Opus 2018-091: The War on God, part 4 of 5, Robin Hood Strikes Again

One of the basic moral positions laid out in the Bible is respect for the property of others.

(Exodus 20:15 KJV)  Thou shalt not steal.

Although all cultures that I know of condemn stealing there are different definitions.  Stealing involves taking something that is not yours without the permission of the owner.  Coercion is a form of stealing, thus when the Mafia Dons would collect money so that a store owner would not have rocks thrown through his window, it was stealing

If you are going to have government you need to be able to pay for it.  Human cultures seem to develop some kind of government.  Once it gets beyond the oldest guy in the village being the chief and settling minor disputes you get into paying for things.  Society needs roads.  We seem to need some kind of court system.  Modern society in its concentration of people needs sewer systems and clean water.  This can be paid for by each person being billed for what they use or, you can have taxes.

How so?  Didn’t Jesus Himself say,

(Matthew 22:21 KJV)  They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

Yes, He did.  So the question then becomes, “What is Caesar’s?”

Taxes transition from legitimate collection to stealing.  Somewhere rulers discovered that you could get more money with a tax system than a billing system.  Not only do you claim the money to do the necessary jobs of government but you also need to collect to pay the salaries of the tax collector and all his assistants.  Then you have the projects that government officials in their wisdom know are vital but noone will willingly pay for.  You hide that in the taxation.

Soon you move to Robin Hood collections.  I don’t know if you ever read any of the original Robin Hood books but the real Robin Hood did not rob from the rich to give to the poor.  He robbed from anyone who had money and kept it for himself.  In that sense our taxation is a Robin Hood system.  You find that some people don’t, or won’t, pay their “fair share”.  You raise the rate on everyone else to compensate.  The responsible keep thinking it is their “fair share” and the ones benefitting are not going to tell them any different.

The government does not want anyone pointing out that much of what disguises itself as legitimate taxes is really stealing by special interest groups.  Because of that the government is not a big fan of God.  He had a flat rate called the tithe.

To be  continued...

homo unius libri