Question: Since all taxation is theft, is there a means for a government to function at all?
What does God say? If we keep in mind what the purpose of government is and what the responsible and holy man of God does (and throw out all of the carnal responsibilities that men have added to the duties of government), yes, government can be financed without taxation.
That is, are we aiming for the total obliteration of government and the establishment of a true socialist society bereft of central authority?
Socialist society? Is that the ideal that Jesus preached?
Or perhaps a purely carnivorous society; i.e. without a central authority it is ultimately left to those who attain the greatest wealth and power to rise to the top and we play social king of the mountain?
We have a central authority ... God!
I'm guessing the former isn't the idea since socialism is a naughty word and it involves social cooperation so that everyone benefits--which from what I hear is a really bad thing.
There is a difference between cooperation and coercion ... the same difference between free societies and statist societies. Socialism as devised by men at its very foundation is at odds with the society that God champions and does not benefit all men, it benefits some men at the expense of others.
The latter would seem to be the ideal state of affairs, a true Randian Utopia where dog eats dog
What???? When people can only achieve their goals with the voluntary cooperation of others, where coercion is not an option, HOW do you get a dog eats dog state of affairs?
a true experiment in social darwinism where there is a survival of the richest and strongest and to hell with those who can't make it.
This is not possible in a society of people committed to God's holiness NOR in a society where the initiation of the use of force to compel others to obey you is not legalized ... as it IS legalized in statist societies.
If a government, in order to survive at all requires the governed to sustain it (which a lot of which includes taxation) and we remove that aspect away so that government ultimately ceases we are left still with how society govern itself.
If we limited government to its moral purpose as identified by God (to ensure justice is done and address the predatory man's evil against his fellow man), its costs can easily be borne without the kind of taxation you apparently believe is critical.
Maybe I'm wrong, I've never read any of Rand's works, but it would seem to me that this is precisely the sort of ultimate ideal of a Randian society, one in which the strong, the powerful and the rich survive and everyone else has their necks stepped on.
Why would it 'seem to you' when you readily admit you haven't read any of Rand's works? She condemned that kind of society which, AGAIN, cannot exist when the initiation of the use of force in human relations is not an option!
Such a society would be the worst kind of anarchy, a predatory society bereft of benevolence. A modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. No, literally, Ezekiel 16 says the crime of Sodom was their affluence, power and their refusal to tend to the care of the needy.
-CryptoLutheran
What Ezeikiel 16 said was "this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom
pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me"
Crypto, you didn't mention that God was angered as well by Sodom's PRIDE, IDLENESS, HAUGHTINESS AND COMMITTING OF ABOMINATION like, oh, men laying with men and by failing to do so you gave a very distorted view of why God was angry with Sodom.