Spoken like someone who likes to speak for someone else using a curious line of reasoning. You don't want to pay taxes because taxes pay for bombs. But they also pay for poor people to get health care (yes, even in the U.S., at least up until now), older people to get health care, and much more.
Furthermore, I have every confidence in people to care for each other as brothers and sisters in the absence of the state. The internet will not tolerate the bombs and the fake money, but it will facilitate health care and, as you say, "much more."
I believe he was pointing the same about your comment, just in reverse.
>The fact that taxes are used for some good things is a really shitty excuse for the misery and slavery that empire casts upon the world.
The fact that taxes are used for some evil things is a shitty excuse for not letting it be used for the good things.
>Furthermore, I have every confidence in people to care for each other as brothers and sisters in the absence of the state.
You are as entitled to that opinion as those who have little confidence in it.
By contrast, I do advance and enable senseless state violence by paying taxes. It is a source of personal shame.
More to the point, your objection has some merit- but if you (or anyone else reading this) feels that way, are you protesting or otherwise politically agitating against war, or are you just sitting around feeling abstractly ashamed?
But that wasn't quite the point I was making. All I'm saying is that there's no reason to be proud per se of paying taxes.
And while I wish that education were better funded (and National Parks, and NPR), I don't think that it's reasonable to suppose that, so long as we make the mistake of delegating those things to the state, that it won't use our money mostly for misery and death.
The state takes tax money and uses it to literally put people in cages and literally drop explosives and chemicals on children. I didn't mean this as an analogy - it's a literal statement.
But I don't think it's fair to consider one nation in isolation; the entire world system has afforded hegemonic states for over a century now. Time to bring it to a close.
When the government was funding all of the residential schools, you had no option but to pay the government or risk being tortured.
There are plenty of things Canada can do better, too: universal drug benefit, universal dental and vision, childcare, not exporting asbestos so much, etc. I can honestly say though, its a much better way to live up there than down here. You can point to what your taxes do, like allow you to live without the fear of crushing medical debt at any moment. So you pay them without the same amount of tooth gnashing.
Also known as just "following the law." You could also say you had no choice but to not rape someone or risk being tortured.