How do you respond to objections of debt

[Jeremiah_Dyke]

That take the form of “but we owe it to ourselves”

[gocrew]

It’s untrue. Americans will be taxed to pay back those who lent it, some of whom are American and some of whom aren’t. Even if all the lenders were American, not all Americans lent, meaning some stand to gain if the debt is paid back, others stand only to lose.

If “we owe it to ourselves”, why not just repudiate it right now?

[Smiling_Dave]

Really well said, gocrew.

[intplee]

Lend yourself $10. You must repay yourself $10 plus $1 interest next week (or face 1 year in jail). Now flush the $10 down the toilet. But don’t worry, you owe it to yourself!

[Giant_Joe]

I counter with Murray Rothbard, Anatomy of the State:

The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service. Some theorists venerate the State as the apotheosis of society; others regard it as an amiable, though often inefficient, organization for achieving social ends; but almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged against the “private sector” and often winning in this competition of resources. With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, “we are the government.” The useful collective term “we” has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If “we are the government,” then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also “voluntary” on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that “we owe it to ourselves”; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is “doing it to himself” and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have “committed suicide,” since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. One would not think it necessary to belabor this point, and yet the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or lesser degree.

Our Greatest Earthly Enemy - LewRockwell

[Beefheart]

Who is ‘we?’ I’m sure not all of us really deserve ‘it.’ What about the people we’re (again who is this we? I’m not doing anything myself, its the State) taking from? If its us the whole program is pointless, and if not us then who? Others? Do they not deserve their own? What is ‘it?’ What did I earn, and if I really earned it why do I need this collective program? This program doesn’t seem to help me at all. What am I doing that apparently isn’t getting compensated in return for my doing whatever task I agreed to do?