Comment by rmunn

Plus, the question of voluntary vs. involuntary comes in. Taxation is, in most forms, involuntary. Don't pay your taxes, eventually you'll either be arrested or the government will compel your bank to hand over what you were supposed to pay; either way you're not allowed to say "I don't plan to use public roads so I don't want to pay for them" or "I don't want my money going to support the military, I'm fine with the military not defending me if the country is ever attacked" or whatever. You have to pay the taxes, and your say in how they get spent is very indirect.

The libertarian ideal is voluntary payment for services. Don't want to pay for fire protection? You don't have to; the flip side of the bargain is that if you haven't chosen to pay for fire protection, the fire company is under no obligation to put your house out if it does catch on fire. The choice is yours, but you have to be wiling to accept the consequences of your choice as well.

Note that I have not studied the various flavors of libertarian philosophy, so some of them might well disagree with what I just said. But the voluntary/involuntary thing is pretty important to libertarians as far as I know, so it's definitely worth mentioning here.