Volition, taxation is not stealing - it is not regarded as stealing because the general consensus in society precludes taxation from the definition of stealing. I'm gonna quote what I said in the other thread:
You mentioned later that examining the definition is unnecessary. But of course it's necessary to examine what is stealing if we're determining the veracity of your argument that (paraphrasing) "taxation is stealing, therefore it's wrong". Prima facie the problematic part of the argument is not that stealing is wrong, but rather that taxation is regarded as stealing. That is the main issue in our present discussion.I am not a follower of so called 'democratic morality', but rather of consequentialism, in the broad sense of the phrase which permits the existence of general 'moral rules' to the extent that they optimise consequences, and permit punishments for the contravention of the general moral rules to the extent that they undermine the efficacy of moral rules in optimising the consequences. I don't see merit in 'consistency' per se (but obviously a 'consistent' rule tends to be more credible). However, strict adherence to 'consistency' is often problematic. Much would depend on how stealing is defined, on how murder is defined etc. Would the use of facilities that you didn't pay for constitute stealing? What about abortion - is that murder? We are creatures that rely on intuition and common sense, rather than strict logic, in normal applications of morality. Notions such as 'property rights', 'stealing', 'murder' etc. cannot be considered literally because the strict literal meanings came after their intrinsic applications. The discourse exists through convenience - the dictionary meanings, categories and distinctions attempt to describe what we regard as morally wrong, not define what is morally wrong.