Mr Khan said:
But "wrongful" is not up to personal opinion. Never has been. To state otherwise annihilates millennia of discourse on ethics, or reverts us to relativism (and relativism is the "Godwin's Law" of ethics debates, so we must avoid it at all costs). Unless we could successfully build an argument that the social contract itself is flawed, or that there is a point upon which the government is deemed to be no longer legitimate on the whole, and then all of their actions from authority become "wrong." But a government which is legitimate, applying its power and excercising its need to collect funds to accomplish such cannot be "wrong." Wrongness could also come into play if the government had an amoral means by which to collect taxes, but taxes cannot be amoral so long as the government is legitimate. |
Well I do respect the government as legitimate, but I still think a legitimate government can commit wrongful actions. Holding American citizens indefinitely with no warrant or probable cause under the Patriot Act is wrongful, invading a foreign country without a declaration of war from congress is wrongful, and I think that overtaxation is also wrongful.
America was founded by patriots who wanted rid of the oppressive/overtaxing British monarchy, and now all we've done is replace it by an oppressive/overtaxing president.
