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The Forum > Article Comments > Human rights: a further blow > Comments

Human rights: a further blow : Comments

By Meg Wallace, published 2/11/2011

What is it with human rights? Does anyone really want them?

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‘But these are nonsense arguments’
“A pity Peter, I was hoping you would explain why- but you never mentioned them again”

I did explain – in the very next sentence.

“but rather insinuated they are comparable to slavery”

I didn’t “insinuate” they are comparable to slavery: I showed that they both rely on the coerced taking of the fruits of someone else’s labour.

“It's a fact of life that …you would likely be living within a society and benefitting from the services that everybody else is paying for in some form; for them to expect every member to help subsidize it is perfectly fair.”

The issue is not “services that everybody is paying for in some form”, because that would confuse voluntarily-funded with coerced services.

Your argument only begs the question why I, or anyone, should be able to obtain the benefit of services that others are forced to pay for.

It is no justification to say “It is fair because it is fair”, which is all that your argument amounts to. The question is, why is it fair if no-one can show what distinguishes it from coercion which is a human rights abuse?

Besides, it’s not true that “every member” pays for tax-funded services, that’s the whole point. It’s an arrangement by which some are forced to work and pay so that others can receive without working or paying.

So since you think the ethical distinction between taxation and slavery is so obvious that it goes without say - what is it?

Squeers
You are very advanced. You advocate human rights for vegetables when you don’t admit them for human beings.

Ralph
Why is it okay for the State to force people into funding or obeying the arbitrary moral opinions of others, but not the Church?
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 5:26:58 PM
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Actually Peter you didn't address why the specific 'excuses' were bad, you just started a slavery rant and implied it was the same.

"Your argument only begs the question why I, or anyone, should be able to obtain the benefit of services that others are forced to pay for."
By living within a society you already ARE benefiting from services others are paying for. That's the point Peter.
Again, unless you live off a remote plot, or are part of a libertarian SeaStead, you are benefitting from the infrastructure and the people who use it- as far as people going to work on roads, who in turn help maintain the economy, as well as virtually all the individual businesses that you benefit from directly. You are even benefiting from the comparable safety of taxpayers funding our army and police. These infrastructural assets need resources and people to manage and repair them, and that is where most infrastructural taxes go.
If you truly felt that this is unfair, then it would be hypocritical for you to be living within a taxpayer-maintained environment but not wanting to pay for it- which is exactly the kind of sponging off others you were complaining about.

Anyway, the difference between taxation and slavery is that slavery involves a person with no rights, working for no personal benefit but instead entirely the benefit of somebody else, and no right to leave. Taxpayers however are all automatically beneficiaries of the infrastructure and management in the society they voluntarily decided to live in and benefit from, with plenty of rights to either relocate to a tax-free society, or make a case as to why they aren't benefiting from the taxes and why they should be exempt.
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 5:44:30 PM
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Going back onto the actual topic, it would be prudent to point out that "Human Rights" has become a dirty word in Australia.

Most often when the words have been said it has been used to justify volatile or sectarian groups more exclusive demands, or people caught on the wrong side of the law, and having their rights trumping what many 'ordinary' Australians would perceive as their own rights to safely enjoy their own environment.

The fact that 'human rights' have scarcely been heard in issues affecting the general community as opposed to all the time in the context of terrorism policy never helped the word take off.

It is sometimes heard in the Euthanasia or Abortion cases- and often just as much to deny both of these rights.

What's not to love about that word?
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 5:53:46 PM
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Meg Wallace,

I do not know what Human Rights are but I know that the dollar in my pocket is the product of my work.

It is how that dollar is used when I pay it as tax that concerns me.

In other words; as I gracefully accept the tax officer auditing my accounts in the course of my gaining that dollar and I am daily submitted to checks in shops and trains, I feel it to be my turn to have the accounts of those in whose hands my tax-dollar has been confided, audited by a person I trust.

Verbal assurances like the ones politicians proffer at election time convince me as much as a penniless vagrant in the quest of a house-loan convinces a bank manager.

As we are pushed deeper and deeper into an asocial Corporative structure, the only right of any solidity would be that of knowing where our tax dollar goes.

But, as you know, there are laws (Privacy Laws) designed specifically to hide the destination of that dollar, hence you may as well save your breath or pen and go fishing other waters
Posted by skeptic, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 6:00:39 PM
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Humans have the right to act constructively (positively) so that others (a person or a group of individuals) may benefit (indirectly). This right can not be just wishful thinking on the part on an individual. Can anything else be universally applied?
Posted by Istvan, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 6:12:37 PM
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I did address why the specific 'excuses' were bad:- because all the same arguments would be rejected as absurd if slavery were used to provide infrastructure.

It’s no argument to say “Well everyone in society including slaves benefits from slaves running the water supply, so therefore slavery is justified.”

That’s reminds me of the Idi Amin theory of human rights:
“In every society there are people who have to suffer. These are just some of the people who have to suffer.”

“By living within a society you already ARE benefiting from services others are paying for.”

That’s circular, as is the argument about infrastructure. The *structure* of the argument is no different to saying that slavery is justified because slaves benefit from their own or other slaves’ labour.

The question you’re not addressing is why services should be funded under compulsion rather than voluntarily in the first place.

“ it would be hypocritical for you to be [receiving the benefit of tax-funded services while opposing coerced payment]”

Hypocritical means not practicing what you preach. I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t *receive* payments to which they’re legally entitled, nor use services that they have been forced to pay for. I’m arguing against *compulsion to pay*. Therefore there is no hypocrisy or inconsistency.

“Anyway, the difference between taxation and slavery is that slavery involves a person with no rights”

That’s factually and historically incorrect.

“working for no personal benefit…”

According to you, they receive the benefit of any infrastructure or services their labour has been expropriated to provide.

“Taxpayers however are all automatically beneficiaries of the infrastructure and management in the society …”

a) They are not automatically beneficiaries of all tax-funded services.
b) Slaves are also automatically beneficiaries of infrastructure etc. They drink the water, are protected from invasion by the army, and so on.

"Entitlement to leave” is a furphy, because the issue is whether taxation is just, so it’s no more an argument that you can leave if you don’t like it, than it is that the government can leave if they do like it.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 6:15:55 PM
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