Quote :

"The people downstream of your farm who drink that water and depend on it for irrigation would probably disagree with your opinion. They'd probably think that it certainly was theft."

Maybe if they weren't native English speakers. It's no more theft than it is murder. It simply doesn't fit the definition.

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 2:46 PM. Reason : ]

8/21/2013 2:45:52 PM

What? Before you came, they had water flowing by their little village they they used to drink, wash, and irrigate. You come along, damn up the river, and they no longer have running water. They're going to think that's theft. This is a big problem in today's America.

And what if someone moves upstream of your farm, dams the water, causing you to not have access to water. What are you going to do.

Again, your "ideas" don't have any root in reality. It's not the way the world and humans work.

8/21/2013 2:49:39 PM

No worries, those poor farmers downstream formed a corporation to pool resources and then built a diversion canal upstream from d357r0y3r. They are now diverting all of the water from the stream.

d357's crops have all wilted and he has died

Quote :

"It simply doesn't fit the definition."

oh cool, aaronburro style arguments

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 3:00 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2013 2:59:17 PM

What about his Oxen?

8/21/2013 3:00:15 PM

the indian guide that he trusted stole all of his oxen

8/21/2013 3:01:20 PM

Yeah, I'm not going to spend time fighting these ridiculously solvable "what if" scenarios. I'm capable of trotting out how it might be handled in the absence of a state monopoly, but this would be speculation on my part, just as its speculation on your part.

Luckily, we don't need to speculate when it comes to how governments works in "reality".

What if the government lies in order to start an unjust war, hundreds of thousands of people die as a result, and the people don't really give a shit?

What happens if Congress passes an unjust law, the President signs it, and the Supreme Court upholds it?

See, I can play the "what if" game too. The only difference is that my "what ifs" aren't "what ifs" at all, they are actually happening, no speculation needed.

8/21/2013 3:09:48 PM

as has been asked before, why have your ideas never been tried?

well, i guess they have in some degrees. and has been pointed out, you can look back on thousands of years of history and see that they ultimately fail. they might be good ideas in theory, but they don't work in reality. someones always going to rule. someones always going to resort to violence.

8/21/2013 3:14:34 PM

"Property is theft!" is an old saying with plenty of meaning, but also a lot of shock value, which is IMO why people love to throw it around. Note that Proudhon also wrote that "Property is liberty," so his views were pretty nuanced (and I may not represent them very well).

The gist is that inherent in the ownership of property is the right to deny the use of that property to another individual. Thus you are stealing the ability of everyone else that may be interested in using that property as soon as you claim ownership. Of course, you'll need to accept that many forms of ownership are arbitrary and a social construct.

8/21/2013 4:03:53 PM

Quote :

"What if the government lies in order to start an unjust war, hundreds of thousands of people die as a result, and the people don't really give a shit? What happens if Congress passes an unjust law, the President signs it, and the Supreme Court upholds it? See, I can play the "what if" game too. The only difference is that my "what ifs" aren't "what ifs" at all, they are actually happening, no speculation needed."

The difference, of course, is that instead of trying to amend state abuses (which we all agree exist), you internet Libertarians just circle-jerk each other thinking about a civilization that would never exist they way you think it would. And you know why it wouldn't exist that way? Because people are assholes. That's why. People only look out for themselves, and your stateless society would quickly dissolve into an orderless hell-hole where might would make right.

Why do you refuse to acknowledge this? You wantonly theorize about how wonderful it would be, but as soon as the criticism gets too hard to defend, you simply assert that you "aren't going to engage in hypotheticals" and instead shit the focus back on to abuses of real government power. That's fucking lazy and you know it. Step your shit up, man.

You wanna talk about how governments always concentrate their power and work in secrecy to abuse their own interests? Fine. Go ahead. Do it. I'll join that conversation.

But simply asserting that your alternative would be some stateless utopia and then immediately dodging valid criticism is some mark-ass buster shit.

8/21/2013 4:24:32 PM

Quote :

"What? Before you came, they had water flowing by their little village they they used to drink, wash, and irrigate. You come along, damn up the river, and they no longer have running water. They're going to think that's theft. This is a big problem in today's America."

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/internationalhumanrights/p/saddam_hussein.htm

I thought this was done in Iraq

Quote :

"The Campaign Against the Marsh Arabs: Hussein did not limit his genocide to identifiably Kurdish groups; he also targeted the predominantly Shiite Marsh Arabs of southeastern Iraq, the direct descendants of the ancient Mesopotamians. By destroying more than 95% of the region's marshes, he effectively depleted its food supply and destroyed the entire millennia-old culture, reducing the number of Marsh Arabs from 250,000 to approximately 30,000. It is unknown how much of this population drop can be attributed to direct starvation and how much to migration, but the human cost was unquestionably high."

I don't know exactly how he destroyed the marsh, but from vague History-channel type memories, I thought he cut off the flow.

8/21/2013 4:31:25 PM

hey so do we all agree that property tax is garbage? or at least that there should be exemptions for people without income? (not just for the elderly and disabled)

if so i will cede this thread to the anarchism debate.

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 4:40 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2013 4:38:10 PM

Quote :

"I thought this was done in Iraq"

It's a big issue on the Colorado River too. And in a lot of Middle Eastern Countries. Water rights.

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 5:06 PM. Reason : haha, and i said "damn" instead of "dam"]

8/21/2013 4:55:56 PM

Quote :

"hey so do we all agree that property tax is garbage?"

For land specifically? Or generally?

Even generally, I might be able to make a good case. Even if you think you can own something without paying tax on its value you're wrong - inflation. So we have de-facto general property tax. Is it ethical? Maybe not, but can government survive without it?

Quote :

"It's a big issue on the Colorado River too. "

Genocide?!

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 5:42 PM. Reason : ]

8/21/2013 5:41:37 PM

Quote :

"Even generally, I might be able to make a good case. Even if you think you can own something without paying tax on its value you're wrong - inflation. So we have de-facto general property tax. Is it ethical? Maybe not, but can government survive without it?"

Why couldn't government survive without it? Divert it to income tax.

[Edited on August 21, 2013 at 6:13 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2013 6:13:33 PM

Quote :

"Why couldn't government survive without it? Divert it to income tax."

...but they do tax it as income. That's the problem. Capital gains are a special case for income through appreciation of value. If you have an investment that doesn't qualify for the capital gains tax, then it's treated as normal income. Treating "appreciation" as normal income is the default position.

But of course, we know that appreciation by this definition isn't real appreciation. It's only rise in value relative to the dollar, and the dollar has inflation programmed into it. That means that an asset that holds a constant value in terms of the CPI is interpreted to be a source of income by our government.

Yet, there are people who actually make money as traders/merchants. That is done by buying an asset at one value and selling it at a higher one. If we respect property rights, then taxing this "income" is no different from taxing property. It's just property gaining value. But even static property gains value.

So it turns out, there's no way to distinguish fully between property tax and income - except for in a superficial way, which is our current system. Definitions (like property tax) are all specifically defined in a superficial system. So the proposal to eliminate property tax makes no sense.

8/21/2013 7:17:13 PM

^
Bear with me because I'm terrible at economics

Cars don't appreciate and we pay property taxes on them. Houses can appreciate or depreciate. So you aren't necessarily earning income from your property. It's not a fair system. Even if you take the original value of your car, adjust it for inflation, and pay something like 15% of that adjustment, it would be way less than what we pay currently (at least what I pay in Charlotte).

And even if it did make sense economically, does it make sense morally?

[Edited on August 22, 2013 at 8:50 AM. Reason : .]

8/22/2013 8:49:29 AM

Sure, from a rational deconstructionist standpoint, we should assume that the full range of assets exists - from the violently depreciating to the cash cows.

You correctly observe that we institute the legal definition of property tax on violently depreciating assets. In order to make the car have a "false" value gain, you would have to benchmark it to a currently that has over 15% inflation.

This is slightly ridiculous, but surely it would not be better to eliminate the "property tax" and simultaneously inflate the daylights out of our currency. In terms of financial manipulation, the government could get the same amount out of you with both methods.

Quote :

"And even if it did make sense economically, does it make sense morally?"

There is some problem, even if marginal, that we lack any clear alternative. What would you benchmark value to? And if you only pay when you sell something for the value change, is it really that different from a pay-as-you go system which is the legal "property tax"?

Would it be sufficient to allow indefinite ownership without ever paying tax? I don't see that as being actually preferable. The ability to sell what you own is a really really important component of ownership. I don't want to have to use a car over its entire lifetime. Some people prefer to save money by driving old cars and some people would rather avoid the hassle.

That makes the moral question complicated.

There are people who see gold as a constant-value asset. I think they're fucking mental. The idea is completely ridiculous. But I respect their autonomy to make bad decisions with their money. I think the CPI is the best idea of "constant value". Even if I was the ruler of the world, I see now way to make an "ethical" tax code respecting the values of both parties. Unless maybe they broke off and made their own nations.

The morality you speak of is something much more specific. It's about a tax code that says "Owners of a car will pay xx% of the cars value in USD to the state every year". Should they have written such a code? I think there are a huge number of problems with that. Lawmakers aren't good at economics either.

Naturally there is a better way to raise money. The problem in the first place is that lawmakers "look" for ways to raise money. The taxation system should be limited to a few "gates" of value flow. In short, if the state needs more money they should be forced to raise the rate of an existing tax. I agree with you there.

8/22/2013 10:29:52 AM