[Houston meetup]

I live in Houston, on the north side. I don't have much free time though so not sure if I can do meetups though. Not sure I'd be suitable for discussing important topics either. Sounds like a lot of work lol.

Send me a pm if you want to talk via email/txt.

 

You can check out reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/

to try to find local ancaps.

Search for Houston and you'll find some threads. Here's one:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/1jla7c/any_ancaps_in_houston_interested_in_a_week_night/

 

Gl finding some local ancaps.

[Popular youtube channel critical of ACism & Stefan]

Here is the video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/StormCloudsGathering/

I had never heard of this guy or the channel, but apparently he's popular. He's got 60,000 subscribers on youtube. His name is Aaron Hawkins. From his channel, I gather that's he's some sort of minarchist.

 

In the video, he specifically cites one of Stefan's videos and argues against it. The video already has 400 comments in the first 3 hours after being published. ACism is going mainstream I guess.

Just thought you guys may want to know about the video. Could be a good debate for Stefan. Larken Rose already found the video and has been defending non-aggression in the comments section, along with other people.

["Voluntary" taxes (i.e. sales tax)]

 

I would say it like, "Voluntary 'taxes'" because taxes, by definition, are mandatory.  However, it would be possible for a state to acquire money through voluntary "taxes."  That doesn't address the other moral concerns about the state, but some examples currently in place would be voluntary lotteries and selling mock hunting licenses for jackalopes.

 Nobody has to play the lottery or buy these souveniers.  It's technically possible to fund a state entirely through these voluntary monetary exchanges (though they're not technically taxes).  But, once you do that, you still have to figure out how you're going to solve the other moral problems of the state.

 By the way, sales tax isn't voluntary unless you can choose to buy something without paying it.

 

If a govt sells lottery tickets or some other product/service to fund itself, then it's not govt. It's just a business offering a service and using the profit to do things.

A sales tax, however, is coercive. A business offers a product or service. A govt forces you to pay a sales tax everytime you buy a certain product. The moral distinction is clear. To say it's voluntary because you can choose not to buy the product is like saying the US govt is voluntary because you can choose to live elsewhere.

Another way to think about is does the govt have monopoly on the sales tax? Can anyone impose a sales tax on the people? Anyone can sell lottery tickets to others w/o having a monopoly. But you can't impose a sales tax w/o a monopoly. The monopoly makes it govt.