The Kicker is that (in the case of canada at any rate) they will immediatly Cut off all benefits, including healthcare, when you renouce your citizenship, treating you as a nonresident, but they will still nail you as a resident for taxes. This can catch you even if you move from one province to another, since you are required to live in a province for 1 year to be deamed a resident for benefits, but not living in a province for the previous 33 months cancels benefits . Joy to the modern state!

(Here’s my calculation: The top 50% makes 88% of national income and pays 92% of federal taxes, federal taxes take approximately 1/6 of GDP, therefore the top 50% is giving a maximum of 15% of national income to the bottom 50%, leaving them with 73%.)

If the American South had its income distributed that way, would you believe the nominal “slaveowners” were really in charge? Or would you think their legal claim on some of the slaves’ income was just a sop to keep them from causing social unrest about not being in charge any more?

The thing that you’re missing is that slaves weren’t just denied the fruit their labor. They were denied all human rights.

After the Civil War the XIV amendment was suppose to enforce the same restrictions onto the states as well. Worshipper of the “State” sacrificed individual rights on the altar of collectivism to twist each on of these restrictions into its exact opposite. Add to this the one amendment that actually expands the power of government, ie XVI, and we find ourselves well on the way to serfdom. Today we have legalized theft which punishes the productive and rewards slothful.

In more recent times, the military draft was an example of the first kind of slavery, or should we quibble over irrelevant details like the lack of cotton fields in Vietnam?

It is of course possible to leave the country, just as it was possible for a southern slave to flee to the north. There are few things sillier than pretending that being born in a certain geographical region entails that one has figuratively signed an implied contract, allowing a minority to engage in rights violations against others.

What due process? The majority, through their elected representatives, voted to take away my property and give it to someone else. Is that what you call due process?

If so, it’s the same due process that allowed people to be held in bondage.

I’m saying that the comparison between taxation and slavery is silly because of how broad the difference is. I’m also saying that it’s offensive because it implies a moral equivilance between a partial loss of property (with due process etc.) and complete loss of liberty. This is further compounded by the fact that the decedents of slaves (or people who look them) are still not fully integrated into the economic life of the united state.

A note to tribal elder, I don’t think the word chattel means what you think it means. Also there’s a substantial difference between your children being a ward of the state and your children being sold as property.

Taxation might be easier to stomach if you thought of it as an implied contract. You’re perfectly free not to pay taxes. All you have to do is renounce your citizenship and leave the country. I’ll admit that this is not a great option, but the option exists. Perhaps you’d like Canada or Mexico better?

Taxation is ultimately backed up with civil coercion, confiscation, apprehension (with use of DEADLY force a possibility) and incarceration.