AN HONEST WALK-THROUGH  ·  NO YELLING

“Taxation is theft.”

You probably disagree — and that’s exactly who this is for. We’re not going to lecture you. We’re going to hand you the strongest objections, one at a time, and follow each one honestly until you decide where it lands.

Pick the rebuttal that feels most obvious to you. We’ll steelman it, test it against a single fixed definition, and flag any fallacy along the way — including our own.

WORKING DEFINITION

theft (n.) — taking another person’s property without their consent, under threat of force.

Agree to that? Then the only question left is whether taxation fits it.

RULE 01
We define our terms first — and don’t move the goalposts.
RULE 02
We steelman the other side before answering it.
RULE 03
We name the fallacies — ours included.
THE ARGUMENT MAP

Click the objection you’d raise.

Each click opens that branch and fills the dossier on the right — the Socratic turn, the reasoning, the sources, and the fallacy to watch for. Follow it as deep as you like, or jump to a different objection anytime.

HOW TO READ
A FALLACY TO WATCH FOR
OPENS A DEEPER BRANCH
IF YOU WANT TO GO FURTHER

The best-case library.

Not a reading list to win arguments — a reading list to make sure you’re right. Every title below is free to read in full — just click it. The fourth column is the Australian record: this argument has been made here before, on a ballot paper and on national television.

01   FOUNDATIONS
The Law ↗
Frédéric Bastiat · the clearest 75 pages on law turned to plunder.
For a New Liberty ↗
Murray Rothbard · the full libertarian manifesto, top to bottom.
Anatomy of the State ↗
Murray Rothbard · what the state is, stripped of euphemism.
02   MISES, MONEY & THE FED
The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality ↗
Ludwig von Mises · why the comfortable resent the market that feeds them.
What Has Government Done to Our Money? ↗
Murray Rothbard · sound money in one sitting.
End the Fed ↗
Ron Paul · the case against the central bank that funds it all.
Mises and Austrian Economics ↗
Ron Paul · a short personal view — the best on-ramp to the rest.
03   THE DEEPER CASE
Democracy: The God That Failed ↗
Hans-Hermann Hoppe · on majorities and what they cannot authorise.
A Theory of Socialism & Capitalism ↗
Hans-Hermann Hoppe · property rights from the ground up.
No Treason ↗
Lysander Spooner · demolishes the social-contract defence.
The Politics of Obedience ↗
Étienne de La Boétie · why the many obey the few.
04   AUSTRALIA
Workers Party Platform (1975) ↗
§2.1.1 is headed “Taxation is Theft”. An Australian party ran on this fifty years ago.
Monday Conference, ABC, 1975 ↗
Singleton and Howard defend the platform before a hostile studio audience. Full transcript.
Hoppe’s Inarticulate Australian Critics ↗
Benjamin Marks answers Peter Phelps, Steven Kates and James Paterson — by name, at length.
Hoppe on Tax ↗
The full interview three of the cards above quote from — eight questions, one sitting.
The Mises Seminar lectures ↗
Hoppe, Block, Graf and O’Neill, recorded in Sydney and Brisbane. Several answer a card here outright.
For the modern academic treatment, see Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority — rigorous, but not free.
Links open at mises.org — free to read, download, or print.
FROM ARGUMENT TO ACTION

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
— HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Taxation is Theft,
War is Murder.

If you followed the map to the end and the conclusion held, the honest next step isn’t cynicism — it’s organisation. There is now an electoral arm of that conviction in Australia, and a movement behind it that reaches well beyond one country.

The two halves are one argument. Taxation is how the state funds itself; war is what it spends on. “War is the health of the state” — Randolph Bourne’s line is why we refuse to treat either as normal. And we don’t do “left” or “right” libertarianism: the principle is just consent before aggression, applied without exception.

We’re working to put the party on the ballot at the next Federal Election. Registration takes names — real ones, in numbers. Yours is the difference between a slogan and a candidate.

LOCAL
A registered party, candidates on the ballot, and people you can actually meet at the next election.
GLOBAL
Part of a liberty movement that’s the same argument in a hundred languages — consent before aggression, everywhere.
ADD YOUR NAME
Put it on the ballot.

Sign up to register your support and get on the ballot at the next Federal Election. No spam — only what moves this forward.

WHAT FORMAL REGISTRATION TAKES (AEC)
011,500 members on the electoral roll — the AEC tests the list, so every name must check out.
02A written constitution naming election to Parliament as an object, plus appointed office bearers.
03A party name & logo that clear the AEC’s distinctness rules, and a $500 application fee.
04Time — the AEC says a minimum of three months, and “much longer” if the membership list has to be revised. Once the writs are issued nothing moves at all (Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, s.127). Sign early.
Your details go to our own self-hosted list — no third-party services, no analytics, no resale. They’re used for party registration and to contact you about it, nothing else.