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RE: Your rights end where the rights of others begin
Can I play the 'counterpoint guy'? It seems one of your key premises is that all taxation is robbery, and I disagree with that. Take the education example; teaching takes time, labor, equipment, money. Most people don't have time for homeschool, and can't afford private school, so we pool our money together and pay teachers salaries. Now for land, it is yours, but if you destroy the soil or build a skyscraper in the wrong spot, that will impinge your neighbor's rights to sunshine and clean water.
Of course, these things are about balance, and in many areas the government has overstepped its bounds via wasteful spending and prohibitive laws. But that's why we're here talking about it, right?
What is it called when someone takes property from someone who doesn't want to give it up, under threat of doing violence to them if they don't hand it over? If I take money, at gunpoint, from a woman in an alley, but I promise to use a large percentage of the money to help widows and orphans, am I not a mugger?
Theft by any other name...
If you damage someone else's property through the use of your property, you owe restitution. Seek arbitration and settle it.
Then how are people supposed to get educated? Even if you don't burn the books, they still cost money.
You can't imagine any ways to help people get educated without robbing others? What about sharing, charity, volunteerism? I would gladly donate books to a free (not "tax"-funded) library-- and I have a lot of books.
Or, why not donate old eReaders and compile a list of free educational eBooks available for download (Project Gutenberg, maybe?). Or take up a collection to help people buy eBooks if the ones they need aren't available for free.
I would be glad to help someone learn anything I know well enough to teach. And I wouldn't rob their neighbors or force them to show up when they are asleep or have more important things to do.
Government schools only help people educate themselves by accident. Mostly they indoctrinate and make people believe in the superstition of "authority", and train them to be triggered by bells. Government ("public") schools are anti-education and need to die.
Even if I can't think of any way to convince a woman to have sex with me, rape is still wrong. No matter how important something is, nothing is important enough that it justifies theft or aggression. Nothing.
That's awfully generous of you to donate all your books, and maybe you have a utopian point in there that people might be more generous if things weren't "supposed to be taken care of by the government". However, I think that is completely unrealistic, in part because many people are naturally cheapskates. Even if people do make donations and volunteer, those are bound to decline during lean times, or in poor neighborhoods. Teaching is a full time job, and people like to be paid for those. Taxation also helps even out the burden of funding public projects, so contribution is based on how much you earn, not how much you feel like giving.
I'm glad I got up early and went to school. It taught me how to read, write, type, think critically about science and history, socialize, and put forth effort when things are difficult.
Both of which are mainly caused by government regulations destroying the market.
It doesn't need to be. Everything a kid needs to learn can be learned in a small number of hours. All the rest of the years in school are wasted-- unless you like the government extremist indoctrination they get. That's what takes so long.
A lot of those projects I can't afford, don't use, and don't want. Why can't I opt out? I'm not asking to get anything for free; I'm perfectly willing to pay for what I use. I just want the option to opt out of the things I don't want, and to shop around for the deal I like best on the things I do want. I don't like being forced to use your monopoly.
Yes. many people come to believe that because they were abused in a certain way, everyone else should be abused similarly.
School didn't teach you those things, even if you incidentally learned those while being schooled. The schooling was utterly unnecessary for you to learn.
I wouldn't even try to force you to give up anything. You like it, you keep it, and join with the others who feel as you do to pay for it. Just stop demanding everyone else finance your wishes at gunpoint. There's nothing I want bad enough to rob you to pay for it. Nothing.
Not me. I'm talking about right and wrong. About ethics. Externally imposed government (The State) is unethical. It is always criminal.
I find that type of logic is too reductionist. It's not (always) like a mugger. It's more of an evolution from tribal society where you share berries with the one who shares meat, into the democratically elected society we have today. (With roads and firefighters and everything you can't realistically do as an individual.)
You may find the truth "too reductionist", but it is still the truth. Theft is theft, even if the scale is different. You may call it "taxation" or "war", but the vastly larger scale doesn't make it better than a mugging or a murder. The larger scale makes it worse (except, possibly, to the individuals robbed or killed).
You don't have to share berries or meat, you can trade (including selling). In a situation like that everyone wins. Politics is a bad system where there is always a winner and a loser-- someone "wins" at the expense of someone else. And, even if someone has nothing tangible to trade, they may have knowledge or skills. And, if not, do they have some other value which would encourage you to give them food? Maybe you just don't want to see them die.
Personally, if someone has no value, but is only a drain on society (muggers, cops, rapists, tax collectors, etc.) I am fine with letting them starve to death if they can't change their parasitic ways. I think few people would choose to continue to be a violator under those circumstances.
Democracy is just a cute euphemism for mob rule. The rights of a majority NEVER outweigh the rights of an individual. Not even if the v*te is 7 billion to 1.
I love working together with other people to do things none of us could do alone. But there is nothing I want bad enough to steal from my neighbors to get it. If it is wanted, people will chip in. If not enough people chip in, then the service/product isn't wanted enough and those who still want it need to make other arrangements.