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<blockquote data-quote="donner" data-source="post: 1976070" data-attributes="member: 277">My point was that the idea of the government collecting taxes at gunpoint is ubiquitous to all taxes collected under our current system. I am not saying that welfare should be off limits, but just that arguing that we shouldn&#039;t be forced to pay for something we disagree with isn&#039;t limited to welfare, military spending or anything else. I have no problem arguing about how government spends our money (in fact, i think it&#039;s a good discussion to always have), i am just saying that arguing we shouldn&#039;t be paying for something because we are forced &#039;at gunpoint&#039; to pay for it isn&#039;t a valid line of reasoning. If all of our taxes are forced &#039;at gunpoint&#039; then the anything the government pays for falls into that same category. &nbsp;Yes and no. Welfare has never been ruled unconstitutional as far as i know. You can argue that it&#039;s not an enumerated power within the constitution, but there are a large number of other things that aren&#039;t enumerated that we value, privacy being one of them. I&#039;m not arguing the validity or legality of military spending (or welfare spending). I&#039;m merely pointing out that we can&#039;t pick and choose what our taxes are spent on, we can only select the politicians that make the laws. We can&#039;t say, &#039;i don&#039;t support X, so i don&#039;t want my tax money going towards it&#039;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="donner, post: 1976070, member: 277"] My point was that the idea of the government collecting taxes at gunpoint is ubiquitous to all taxes collected under our current system. I am not saying that welfare should be off limits, but just that arguing that we shouldn't be forced to pay for something we disagree with isn't limited to welfare, military spending or anything else. I have no problem arguing about how government spends our money (in fact, i think it's a good discussion to always have), i am just saying that arguing we shouldn't be paying for something because we are forced 'at gunpoint' to pay for it isn't a valid line of reasoning. If all of our taxes are forced 'at gunpoint' then the anything the government pays for falls into that same category. Yes and no. Welfare has never been ruled unconstitutional as far as i know. You can argue that it's not an enumerated power within the constitution, but there are a large number of other things that aren't enumerated that we value, privacy being one of them. I'm not arguing the validity or legality of military spending (or welfare spending). I'm merely pointing out that we can't pick and choose what our taxes are spent on, we can only select the politicians that make the laws. We can't say, 'i don't support X, so i don't want my tax money going towards it'. [/QUOTE]

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