You're well named. First, I have made a case for the justice of taxing parents. You are not addressing that case. Second, you are arguing that rights are some kind of human construction, which is patent nonsense.

Here's how most of you here seem to argue: I make an argument that, say, Xing is immoral. You respond "morality is a human construction". It's just tedious. It's like saying "how do we know anything?" in response to any argument for an interesting proposition.

Now, do you have anything interesting to say about the interesting argument that I made?

Your parents have forced you to live a life. Well, we're all entitled to make them pay to insure us against the various risks we will face while living it. Yes? — Bartricks

And your parents can pass the buck to their parents, and they to theirs, and so on, back to Adam and Eve, or the Primordial Soup.
Where exactly does that get you?

And, of course, what if you're an orphan?

It is because force can legitimately be used against those who are violating another's rights and also to make sure people pay restitution. — Bartricks

A case can be made for the use of force being just in the case of self-defense, but other than that I am not so sure.

Violence is truly an unholy tool. It's reason that seperates man from animal, and violence that makes him more like it.

The argument about taxing parents vs. the rest of us is just not interesting; I don't see it as a problem.

But, the bigger problem here is that you claim that the hermit has rights but you haven't indicated how or from what source these rights came to him. You haven't claimed that rights are from God. That would be one way for him to have rights. You haven't claimed that they are from anywhere else, either. Did he just declare one day that he had rights? You or I could claim that we had rights, but how would the hermit, you, or I make it stick?

Have you heard of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? It's a United Nations document. It grants numerous rights to everyone. But is the United Nations a sufficiently authoritative and powerful organization that it can create rights for everyone? Seems doubtful.

The Constitution of the United States enumerates the "inalienable rights" of American citizens. The authors of the Constitution thought the nation they were creating had the authority and the power to create rights. Citizens of the newly hatched country also thought that their nation had sufficient authority and power. As it turned out, the nation did not have quite enough authority and power to fully establish the rights the constitution enumerated. It's been a struggle.

The hermit has rights. It is wrong to kill him, yes? He is entitled to defend himself against your deadly attack. So he has a right to life. — Bartricks

Personally, I don't have any problem with the hermit having rights as an individual. It would be wrong to kill him. He has a right to life. So do I, so do you. THAT isn't the question. The question is where do the rights that we have come from? I think they come from a society that has enough authority and power to establish them. When states fail, the rights that they had once created begin to evaporate because the authority and power of the collective society is gone. A once orderly society becomes a chaotic and frequently fatal 'all against all'.

We recognise them using our reason — Bartricks

Your reason. Not our reason.

That you still haven't grasped the difference between you thinking something is the case and something's actually being the case is at the root of your proliferation of uninteresting threads. The correct resolution of your syllogisms is child's play to most people here and your arguments in all cases come down to some premise with which others disagree but which you claim to be immutable on no grounds other than that it seems that way to you.

It's philosophically dull, a dead end...

Not a highpoint in the intellectual life of the forums. — Banno

↪unenlightened You're well named. — Bartricks

Thank you. You are also well named. But at the risk of a little negativity, let us focus on our disagreements and dispense with the compliments.

I do not believe the state is entitled to do anything to us that we would not be justified in doing to each other in the state's absence. So, if there is no state I am still entitled to defend myself against attack, and I am still entitled to keep the food I grew and stop you from taking it from me, and I am still entitled to others keeping up their ends of bargains we've voluntarily entered into, and so on. — Bartricks

First, I have made a case — Bartricks

I make an argument that, say, Xing is immoral. — Bartricks

You have made a creed. My creed is different, and comes from the Diggers. "No man has any right to buy or sell this Earth for private gain". Which develops from the sayings of Jesus; "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God, that which is God's."

I might get to taxation justice later, but if you start with inalienable property rights, then It seems reasonable for me to question your premise rather than your conclusion.

Your reason. Not our reason. — Isaac

He mimicks the style of philosophers. :p

Same applies. Parents - procreators - create the society in which the rest of us have to live. So they should pay for it all for everyone. It's only fair. All parents have played their part, and so all should pay.

If the only way you can find to challenge my argument is to challenge the idea that anyone has any moral rights at all, then all you've done is acknowledge that my argument is incredibly strong. For my conclusion is now as well grounded as the idea that we have moral rights.
A competent arguer would not question the idea that we have rights, but would instead focus their attention on whether my controversial conclusion really follows.

Yes, that's how things appear to you and others, such as Dummo, Haventaclue, and Sourdunce. But that's the Dunning and Kruger effect. You have no expertise in philosophy and so you confuse arguments you find interesting with philosophically interesting arguments.

Parents - procreators - create the society in which the rest of us have to live. So they should pay for it all for everyone. — Bartricks

I think this was an episode of One Punch Man.

All parents have played their part, and so all should pay. — Bartricks

Make them.

:grin: :up:

You can blame your existence on someone else for only as long as they stop you jumping, your parents -jailers- will one day release you or already have, a slave who is given the key to his own chains and refuses to escape but continues to whine is a fool.
I am not advocating suicide but most parents have always assumed the 'tax' for having children. Protecting them from danger, feeding them etc.
Your life becomes yours at some point and you gain a measure of independence, as far as this things go; what do you do when the key to your self-proclaimed prison is handed to you?