I fully appreciate that all sides in the American War of Independence were provoked – although such things as the Boston Massacre have been heavily inflated by propagandists from Paul Revere on – but two wrongs still don’t make a right, even more so when the response is disproportionate, which it in fact was. You can find much of this detailed in history books like “Redcoats and Rebels” that don’t buy into the rebels’ propaganda (incidentally, it’s propaganda that anyone was willing to use scorched earth etc. against the rebels, apart from a few peripheral persons – compare and contrast what was done in North America with what had been willingly done in Ireland and Scotland within living memory).

I was not, however, addressing the rebels’ actions but their hypocrisy. Even if every single one of the “patriots’” actions had been entirely justified, that would still give the lie to the quotation. Sam Adams was, as I pointed out, a hypocrite of the first water.

The rebels could have used their genuine grievances and justifications, but instead they resorted to terror tactics, agitprop, selective editing and emphasis, and plain lies. The USA was born with a freight of original sin, and today’s developments are not a latter day corruption of the earlier ideals; those ideals were never given physical expression at all, but perverted into a spurious form from the beginning.

By the way, when I first spotted this thread it had this quotation at the top: “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. Samuel Adams”

That is sheerest hypocrisy. Those soi disant “patriots” did not confine themselves to mere verbal abuse, but physically injured, evicted, and eventually exiled the Loyalists – who, by the bye, were often motivated by more than servility, as tales like those of Laura Secord a generation later show. Had the likes of Sam Adams been willing to anticipate what the Mormons or Boer trekkers did later, they could have respected bot their own principles and their neighbours’ lives, liberties, and property. They did not, even though it was quite practical in that time and place, which makes them hypocrites of the first water.

Most arguments here are the same as describing a horse. One starts from the mane and the other from the b*tt.

A case can be made however that taxes not paid voluntarily but paid because of a threat of force or jail is involuntary and is theft.

Yes, such a case can be made. However, as you pointed out in a different thread, most people in this country view the exercise of their franchise as a voluntary contract that gives government the power to levy taxes on them. The disagreement they have is not over whether the taxes are theft, or not, but whether the ends to be attained using that tax money is appropriate, or not.

Libertarians should argue that the Federal government is not the appropriate place to vest central social planning (and provide cogent arguments why this is so a la Hayek) rather than arguing that taxes are theft. Why? Simple, they will gain huge mind share with a significant portion of the population that they will never gain through the “taxes are theft” argument.

From Harry Browne.org:
”
If we eliminate all the current powers and programs of the federal government that aren’t “delegated to the United States by the Constitution,” then the remaining constitutional functions, such as national defense and the federal courts, can be performed for about $100 billion dollars a year. This means the federal government will be so small, there will be no need for a federal income tax . The excise taxes and tariffs that are already being collected (bringing in over $100 billion a year) are more than sufficient to cover these costs.”

A case can be made however that taxes not paid voluntarily but paid because of a threat of force or jail is involuntary and is theft.

Wealth distribution and taxation are not necessarily the same thing.

Virkkala’s post, and mine, was meant to address the radical libertarian idea that all taxation is per se illegitimate.

I don’t think it is, at least not when limited to funding the proper functions of (limited) government. It’s when government goes beyond that and starts doing things like wealth redistribution that I would have a problem with taxation.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It just did not have the ability to impose non-uniform taxes. Even more specifically, the income tax was not allowed by the fourth paragraph of Article 1, Section 9, Limits on Congress:

No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

So, the 16th amendment did not give Congress a power that had never existed before, the power to tax. Rather, it broadened the power by removing a limit that had been placed on Congress originally.

The Federal government was funded through all the ways and means listed above, including levying taxes.

How did the US government function prior to 1919?