One of my biggest problems with taxes is that the output of my hard work is spent on things that I find morally reprehensible. I feel it is absolutely evil to take someone's money at gunpoint and spend it on something he finds evil. For me, that's abortion.
We needn't labor the point of why other people don't find it evil - that's irrelevant to this discussion. The important part of my argument is that, short of going to jail, there's no option for me not to subsidize something I find morally reprehensible.
Failing to let individuals make that sort of decision dehumanizes them. I'm sick to my stomach every time I think of it.
> One of my biggest problems with taxes is that the output of my hard work is spent on things that I find morally reprehensible.
That's something you choose to believe. You could just as easily choose to believe that your money goes to support all the programs you favor and the money that goes to those things you hate comes from people who support those programs. Money is fungible and government is not alacarte so you have to realize every program that exists has supporters who pay taxes and want those things to exist and they feed from a common pool.
It's just silly to torture yourself over the idea that some of your money goes to a program you don't support. If it were actually possible to track every dollar you gave, you'd find it's not evenly distributed across every government program, so you may as well believe you're paying for the programs you do support because it's just as true. I support abortion, you may as well consider that my money that's paying for that.
People have been paying tribute to leaders of the tribe ever since civilization has existed. Part of the wheat your ancestors reaped fed the army. The army provided protection, but probably did some pretty terrible things, too.
Unlike your ancient ancestors, you are free to emigrate to a country that is more in line with your values.
I find suburban zoning laws to be morally reprehensible. They create isolating, ugly, and car-dependent wastelands. If you go really deep, you could even say members of our military have died defending this way of life. Even though I live in NYC, I'm sure that some of my tax dollars end up enforcing those laws. Would not paying my taxes change any of this? No. This is not an with taxes, it's an issue with the law.
We needn't labor the point of why other people don't find it evil - that's irrelevant to this discussion. The important part of my argument is that, short of going to jail, there's no option for me not to subsidize something I find morally reprehensible.
Failing to let individuals make that sort of decision dehumanizes them. I'm sick to my stomach every time I think of it.