Next time someone offers you some variation on the following catch phrase when referring to taxation they don’t like that it….

“…takes away our money at the point of a gun.”

…remember that the “logic” they claim to be using is that to enforce taxation a government would, eventually, have to point a gun if all else failed: just like it would to enforce any other law if all else failed. This supposed “logic” is often followed by further “logic” in the form of the irrational claim: “It’s our money.”

Now deconstruct their supposed “logic” by using true logic. Ask…

1. So do you believe we shouldn’t fund the military, the police, prisons? (Try to pick something you know they’d support.)

2. Then, when they disagree with that, mention that you must find some way to fund anything. Right? And we need to be sure the citizenry follows the law. Right? So they apparently don’t have any problem with “at the point of a gun;” they only disagree with what’s being funded and who more guns should be pointed at. Such a talking point amounts to arguing by using hysterics rather than “logic” or “reason:” hoping the person they are arguing with will be so repulsed by “point of a gun” that they won’t realize under different circumstances the person arguing with them has no problem with “taking money at the point of a gun.”

3. Then follow through with, “Unless you are willing to go without any government whatsoever: no police, no military, no trash, no safe water to drink… then it isn’t ‘your money” anymore. You have to pay for any service. Otherwise what you’re demanding is both theft and to be a freeloader: services without payment.

Remember that “at the point of a gun”-type rhetoric is emotion-baiting BS: a bogus ruse… and nothing more than that.