible with believing you have the right to protection from any invading force. If it comes down to opinion, there’s nothing in the way of everyone else stepping aside when your house is the one being bombed, because they personally feel that particular bombing is justified. If that can happen, you have no right to protection.
Furthermore, unless someone is obliged to protect, nobody can have a right to protection. These are two sides of the same coin. What I advocate for is that everyone in a society should have equal rights to protection, and that we should collectively share the attached obligation to protect.
Someone coming from Norway is familiar with other ways a government can fund itself having one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
Some of the more obvious ones are relying on natural resource revenues, consumption and value-added taxes (VAT), corporate taxes, fees for services, taxing land, fines, or heavy customs duties.
Some of the more non-traditional are state owned companies, taxing pollution, lotteries, etc.
The whole philosophy that governments needs to tax citizens is honestly questionable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
As far as your conceptual example, no. The government does not have a duty to defend you at least in the US.
“DeShaney v. Winnebago County and Castle Rock v. Gonzales established that the government has a general duty to protect the public at large, but no legal mandate to protect any specific, individual citizen from violence.”
I would generally agree with you premise around everyone having an equal right to protection and in turn a obligation to defend but only in a perfect world where wars are not fought to enrich the military industrial complex.
Modern warfare is unnecessary and driven by profit and propaganda. In this respect our rights have been usurped by corporations and politicians who make money from killing people.