Dear Editor,

Milsted makes a glaring error in his article "The Need to be Anarchists."

"However, suppose that the economies of scale are such that this tax is less
than half of what people would have had to pay for defense on their own. Now we
have theft with adequate compensation."

Adequate according to whom? Value is a subjective, individual judgment. What if
the tax victim did not value a missile defense program at all? Now you're
taking tax money and paying him back double 0.

It would only be ethical if you compensated the victim double according to his
own value judgment. If a thief steals a family heirloom watch that wouldn't
fetch $5 on the free market, that does not mean that a $10 compensation would
be morally acceptable. Given this, if an individual does not value a missile
defense program at all, then it is unethical to tax him even one penny for it.

Scott Johnson
San Francisco, CA