Taxes Avoided by the Rich Could Pay Off the Deficit

[Roy L]

The notion that there are good taxes and bad taxes is laughable, and LVT as a good tax is absurd.

Every informed person is aware that there are good and bad taxes, and every honest, intelligent and informed person is aware that LVT is one of the good ones. Google "Pigovian tax" and start reading.

The idea that the state is necessary to carry out certain special functions is borderline infantile.

"To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...."

"Infantile" would describe the "meeza hatesa gubmint" morons.

Hoppe demolishes this view:

?? ROTFL!! Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the stupidest and most dishonest lying sack of feudal propertarian $#!+ in the whole Austrian School, and that is saying something. Virtually every sentence he writes is a fallacy, a red herring, a false and unsupported assertion, or a lie.

These statist arguments can be refuted by a combination of three fundamental insights: First, as for the kindergarten argument, it does not follow from the fact that the state provides roads and schools that only the state can provide such goods. People have little difficulty recognizing that this is a fallacy... And second, immediately following, it must be recalled that the state is an institution that can legislate and tax; and hence, that state agents have little incentive to produce efficiently.

People have little difficulty recognizing that this is a non sequitur.

State roads and schools will only be more costly and their quality lower.

Bald assertion with zero (0) factual support.

For there is always a tendency for state agents to use up as many resources as possible doing whatever they do but actually work as little as possible doing it.

Bald assertion with zero (0) factual support.

Third, as for the more sophisticated statist argument, it involves the same fallacy encountered already at the kindergarten level. For even if one were to grant the rest of the argument, it is still a fallacy to conclude from the fact that states provide public goods that only states can do so.

Strawman fallacy.

More importantly, however, it must be pointed out that the entire argument demonstrates a total ignorance of the most fundamental fact of human life, namely, scarcity.

Red herring, and an assertion totally lacking factual support.

But to bring such unproduced goods into existence scarce resources must be expended, which consequently can no longer be used to produce other, likewise desirable things. Whether public goods exist next to private ones does not matter in this regard—the fact of scarcity remains unchanged: more “public” goods can come only at the expense of less “private” goods. Yet what needs to be demonstrated is that one good is more important and valuable than another one. This is what is meant by “economizing.”Yet can the state help economize scarce resources? This is the question that must be answered. In fact, however, conclusive proof exists that the state does not and cannot economize:

Flat-out lie. There is not only no such proof, but no plausible argument to that effect, and plenty of empirical evidence to the contrary.

For in order to produce anything, the state must resort to taxation (or legislation)—which demonstrates irrefutably that its subjects do not want what the state produces but prefer instead something else as more important.

Flat-out lie. Hoppe simply ignores the economics of public goods, which the private market cannot produce in efficient quantities.

Rather than economize, the state can only redistribute:

Lie.

it can produce more of what it wants and less of what the people want—and, to recall, whatever the state then produces will be produced inefficiently.

Lie.

Finally, the most sophisticated argument in favor of the state must be briefly examined. From Hobbes on down this argument has been repeated endlessly. It runs like this: In the state of nature—before the establishment of a state—permanent conflict reigns. Everyone claims a right to everything, and this will result in interminable war.

Lie. No one claims everyone claims a right to everything. Hoppe is merely falsely attributing to everyone the psychotic greed of the feudal propertarian sociopath.

There is no way out of this predicament by means of agreements; for who would enforce these agreements? Whenever the situation appeared advantageous, one or both parties would break the agreement.

So the terms of the agreement simply make it very unlikely that that would happen. Problem solved. Hoppe is simply committing another strawman fallacy by assuming agreements must be logically perfect, when no such condition is required.

Hence, people recognize that there is but one solution to the desideratum of peace: the establishment, per agreement, of a state, i.e., a third, independent party as ultimate judge and enforcer. Yet if this thesis is correct and agreements require an outside enforcer to make them binding, then a state-by-agreement can never come into existence. For in order to enforce the very agreement that is to result in the formation of a state (to make this agreement binding), another outside enforcer, a prior state, would already have to exist. And in order for this state to have come into existence, yet another still earlier state must be postulated, and so on, in infinite regress."

This is typical of Hoppe's fallacious and absurd "logic."

Further: If we accept the Hobbesian idea that the enforcement of mutually agreed upon rules does require some independent third party, this would actually rule out the establishment of a state.

Where is this allegedly Hobbesian idea to be found? What if it is simply ignored?

In fact, it would constitute a conclusive argument against the institution of a state, i.e., of a monopolistof ultimate decision-making and arbitration. For then, there must also exist an independent third party to decide in every case of conflict between me (private citizen) and some state agent, and likewise an independent third party must exist for every case of intra-state conflicts (and there must be another independent third party for the case of conflicts between various third parties)—yet this means, of course, that such a “state” (or any independent third party) would be no state as I have defined it at the outset but simply one of many freely competing third-party conflict arbitrators

More typical Hoppean logic-chopping.

...Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose.

Stupid lie.

Citing Lincoln as an advocate of liberty is simply peeing on the 600,000 dead Americans he needlessly sent to their graves preventing the south from seceding. Its was the South's liberty to do so and he crushed them like the tyrant he was.

It was the South's liberty forcibly to deprive human beings of their rights to liberty? There can be no such right.

Liberty through statisim is a monumental contradiction.

No, because the word "statism" is a meaningless propaganda noise.

And the argument that LVT as a necessary means to a better form of government securing a just society is rightfully dead in the water

It has been proved conclusively, whether you choose to know it or not.

“Private property in land is the great fictitious right by which landowners seek to live at the expense of producers.”—Roy L

There. Fixed it for you.

 

[angelatc]

It was the South's liberty forcibly to deprive human beings of their rights to liberty? There can be no such right.

But Lincoln said that if he could keep the union together without abolishing slavery he would do so. So that tells us that the war was not about human rights. We are the only nation that needed a civil war to abolish slavery. Everybody else managed to accomplish it with economic incentives.

So you're wrong on this point. While it's true that the war probably wouldn't have started if slavery hadn't existed, the war was not fought about the abolition of slavery. It was about the State's retention of power over the southern states.

 

[Steven Douglas]

We could [charge all LVT up front], if we knew how much they would be, what the tax rate would be, and what the discount rate would be, for all eternity.

Another absurdity, one you would oppose with your ideology if you were consistent, because even if we knew those variables, and I paid all the LVT up front, who gets that LVT? The current state gets all that revenue RIGHT NOW. You know,that revenue that is supposed to account for all those liberty rights deprivations fifty and a hundred years from now. The state gets that revenue and spends it RIGHT NOW on a Bridge To Nowhere or something else that essentially worthless on the whole, which may have zero value within thirty years. So you've pretended to reconcile the putative liberty rights of that generation only.

It has been known for hundreds of years that the purchase price of land is just the market value of all its future after-tax rents.

Wow, Roy, you have zero concept of time as it relates to land values, any more than you have a concept of time as it relates to supply. The purchase price of land does not EVER include "all its future after-tax rents". That is EASILY proved by taking any parcel of land, adding up all its after-tax rents (accounting for inflation, very important) for any given period of time (say fifty years), and asking whether the purchase price was ever that amount. The market price of land may bear some relationship to its rents over time, but that time element is ALWAYS finite, always unique to that parcel, and is something you could easily equate to an imaginary mortgage to which you apply the land rents. That mortgage -- including the time it takes to pay for the land using nothing but rents -- is never infinite, and therefore does not ever reflect "all its future after-tax rents". There is another proof that completely destroys the inept notion that purchase price reflects all future land rents: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is exactly one absurdity here, and that is your claim that the landowner hasn't paid any land rent for the land.

That strawman is a move of the goalposts on your part. Your absurdity of "hasn't paid any land rent" was never my claim. You substituted the word "any" for "all", as in "any land rents" in place of "all future land rents", which is the only thing that was being discussed.

Once land is owned, land rents on any activities on that land is 100% profit from that activity -- whatever it is -- including farming.

The rent is the same whether there is any profit or not, whether there is any activity or not, and therefore cannot be the profit of any activity.

Stay focused, Roy. Land rents (that which actually gives the annual rents of land any market value at all) cannot exist without profits from some economic activity that originates somewhere. Following that activity to its source(s) is something you neglect entirely, as if land rents really could exist, let alone be the same, "whether there is any profit or not, whether there is any activity or not". If there is no economic activity, and therefore no profit, all land rents fall to zero, because nobody has anything to pay with.

If there could be such a thing as a Geocommunist, which there can't.

Of course there is. It is my reference to you and others, defined as: anyone who believes that all land, including privately occupied land, belongs collectively to everyone in a given geographical area. That my definition of a "geocommunist" - a shorthand reference, used in context, the meaning of which is abundantly clear to all but the most obtuse. Your feelings about how I have characterized and defined it, or the fact that I use it in a way that you feel is denigrating, is irrelevant. And while I made that word up (i.e., "coined it"), I wasn't the first (Google geocommunist and geocommunism). Others may have used those words in a different context, but the fact that the word has been coined and put into usage, however uncommon, is an self-evident and indisputable fact of objective reality.

Once that voluntary agreement is reached on both parts (nobody forced to buy or sell) I think we can safely say that both the buyer and seller thought it would be extremely "lucrative" to each.

But in fact, it is to the seller, but might not be to the buyer.

Whether it "might be" lucrative or not is irrelevant, as I said the buyer "thought" it would be based on a demonstrated a willingness to pay: the same exact argument you use with regard to LVT. Remember? You think that someone paying LVT is proof that they were willing" to pay it.

And pay the hoodlum standing in front of the bread, instead of paying the baker who created its value....

Your personal vision of the state as "the baker who created" (and must forever be that-which-rents-out-but-never-sells) is an unadulterated bullshit to me. Nothing but Soylent Green. The difference between us, Roy, is that I can distinguish between an owner-in-fact and how I feel about it. I don't care if it's a Saudi Sheik, Communist China, or millions of private owners in a purely propertarian landownership regime. I can recognize the owner-in-fact in all cases, and can discuss it rationally from a reality standpoint, without regard to how I feel about it. You have great difficulty with that, which accounts partly for the difficulty you have in relating and discussing concepts with others who don't share your particular beliefs. Nobody can have a rational conversation with you unless they toe a strict line of reasoning from your geocommunist (yes, it's a word now, as I have defined it) reasoning only.

Your concept of a state's relationship to landownership makes Roy's Presumptuous Land-Arrogating State nothing but the worst sort of hoodlum in my eyes. Does that really matter? If I am in such a state, I have no difficulty expressing the fact of ownership, regardless how I think it ought to be.

In fact, your entire LVT rationale, based on common lands rightfully "belonging" to some collective mob, or nebulous human hive called "community", spits in the face of the displaced aboriginals whose concept of "collective belonging to land without ownership" did not include any complex economic machinations that enabled exclusive occupation and restricted usage of lands, as conditioned upon perpetual payments to any tribe, including their own. They wouldn't comprehend your artificial paradox of "reconciling" their rights except as geogibberish code-speak that translates in reality to them as, "Sorry, but your liberty rights to the best lands in this territory were reconciled rented out by our chiefs to the highest bidders in our territory-tribe. Those highest bidders, and not you, get all of the benefits they are paying for, but you do at least get a bone of value thrown to you in return: Here are your Universal Individual Exemptions for Enough Good Reservation Lands to live on. If you want to enjoy the paid-for privileges of the landowners of the best lands under LVT, you are going to have prove that on the basis of what you are willing to give the state."

Those natives would have a very good argument that your very presence is a Forked Tongue Atrocity, because you are using their practice (common hunter-gatherer agrarian access and use of all lands) as a rationale for what you say are everyone's rights, while simultaneously calling that inefficient, and creating a different set of rules that systematically denies and destroys those very rights with your geofascist "whomever pays the most to the state is the most privileged" conditions.

Land rent income is indisputably unearned, as the recipient doesn't do anything for it.

Of course he does something for it. He secures the land, by whatever means, no differently than a person who picks up a chunk of gold and puts it in his pocket (which you would call "doing something for it"). And both the securer of land and the finder of the gold chunk create a state that further helps them secure rights in what they call their property.

As to earned vs. unearned, who gives a shit? There is no Marxist Labor Theory of Value at work here with regard to ownership. Miners don't get claims to mines on the basis of work performed, and property in general can be owned without a STITCH of labor or "earning" involved. OWNERSHIP is the sole determinant, not anyone's concept of deserving or worth as it relates to "earning" or "productivity" (i.e., labor - and from a decidedly Marxist reasoning). You want to split hairs with a special rule that applies Marxist Theory of Labor to lands only, and only as it applies to a geofascist state that becomes the rightful owner of lands (or, using pure semantics, "administrator" on behalf of The Geocommunist "People's Land"). Your geofascist For-Profit State then becomes the rightful recipient of all land rents on the basis that laborers in the state "did something" (earned, through infrastructure creation and other FOR-PROFIT services) that literally "caused" all land values to come about and exist.

Land Rent "income" ALWAYS originates with the END USER. If he RENTED the land that he owned to someone else, then that someone would be the END USER, from whose economic activities the "income" was generated.

The land rent income was earned.... just not by the landowner who got it.

That's under an LVT regime, Roy, which thoroughly destroys the notion that LVT is somehow "paid for" by landowners, or that the cost is borne by them. Landowners who-are-not-end-users no more "pay for" LVT than a retail store "pays for" sales taxes, or a filling station "pays for" fuel surcharges. And since ONLY the end users are the ones who actually generate the income required to pay for LVT, we can safely say that it is possible that no landowner in an LVT regime would ever pay ANY LVT. So while the END USER that the landowner is renting to is taxed but once, such a landowner is not taxed at all.

But, like you said:

What landowners do as individuals is irrelevant. Maybe one landowner farms his land. Maybe another works as a baker. Maybe another leads a Boy Scout troop. So what? It is what they do QUA landowner that defines the economic role of the landowner.

Fine, so long as you aren't claiming that LVT specifically targets landowners. It may take away their ability to pocket land rents only, but that does not mean that LVT is being paid for by landowners. Quite the opposite, in fact, as LVT encourages landowners NOT to be the end users, but rather to be the developers who profit from the end users who always bear the entire burden of the tax.

 

[MattintheCrown]

That's under an LVT regime, Roy, which thoroughly destroys the notion that LVT is somehow "paid for" by landowners, or that the cost is borne by them. Landowners who-are-not-end-users no more "pay for" LVT than a retail store "pays for" sales taxes, or a filling station "pays for" fuel surcharges. And since ONLY the end users are the ones who actually generate the income required to pay for LVT, we can safely say that it is possible that no landowner in an LVT regime would ever pay ANY LVT. So while the END USER that the landowner is renting to is taxed but once, such a landowner is not taxed at all.

It's difficult to determine whether you're simply utterly ignorant of basic economic concepts, or just lying. In either case, I'll direct readers to the concept of tax incidence, which shows that your construction is exactly backwards.

If a landowner is also using his land productively, the LVT captures the portion of his production that results from the relative advantages of his location (for example, a producer located closer to consumers might pay less in shipping than one located further away); if a landowner is not the land's user, the rent he collects on the land is redirected from his pockets to the government.

Fine, so long as you aren't claiming that LVT specifically targets landowners. It may take away their ability to pocket land rents only, but that does not mean that LVT is being paid for by landowners. Quite the opposite, in fact, as LVT encourages landowners NOT to be the end users, but rather to be the developers who profit from the end users who always bear the entire burden of the tax.

No, that's also backwards. The LVT encourages the landowner to be the end user, because there's no longer any land-rent giveaway. Right now, there's good reason to own land, whether you wish to use it productively or not; that's not the case under the LVT.

 

[Steven Douglas]

It's difficult to determine whether you're simply utterly ignorant of basic economic concepts, or just lying. In either case, I'll direct readers to the concept of tax incidence, which shows that your construction is exactly backwards.

Nice can of worms, Matt, speaking of utter ignorance of basic economic concepts. You cite a wiki link about tax incidence, which you claim "shows" that my construction is backward. And yet you don't actually quote anything in the source you are supposedly relying on. You instead offer your own interpretation, not even a paraphrase of what you think it means. DID YOU EVEN READ YOUR OWN SOURCE?

Right off the bat, and using only your source, I can show you several fatal flaws in your thinking that tax incidence automatically falls on landowners: (emphasis mine)

...the true burden of the tax cannot be properly assessed without knowing the use of the tax revenues. If the tax proceeds are employed in a manner that benefits owners more than producers and consumers then the burden of the tax will fall on producers and consumers. If the proceeds of the tax are used in a way that benefits producers and consumers, then owners suffer the tax burden. These are class distinctions concerning the distribution of costs and are not addressed in current tax incidence models.

Furthermore: (from your same source)

Most public finance economists acknowledge that nominal tax incidence (i.e. who writes the check to pay a tax) is not necessarily identical to actual economic burden of the tax, but disagree greatly among themselves on the extent to which market forces disturb the nominal tax incidence of various types of taxes in various circumstances.

The effects of certain kinds of taxes, for example, the property tax, including their economic incidence, efficiency properties and distributional implications, have been the subject of a long and contentious debate among economists.

Your personal interpretation, which has nothing to do with tax incidence theory:

If a landowner is also using his land productively, the LVT captures the portion of his production that results from the relative advantages of his location (for example, a producer located closer to consumers might pay less in shipping than one located further away); if a landowner is not the land's user, the rent he collects on the land is redirected from his pockets to the government.

One of the key concepts of tax incidence thesis is the proposition that the "tax burden does not depend on where the revenue is collected, but on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply". And yet you didn't even bring that up. All you said, in the case of a landowner renting out capital improvements on land, should that include a land value tax, was that "the rent he collects...is redirected...to the government". That says absolutely NOTHING about the theoretical tax incidence (who bears the actual burden of the tax), and is not how various models of tax incidence even works, even if we stipulated that they weren't controversial (i.e., the subject of a long and contentious debate by economists).

Also, you equate "no longer pockets" (in the case of a landowner who rents out capital improvements on land) with actually bearing a burden. That is like verbal spinsters who mischaracterize "not taking" as being the equivalent of "giving". Flowing with your characterization of landowners as thieves (which I disagree with, but we'll go with it): If a thief is "freely pocketing" something that was being "robbed from others", and the spoils of that theft really were just an unearned windfall on the part of the thief, then "not pocketing" it cannot rightly be characterized as a "burden" to the thief, can it? Again, the thief is not earning anything that he is taking from others, according to you, so why it that be any sweat off his backside?

Furthermore, the actual renters (those poor poster children for LVT) are not even characterized as the rightful owners of what was being stolen from them! That's because in reality it was not being stolen from them. On the contrary, it is viewed as a tax stolen, FROM THE STATE. The burden on the renter remains. The thief is now told that he must continue to steal the same amount from the renters, only this time it won't be called theft, because the state will finally get the tax that is being collecting on behalf of...the renters. And for this they should be grateful, because the state will only tax renters once, and..."give back value" and...do good things, all of which are said to be in exchange for the benefits already assumed to have been provided to those on which the tax incidence, or burden of the tax, falls -- whomever they are.

The LVT encourages the landowner to be the end user, because there's no longer any land-rent giveaway. Right now, there's good reason to own land, whether you wish to use it productively or not; that's not the case under the LVT.

Bullshit in the absolute. In all major metropolitan areas, landowners are encouraged to become developers, because while land is scarce, the vertical capital improvements on land is not. The sky is the limit in that competitive market, based on a high ratio of capital improvements to land, to the point where LVT, which would be cost prohibitive to an individual, is practically a non-factor to landowning developers, with the renters bearing the entire burden of the tax anyway. In that way, the landowner can become a rent free, LVT free subsidized end user of his own penthouse, as he collects rents on his floating vertically capitalized "virtual land". Meanwhile, the values of the surrounding lands, including empty lots, have SKYROCKETED BY PROXY, the LAND VALUE TAXES levied on which are now a cost-prohibitive lava-hot potatoes for all but the most well-healed of landowner-developers who do LVT collection of rents for the state, no sweat off them at all. In other words, a State/Landowner/Developer Partnership RACKET. That is what is meant by the state's financial interests being "aligned" with [CERTAIN] market participants' financial interests, as the entire landscape becomes a compact, urban renters' HELL.

 

[Roy L]

But Lincoln said that if he could keep the union together without abolishing slavery he would do so. So that tells us that the war was not about human rights.

No, it just tells you what he said his priorities were. He certainly knew that it was only a matter of time before slavery would be abolished anyway, and he considered the secession of the Confederacy too high a price to pay for the delay.

We are the only nation that needed a civil war to abolish slavery. Everybody else managed to accomplish it with economic incentives.

No, countries typically needed legal prohibitions, too, and some countries still HAVE slavery. The reason slavery persisted so long in the USA was that the landowners still thought they needed slavery to keep the landless in a condition of slavery. But the good land had already all been taken up, so owning the land was enough to enable them to keep the landless effectively enslaved, as the landowners of Europe had been doing for centuries. Read and learn:

"During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old negroes, who said to me: 'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God, I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.' The planters, on the other hand, are contented with the change. They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves.' How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were compelled by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no longer work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have got all the work out of him they can."
From a letter by George M. Jackson, St. Louis. Dated August 15, 1885. Reprinted in Social Problems, by Henry George.

So you're wrong on this point.

Don't be ridiculous.

 

[Steven Douglas]

No, countries typically needed legal prohibitions, too, and some countries still HAVE slavery.

Well, tell that to the choir here, Roy, as our country is one of them, and needs a legal prohibition against itself for practicing slavery. Property, land and other taxes on actual human beings are proof of that.

Read and learn:

Here's where Roy quotes hearsay of hearsay. This is Henry George quoting George M. Jackson who is claiming that a former slave told him:

'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God, I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.'

...which, of course, would have been soothing music to the tired ears of many in the South who were licking fresh wounds.

He goes on to claim that the the former slave said:

The planters, on the other hand, are contented with the change.

Because, as we know, former slaves talked like that way, using words like "contented".

They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery....'

Which of course one would expect plantation owners in the South, who are among those licking their wounds, to say about the War of the Northern Aggression - which they would teach their children to hate for generations, even until now. Why, of course they would say something like "How foolish it was in us"

'...We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves.'

Which is too stupid for words, as it implies that the entire civil war was fought over slavery, and was all about saving a little bit of money.

"Oops! ::: slapping forehead ::: I could have had a slavery-free enslavement V8!"

That reminds me of Democrats who try to sound like Republicans, or Roy trying to imitate landowners. Like, "Hey, don't tax me, because I just want to continue not being a caring and decent human being, because I only like greedy things that are all about me!"

That quote by George M. Jackson screams staged and contrived. One big steaming pile of suspect crap. Even IF there was a former slave who said anything REMOTELY like what was quoted (and I don't believe any did), put yourself back in that time -- back into a time of anger and bitterness toward all blacks in the South, and the rise of the KKK, and system oppression like never before. You would have heard very little in that time that wasn't conciliatory. Anything to tame the beast -- especially a beast still of some means, and in power, like George M. Jackson.

And WHO was that letter addressed to? Hmmmm....


In one of Damon Wayans acts he describes the position he and many other prominent successful black men get put in by interviewers:

INTERVIEWER: "Now that your rich, and now that you have made all of this money, and we're not counting. I just want to ask you this question.... Is there racism in America"?
DAMON WAYANS: "No suh.... If'n dey is I ain't seen none!"

 

[MattintheCrown]

Here's where Roy quotes hearsay of hearsay. This is Henry George quoting George M. Jackson who is claiming that a former slave told him:

<snip>

He goes on to claim that the the former slave said:

The planters, on the other hand, are contented with the change.

Because, as we know, former slaves talked like that way, using words like "contented".

LOL, no he doesn't. Learn to read, Steven. You'll note that that portion does not appear within quotation marks. That was Jackson's appraisal of the situation.

The funny thing is, one could write this off as a simple mistake on your part, but to make that mistake, you had to believe that this Mr. Jackson was attempting to fabricate an account of a slave, and in doing so, came up with one sentence that seeks to capture the negro dialect, but suddenly in the second sentence, forgot to do so. And not only that! You had to believe that you're the first person to realize this!

The need to find a way to avoid learning inconvenient facts is a powerful motivator indeed.

They say, ' How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery....'

Which of course one would expect plantation owners in the South, who are among those licking their wounds, to say about the War of the Northern Aggression - which they would teach their children to hate for generations, even until now. Why, of course they would say something like "How foolish it was in us"

Indeed. They sent their sons to battle and die, yet after slavery, they got labor cheaper. In terms of racism, they were no longer legally obliged to keep them fed and clothed once they were unable to work: they could simply kick the negroes off their land.

Which is too stupid for words, as it implies that the entire civil war was fought over slavery, and was all about saving a little bit of money.

"Oops! ::: slapping forehead ::: I could have had a slavery-free enslavement V8!"

Well, we are talking about pro-slavery people here. No one taught them the basics of land economics. Even if someone had tried, they probably would have refused to learn, like you do.

That reminds me of Democrats who try to sound like Republicans

LOL, now that's a laugh. Anyone can constantly bellow "me hates gubmint," but why would anyone want to?

or Roy trying to imitate landowners. Like, "Hey, don't tax me, because I just want to continue not being a caring and decent human being, because I only like greedy things that are all about me!"

Most can't trace cause to effect. But once it's been traced for them, the continued support for evil can mean little else. The fact is, people don't want to know that they don't rightfully deserve wealth they've been collecting; many will choose to find ways of avoiding such knowledge. You've devoted your life to it, quite obviously.

That quote by George M. Jackson screams staged and contrived. One big steaming pile of suspect crap. Even IF there was a former slave who said anything REMOTELY like what was quoted (and I don't believe any did), put yourself back in that time -- back into a time of anger and bitterness toward all blacks in the South, and the rise of the KKK, and system oppression like never before. You would have heard very little in that time that wasn't conciliatory. Anything to tame the beast -- especially a beast still of some means, and in power, like George M. Jackson.

And WHO was that letter addressed to? Hmmmm....

Henry George. Duh. This man had come across George's work, and sent him a letter when he saw the effect George described in action.

 

[awake]

Every informed person is aware that there are good and bad taxes, and every honest, intelligent and informed person is aware that LVT is one of the good ones. Google "Pigovian tax" and start reading.

"To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...."

"Infantile" would describe the "meeza hatesa gubmint" morons.

?? ROTFL!! Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the stupidest and most dishonest lying sack of feudal propertarian $#!+ in the whole Austrian School, and that is saying something. Virtually every sentence he writes is a fallacy, a red herring, a false and unsupported assertion, or a lie.

People have little difficulty recognizing that this is a non sequitur.

Bald assertion with zero (0) factual support.

Bald assertion with zero (0) factual support.

Strawman fallacy.

Red herring, and an assertion totally lacking factual support.

Flat-out lie. There is not only no such proof, but no plausible argument to that effect, and plenty of empirical evidence to the contrary.

Flat-out lie. Hoppe simply ignores the economics of public goods, which the private market cannot produce in efficient quantities.

Lie.

Lie.

Lie. No one claims everyone claims a right to everything. Hoppe is merely falsely attributing to everyone the psychotic greed of the feudal propertarian sociopath.

So the terms of the agreement simply make it very unlikely that that would happen. Problem solved. Hoppe is simply committing another strawman fallacy by assuming agreements must be logically perfect, when no such condition is required.

This is typical of Hoppe's fallacious and absurd "logic."

Where is this allegedly Hobbesian idea to be found? What if it is simply ignored?

More typical Hoppean logic-chopping.

Stupid lie.

It was the South's liberty forcibly to deprive human beings of their rights to liberty? There can be no such right.

No, because the word "statism" is a meaningless propaganda noise.

It has been proved conclusively, whether you choose to know it or not.

There. Fixed it for you.

Lol...I was wondering if you would actually try to refute Hoppe or simply attack him personally. To be truthful I thought you would do the latter; and you did. Since you did not refute one damn point with any of your "plenty of empirical evidence to the contrary". I will take your rant for what it is: a concession of the debate. When all you have is name calling and insults, it means you have no case to be made at all.

"Lie, lie ,lie, Flat-out lie, meeza hatesa gubmint".

 

[Steven Douglas]

Henry George. Duh. This man had come across George's work, and sent him a letter when he saw the effect George described in action.

In other words, he was a member of George's choir, who sent him a trite, cheesy testimonial letter of encouragement.

I stand by my reading (quotes break notwithstanding), the whole quote, complete with implausible hearsay, sounds utterly contrived. Pure pabulum for the utterly credulous.

 

[Roy L]

Lol...I was wondering if you would actually try to refute Hoppe or simply attack him personally. To be truthful I thought you would do the latter; and you did.

I refuted him in detail and you know it. I also identified the fact that he is a grotesquely stupid and dishonest lying feudal propertarian sack of $#!+, but that was only one short paragraph out of many.

If the Austrian School had any shame (they don't) they would be ashamed of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Since you did not refute one damn point with any of your "plenty of empirical evidence to the contrary".

I refuted every substantial claim he made, and you know it.

I will take your rant for what it is: a concession of the debate.

BWAHAHAHHAHAAAA!

When all you have is name calling and insults, it means you have no case to be made at all.

That's not all I had; you know it; the great majority of what I wrote precisely identified the factual and logical deficiencies in Hoppe's "argument." You know this. You are just lying about it.

"Lie, lie ,lie, Flat-out lie, meeza hatesa gubmint".

What else can one say about bald lies?

 

[Zippyjuan]

When in doubt, call the other person a liar or names like "grotesquely stupid and dishonest lying feudal propertarian sack of $#!+, " is usually an indicator of being unable to offer any proof or evidence to support your claims. The term "liar" (or some form of it) appears in nearly every reply.

OOps. Said I was no longer going to respond and encourage the LVT threads to continue. I guess I lied too.

What else can one say about bald lies?

Get a wig?

 

[Roy L]

When in doubt, call the other person a liar or names like "grotesquely stupid and dishonest lying feudal propertarian sack of $#!+, " is usually an indicator of being unable to offer any proof or evidence to support your claims.

Not when it is accompanied by exactly such proof and evidence, it isn't.

The term "liar" (or some form of it) appears in nearly every reply.

That's because the only way to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil is by lying. Those who choose to rationalize privilege, justify injustice and excuse evil by attacking LVT therefore always have to lie. As this and all the other threads where LVT has been discussed prove.

Get a wig?

Thanks for agreeing that there is no way to respond to bald lies other than by identifying them as such.

 

[MattintheCrown]

In other words, he was a member of George's choir, who sent him a trite, cheesy testimonial letter of encouragement.

I stand by my reading (quotes break notwithstanding), the whole quote, complete with implausible hearsay, sounds utterly contrived. Pure pabulum for the utterly credulous.

In other words, you simply refuse to believe it, for no particular reason. Well, that is your modus operandi.

 

[Roy L]

Well, tell that to the choir here, Roy, as our country is one of them, and needs a legal prohibition against itself for practicing slavery. Property, land and other taxes on actual human beings are proof of that.

Garbage. Slavery is labor compelled by force, like the labor the landless must perform for the unearned profit of landowners or die of starvation. Being required to pay for what you take is not slavery, stop lying.

Here's where Roy quotes hearsay of hearsay. This is Henry George quoting George M. Jackson who is claiming that a former slave told him:

'Master George, you say you set us free; but before God, I'm worse off than when I belonged to your father.'

He goes on to claim that the the former slave said:

The planters, on the other hand, are contented with the change.

No, he doesn't, Steven. You just made a fool of yourself again. Anyone can verify that that statement was Jackson's, not the slave's. YOU EVEN QUOTED the close-quote after, "father."

Because, as we know, former slaves talked like that way, using words like "contented".

Incredible. Your hatred of liberty, justice and truth has reached such a fevered pitch that you will say, do, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.

Which of course one would expect plantation owners in the South, who are among those licking their wounds, to say about the War of the Northern Aggression - which they would teach their children to hate for generations, even until now. Why, of course they would say something like "How foolish it was in us"

Being more honest and intelligent than you, yes, they would.

Which is too stupid for words, as it implies that the entire civil war was fought over slavery, and was all about saving a little bit of money.

It was fought over secession, but secession was only a issue because of slavery.

"Oops! ::: slapping forehead ::: I could have had a slavery-free enslavement V8!"

Yep.

That reminds me of Democrats who try to sound like Republicans, or Roy trying to imitate landowners. Like, "Hey, don't tax me, because I just want to continue not being a caring and decent human being, because I only like greedy things that are all about me!"

Sounds about right.

That quote by George M. Jackson screams staged and contrived. One big steaming pile of suspect crap.

Because you cannot permit yourself to know the truth.

Even IF there was a former slave who said anything REMOTELY like what was quoted (and I don't believe any did),

Then you are a fool and a historical ignoramus. The ineffectiveness of emancipation in ameliorating the material condition of the former slaves -- such as the uniform and chronic destitution of black sharecroppers -- was widely remarked at the time, and considered quite a baffling mystery. George's analysis showed why it was inevitable.

put yourself back in that time -- back into a time of anger and bitterness toward all blacks in the South, and the rise of the KKK, and system oppression like never before. You would have heard very little in that time that wasn't conciliatory. Anything to tame the beast -- especially a beast still of some means, and in power, like George M. Jackson.

Saying you were better off as the beast's slave sounds pretty conciliatory to me.

 

[Roy L]

In other words, you simply refuse to believe it, for no particular reason.

He has an excellent reason for refusing to believe it: he knows it proves his beliefs are false and evil.

 

[MattintheCrown]

He has an excellent reason for refusing to believe it: he knows it proves his beliefs are false and evil.

Yeah, my bad: I should have said "with no legitimate justification."

 

[DamianTV]

Wow. Not much reputation love in this thread...