I had a couple of objections to my argument that living off the government is unethical.
First, if accepting a government wage is unethical, then using the roads must also be unethical.
But this is not the case if one uses the net tax payer vs. net tax taker standard. Using the roads is simply redeeming what was stolen from me. Earning a government wage is 100% theft.
What about using the roads without having paid any taxes? Should the government compel this person to pay taxes in order to justify using the roads?
If one looks at the road as just a pile of stolen money, the ethical way to remedy a theft is to split the money proportionally to what was stolen, and return the money to the victims. Since the road cannot be split physically, its use may be split, effectively as usage vouchers, for the expected lifetime of the road that was built from that theft. In other words, privatized.
The person who infringes on the use of the road without having had anything stolen in the first place, is infringing on the usage of the people who were stolen from. He would be responsible for compensating those privatized owners, not for paying new taxes, i.e. new thefts committed against him.
This standard is consistent with not accepting any of the government’s stolen loot, unless, and only in the amount that, one was stolen from.
A corollary objection is, doesn’t this imply a need for government borders, since illegals use roads without having paid taxes?
Punishing people collectively is not justified, just because they are foreigners. Furthermore, no one has commited any violations prior to crossing the border, so no a priori punishment is justified. Many end up working and having money stolen from them. However, any who do receive more from the government than was stolen from, are also stealing, the same as Americans who do so. So, there is no categorical difference between Americans and foreigners. No national border is justified, any more than any arbitrary border within the country.
The second objection is, while it may be unethical to provide services to the government in exchange for stolen money, it is okay to simply receive the money, as in Social Security payments.
If someone steals your car, you can justly recover your car, since you hold the rightful title. If they steal your car and give it to a friend, you can also justly recover your car from their friend, since they do not have any rightful claim on it. It is unethical for the robber’s friend to receive the stolen car.
Similarly, it is unethical to accept stolen money, since the victims have a right to have their money returned, from the money handed out by the government.
