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To: Roscoe
Trespasser morality.

In other words, "If you won't give me a free lunch, I'll take it."

I am not occupying anyone's property without their consent. Therefore I am not a trespasser. The same cannot be said of the thugs who would deport me, were I to take your advice.

And I am not asking for a free lunch, nor am I "taking" anything that does not belong to me. The same cannot be said of the US government.

The fact that I benefit from the existence and operation of society does not make me a thief. Nor is society a thief because it benefits from my actions, even though it does not pay for them. I cannot obligate you to pay me for the value you recieve from my actions, without your consent. You cannot obligate others to pay you for the value they receive from your actions, without their consent. If you don't like like the fact that there are those who happen to benefit from your actions, but who refuse to pay the price you demand, your only moral recourse is to refrain from doing the actions in question.

You may freely exercise your right to Liberty. If that happens to benefit others, they don't owe you anything whatsoever as a consequence, absent their prior agreement to pay.

119 posted on 04/18/2002 1:43:46 PM PDT by sourcery
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To: sourcery
And I am not asking for a free lunch, nor am I "taking" anything that does not belong to me.

Wrong.

We cannot say judicially that Kelly received no benefit from the city organization. These streets, if they do not penetrate his farm, lead to it. The water-works will probably reach him some day, and may be near enough to him now to serve him on some occasion. The schools may receive his children, and in this regard he can be in no worse condition than those living in the city who have no children, and yet who pay for the support of the schools. Every man in a county, a town, a city, or a State is deeply interested in the education of the children of the community, because his peace and quiet, his happiness and prosperity, are largely dependent upon the intelligence and moral training which it is the object of public schools to supply to the children of his neighbors and associates, if he has none himself.

The officers whose duty it is to punish and prevent crime are paid out of the taxes. Has he no interest in maintaining them, because he lives further from the court-house and policestation than some others?

Clearly, however, these are matters of detail within the discretion, and therefore the power, of the law-making body within whose jurisdiction the parties live. This court cannot say in such cases, however great the hardship or unequal the burden, that the tax collected for such purposes is taking the property of the taxpayer without due process of law.

KELLY v. CITY OF PITTSBURGH, 104 U.S. 78 (1881)


120 posted on 04/18/2002 2:14:13 PM PDT by Roscoe
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