Maybe do some reading on Monaco and residency requirements. There's good reason it has <40k residents consisting of million/billionaires.

Assuming you have min $567,000 to park in a bank account + $900,000 to buy a small studio, no criminal record, Monaco bank references and get through the rigorous interview, Monaco will let you stay for 1yr. After 10yrs and 2 further interviews you may get residency, assuming the cost of living hasn't dried up your funds (no, you can't draw down on that $567k in Monaco bank) so add another $700k to your costs if you can live frugally for 10yrs. Without residency, you can't give up your US citizenship so add another 10yrs tax to USA.

And the above is the published requirements. In reality, you need an invitation and at least $15m to get a whiff of residency in Monaco.

And if you had $15 millon, you'd be paying next to zero tax in the US anyway

https://www.nomoretax.eu/living/relocation-to-monaco/

Why focus on the country with the most prohibitively difficult path to immigration?

There're tons of places you can go. I wouldn't recommend it since the US is probably a better option than any you could reasonably hope to immigrate to without highly specialized skills or a lot of money.

But take a step back and consider - if the only governments that will accept you a citizen suck, maybe you're not actually as valuable as you'd like to think.

Sure, comparing it to a protection racket is pejorative, but the similarities are still obvious. Far more so than to theft. There are of course big differences. In a liberal democracy the state can't forego all of your protections just because you decide not to pay. It can forego a lot of them, however.

Lack of alternatives isn't really a good argument for the state model. If you had alternatives, then at least state citizenship would be a choice. As it is is today, being stateless is one of the most crippling legal statuses you can hold in the world. Realistically if you want a decent life and you are lucky, your best hope is perhaps that you could get to choose which state you are citizen of.

I am not opposed to neither laws nor private ownership. But, I think being critical and skeptical of any political or legal concept is the key stepping stone towards making them justifiable. When we admit that the monopoly of violence exists and that the state will use coercion, then we start seeing the ethical obligation the state should be subjected to. We see why some rights that causes a lot of troubles are still vitally important principles to uphold.

And no-matter how uncomfortable it is to admit, when it comes to the state essentially being a legal persona with the right to coerce and force you, in that respect the libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of the world are undoubtedly correct.

There's still the Wyoming wilderness. Tame a wild horse, build a cabin, live off the land. Never pay a nickel in taxes your entire life and keep your citizenship to boot. It's just waiting for you.

Sorry but no, the thread has clearly shown this is not true.

I'm not quite sure how the thread can show something is true that demonstrably is not. I can just point to the law and show just that. You are subject to the law and so am I, it is not voluntary.

But you can leave any time. Just like at my condo. Sounds pretty voluntary to me.

Let us at least be a little accurate shall we: If your government grants your request, you'll be allowed to change your citizenship if another state has accepted you. The state decides if you are its citizen, not you.

The distinction is not academic either. Plenty of people in the world are struggling because the state they fled does not recognize their renunciation of citizenship.

Uh no, the right to leave is a pretty basic right in free nation. In Canada it's even in the Charter of Rights, I believe. But either way, even though there are states out there that don't let people leave, the USA is not one of them. Several thousand people a year give up their citizenship and move to other places. And the fact that it might be difficult or take time to move to some other place has no bearing on you being free to do it.

So you want a free parcel of land to do what you want, without having people try to kill you to take it?

Lucky for you, if you're living in the states you DO have opportunity to live like a pilgrim. Only a tiny percent of the land is actually settled. Go out and plant your flag in the soil... no one is going to care if you're in a remote enough area. You can crown yourself king and stick it to the man.

They are correct that governments pay people to enforce laws, yes.

Will we be another step closer to world peace if I also choose to define it as coercive or a racket? What about if I called them tyrants?

I'm going to predict it's less about the country they want to leave not accepting their renunciation than it is about other countries not accepting them 9 times out of 10.

And the rest of the time it's because they owe a fat tax bill that the country they're leaving doesn't want to eat.

It's not like developing countries are clamoring to keep would-be refugees.

Being able to flee aggression does not mean the aggression doesn't exist. It is a trivial matter to show that taxation is involuntary. I don't consent to it, and yet despite my lack of consent, I am faced with the choice of pay or be hurt. That is not a voluntary exchange, that is coercion.

What's a voluntary exchange?

A voluntary exchange is where both parties choose to trade goods and/or services. Voluntarism, the idea that all interactions between individuals and organizations should be voluntary and non-coercive is fundamental for dealing with the world in a healthy manner. You should not go around coercing people.

Why doesn't one or the other party just take what he wants?

Morality, fear of retribution, the discipline of repeated exchanges, the law, you take your pick.

But what's really stopping me from walking into a Taco Bell and using the grill to make a burrito? That's what I want

I don't know, I'm not a mind reader. You know, perhaps you could tell us.

You consented when you chose to travel on our roads, drink our water, and live within the protective confines of our police and military services.

It seems like a bit of a stretch to me to say that one typically consents to these things, or at least not with the same level of freedom that's usually implied by the word. What is the alternative for most people? You're born into a society and it's not generally feasible to simply leave it. The social contract is not really voluntary in the way we usually mean that word.

It seems to me that trying to argue that it is ("just leave if you don't like it") is the wrong way of arguing against this kind of philosophical libertarianism. I understand the desire to argue against it, but I don't think it works to deny the claim that society is involuntary. That's not the problematic part. The problems are really with the idea that a voluntary society is possible to begin with, and with the moral claim that coercion of any sort if always and necessarily wrong. But the two are related. If a completely voluntary society were possible, it would see reasonable that such a society was morally preferable. But a moral ideal that's completely impossible doesn't seem like a very useful one.

Coersion. Taco Bell calls the police who use coersion to prevent me doing that. In other words behind volunteristic transactions is coersion.

I think you’re overly optimistic in thinking that this guy is actually weighing the merits of any of our points.

But also, it’s more of a stretch to call taxation theft because you didn’t consent. In AC land, it would be no different. You don’t choose where you’re born. If your parents live in an area with an HOA that charges fees for maintenance of the public spaces, you wouldn’t be able to just keep living in your parents house and refuse to pay your HOA dues once you inherit the property.

Agreed. I don't think taxation is theft -- whether "theft" is meant to convey only a moral judgement or a legal one. Taxation is not legally theft for obvious reasons (and the law doesn't hinge on consent). And I don't think taxation is inherently immoral either, because as I said I think there has to be more to morality than just voluntarism.

But I do think taxation is coercive. Hence it seems like the wrong approach to argue that taxation is not theft because it is not coercive. Taxation is coercive, but is nevertheless not theft. That distinction was my point.

the next time i take a dump i should probably just enjoy the moment with my own thoughts....

maybe i missed something by just reading the last page of this thread but this seems like the failure of an iq test the average 6th grader should pass. these comments seem like they have to stand on their own, correct me if that's not the case

why would there be coercion behind the "volunteristic transactions" you just used as an example? In the scenario you presented, those weren't voluntary transactions. you are describing the enforcement of peoples right to engage in voluntary transactions. people are being coerced in to not violating that principle. stealing and trespassing aren't voluntary. wtf? that's kind of the difference between being welcome or receiving a gift

Stealing is only stealing because the state says so. What is coercive about me using "your" stuff when you're not around? Obviously nothing. You coerce me by forcefully kicking me out of "your" home. Property is way way more coercive than taxation.