What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

Land value tax is ALWAYS ending taking land from poor and giving it to the rich.

No, that has never happened in the whole history of the world. A tax that could do that might be called a "land value tax" on some sort of official document, but would not in fact be one. The British Raj in India, for example, had a tax they called a "land value tax," but it was actually calculated based on improvements, number of occupants, etc., and ignored land value altogether!

Government will always try to find ways to tax people. Believe it or not when my country was occupied by Turkish empire there was tax on chimneys. LVT is just that.

No, it indisputably is not.

 

[Roy L]

Afterthought, using Disneyland as an example: Out of all the value of all the land upon which Disneyland rests, in Roy's mind ZERO LAND VALUE can be attributed to Disney for anything built or done on that particular 17 acres of Magic Kingdom land. Everything Disney built above ground, yes, but the land value itself: it is Disney who is TAKING value that, in Roy's mind, was "provided by" Nature-Government-Community alone.

That is correct by definition: land value is the value the land would have if all the improvements were removed. You therefore cannot actually dispute that fact. You can only embarrass yourself by denying it, thus acting like a silly, lying sack of $#!+.

Now, as a MEMBER of the community of that time, Disney, by virtue of the creation of Disneyland and its mere existence, did, in fact, DIRECTLY cause an increase in the value of immediate surrounding lands, which did skyrocket in price by virtue of that fact alone, even before Disneyland opened.

Very true, as is the case with everyone who contributes, by their private activities, to the opportunities and amenities the community provides. Private charities create an immense amount of land value that way.

Now, does Disney get any proportional credit whatsoever for "Community Provided Value" for this? No. Not at all under Roy's LVT regime.

What do you mean, "proportional credit"? Disney contributes in some ways, but imposes costs in other ways. To some extent it just shifts land value from other places to the vicinity of Disneyland. It is completely impossible to disentangle all these effects or calculate any individual's net contribution.

Disneyland is only a TAKER OF PROVIDED VALUE - not a giver in any way;

No, you're just lying again, Steven. Disneyland is a taker of provided value IN ITS ROLE AS LAND OCCUPIER. In its role as productive enterprise, of course it creates value, just as any other productive enterprise does.

a DEPRIVER of liberty and access to resources that others would otherwise have" (if Disney/Disneyland did not exist).

That is indisputable.

And Walt Disney himself - why, he was just one more community member, like anyone else, whose "community contribution" could be counted no differently than any minimum wage employee working on the outskirts of town.

We have no way of calculating what any individual's contribution is, other than their wages and the return to the capital goods they provide -- which they would be able to keep, if they were not being taxed by the income tax (i.e., if it had been replaced by LVT). The net contribution of any one individual or firm to AGGREGATE land value is completely imponderable.

 

[Steven Douglas]

That is correct by definition: land value is the value the land would have if all the improvements were removed. You therefore cannot actually dispute that fact. You can only embarrass yourself by denying it, thus acting like a silly, lying sack of $#!+.

Well, in your strange world, where a factory only TAKES land value (which, of course, is provided exclusively by the all important Nature-Government-Community-mind-meld), how do you explain MASSIVE land value drops, of both factory land and surrounding community land, of a once thriving ghost town that relied, once upon a time, on a single factory or industry for most of its economy? That's even when the improvements are left standing, Roy.

Ever hear of the Rust Belt? All over the real world, there are places where you can shut down a single factory, or primary local industry, and kiss the land value (both factory and surrounding land), goodbye. Not totally goodbye, of course, because land always does has some value, but down to an extremely low floor, and all because the factory is not there to PROVIDE VALUE to the land. That value you want minimized, marginalized to virtually nothing, and interpreted only as a net "taking".

The net contribution of any one individual or firm to AGGREGATE land value is completely imponderable.

Yeah, so let's not ponder it at all, even as a matter of principle, and instead make mindless aggregate substitutions, as if they had real meaning. We can't say who is being deprived of an actual resource, so let's count an "otherwise opportunity deprivation" to everyone as meaning essentially the same thing - and since the net value of any individual's contribution is imponderable, let's mindlessly collectivize it, and impute equal contribution to everyone instead, with all having an equal claim.

Like I said, house of cards. And a wobbly fictitious one at that.

 

[Roy L]

Note that no distinction is ever made with reference to those actual do value the ore, or which community members are bona fide parties of interest in that ore.

"Parties of interest"? What would that even mean? Greedy grabbers whom you want to empower to enslave and murder producers?

They are all considered parties of interest,

They all have equal rights to life and liberty, and all are interested in exercising those rights. That makes them parties of interest.

all having "provided value" which is not attributed to any specific community members,

It is true that land value is not attributed to any specific community members, because it inherently cannot be. The individual contributions cannot be disentangled. But all have equal rights to life and liberty. They therefore all provide value when they consent not to exercise their rights to liberty on certain land, thus enabling its exclusive user to obtain a greater advantage from it.

but rather a nebulous collective blob that is simply labeled "community", which fully encompasses all members therein, equally, and without regard to individual contributions.

People's individual contributions are reflected in their wages and the returns they obtain on the capital goods they provide to the production process. Because LVT replaces income tax, sales tax, etc., it enables those individuals who make contributions to KEEP the value of their individual contributions, rather than having that value stolen and given to landowners in return for nothing, as is done under every system other than LVT.

In other words, the "community value" portion of land value, as provided by "the community" is entirely collectivized/socialized.

Yes, because it is inherently entirely a collective, social creation, as a matter of objective fact. I am willing to know that fact; you are not. You just don't like objective facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil, so you refuse to know them.

One of the tenets of geolibertarianism (at least as espoused by Roy), is the premise that exclusive use of land means that ALL OTHERS (jointly and severally in that community) have been excluded from using natural resources, which deprives them of liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have.

Which is indisputably correct as a matter of objective fact.

In this context, liberty and opportunity means nothing more than OPTIONS to access and usage, not the resources themselves.

As in all honest and factual contexts.

In a functioning economy (of any type), it is possible to identify those who actually DO use a resource, in contrast with those who merely had an option, but did not exercise it.

Or did not have it because they were forcibly deprived of it by institutionalized landowner privilege.

In Roy's hypothetical framework of "liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have", EVERYONE in a community is identified as someone who has been deprived.

Which they indisputably are. The framework is not hypothetical, it is factual.

This is true, in that they have been deprived of what otherwise would have been an OPTION for them.

Which is precisely what liberty consists in.

However, the only ones who could be said to have been deprived of the resource itself would be those who would otherwise would have exercised their option, had it existed. And that is not everyone.

But we can't say exactly who it is and isn't.

A farmer and a barber, for example, each of whom might otherwise have had no intention of becoming a miner, cannot be said to have been deprived of a resource, but only of the option to common access to a resource, whether or not it was available, valued or wanted. And what value, in the real world, is an option that is freely available, but not otherwise exercised? Zero.

Nonsense. People only have limited time and capital to invest, and will try to take the most promising option to invest them. History proves you wrong emphatically and conclusively, in the shape of all the farmers, barbers, etc. who DID become miners when sufficiently attractive options became available during gold rushes. That didn't mean the options they left behind had no value.

Hence, what value deprivation can there be for something you otherwise would not have wanted anyway? Again, zero.

Nope. Flat wrong, as usual. When A is deprived of an option B doesn't want, he starts competing with B for the options B DOES want. So the deprivation A suffers is shifted onto B even when B had no interest whatever in the option A was deprived of. Everyone is in competition for numerous opportunities they want, so each deprivation each individual suffers ripples outward, causing deprivations to other individuals far from the original deprivation.

Doesn't matter to Roy, it all constitutes a deprivation, as even the un-exercised "otherwise" options are valued as if that option would otherwise have been exercised - by anyone and everyone.

No, Steven just refuses to know the fact that when someone is deprived of an option that others might not have wanted, he seeks other options, and starts competing for ones others DO want.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Note that no distinction is ever made with reference to those actual do value the ore, or which community members are bona fide parties of interest in that ore.

"Parties of interest"? What would that even mean? Greedy grabbers whom you want to empower to enslave and murder producers?

Not me - you're the one who wants greedy grabbers to be collectively empowered to enslave and murder producers, not me.

People's individual contributions are reflected in their wages and the returns they obtain on the capital goods they provide to the production process. Because LVT replaces income tax, sales tax, etc., it enables those individuals who make contributions to KEEP the value of their individual contributions, rather than having that value stolen and given to landowners in return for nothing, as is done under every system other than LVT.

That is on the naive assumption that LVT really would be a single tax, which it never would, and not just one more revenue stream to a government that always seeks more, not less - as it is even now, as proved by property taxes in every state, on top of state, federal and every other kind of hidden tax.

As for that nonsense of "value stolen and given to landowners in return for nothing": Landowners who merely own land, and use it, without renting it out, aren't stealing anything, except for your fictitious "otherwise would have been at liberty" right. Abolish property taxes and rent-seeking altogether and everyone really can, for once, own land. Wahoo!

Yes, because it is inherently entirely a collective, social creation, as a matter of objective fact.

No, that is a matter of subjective interpretation on your part, based on incidental realities. Nobody sat around and said, "Here's an idea - let's form a collective!" until after a collective was already incidentally formed. Stuff your aggregate thinking - you see an aggregate forest of individuals and treat it as a Whole Body in your mind - I see nothing but individuals, some coming, some going, some staying, the rights of each one trumping in the absolute anything that could be said to be a "right of the collective".

Collectives don't have rights, Roy. Only power. Not governments, unions, corporations or any other collective, public or private. Only individuals have rights - and they can't be collectivized in a way that magnifies or multiplies them.

However, the only ones who could be said to have been deprived of the resource itself would be those who would otherwise would have exercised their option, had it existed. And that is not everyone.

But we can't say exactly who it is and isn't.

Right, which is also the reason you cannot say that everyone is. But that is exactly what you want. A tangible deprivation of literally everyone based on an intangible opportunity deprivation of everyone that might have resulted in a tangible deprivation to a few. A tangible deprivation, remember, that I and many like me consider right and just in the first place.

People only have limited time and capital to invest, and will try to take the most promising option to invest them. History proves you wrong emphatically and conclusively, in the shape of all the farmers, barbers, etc. who DID become miners when sufficiently attractive options became available during gold rushes. That didn't mean the options they left behind had no value.

Exactly, which is my point, by the way. Firstly, not all became miners, which was my first point - so not all were deprived of anything tangible. Secondly, an abandoned farm and barber shop did create opportunities for those who filled the void in their absence. Free market, fully functioning, nobody deprived of any right along the way, including your fictitious "otherwise would have been at liberty" right.

Hence, what value deprivation can there be for something you otherwise would not have wanted anyway? Again, zero.

Nope. Flat wrong, as usual. When A is deprived of an option B doesn't want, he starts competing with B for the options B DOES want.

So? That is all legitimate - the deprivation, the consequent competition, and the ripple effect outward. Nothing wrong with any of that. What WOULD be wrong is for a fictitious artificial opportunity and liberty deprivation to be imputed as a tangible deprivation to everyone, with meddling that attempts to correct it, which then ripples outward and deprives everyone in the process.


Oh, and the number of your posts is now 666, you beast, you.

 

[Roy L]

::: BUZZZZZ ::: Thanks for playing!

Thanks for making me look even better by comparison with your silliness, ignorance, illogic and dishonesty!

Roy, you could pass a law forbidding consumption of all Hershey's chocolate and other Hersheys products in any community where one of its factories is established, and Hershey's wouldn't even feel it.

Because that would only be a microscopic fraction of Hershey's market. So?

So much for "boosted purchasing power" to Hersheys from the so-called "Community Provided Value".

??? What on earth do you imagine you think you might be talking about? We were talking about the value of REE ores, not chocolate bars. But the value of Hershey's chocolate bars, like the value of REE ores, also depends on the affluence of those who want to buy them, whichever community they might live in.

Try not to be so silly, irrational and dishonest all the time.

That is NEGLIGIBLE, so quit lying, Roy, it's evil.

<yawn> Your constant, evil, vicious lying is making you project, Steven. The evil always have to accuse the virtuous of the very crimes of which the evil are themselves most guilty. That is why you feel an irresistible compulsion falsely to accuse me of lying.

Likewise, every resident in the Anaheim and Ocala areas could be forbidden by law to patronize Disneyland and Disneyworld, and Disney wouldn't feel a thing.

Because they sell their products and services to people all over the world, not just residents of Anaheim and Ocala. So? Were you under an erroneous impression that you were saying something relevant?

That hole in the bucket would be instantly filled. So much for your little village model of "Community Provided Value".

Why always act as if you are stupen, Stevid? Take away the services and infrastructure that those communities provide to Disneyland and Disneyworld patrons -- the hotels and restaurants, the transportation services, the water and sewer systems, the airports, the police and fire protection, etc., etc. -- and Disneyland and Disneyworld would both be bankrupt within one month.

Try not to be so stevid, Stupen.

No true Scotsman fallacy.

BWAHAHAHAA! No, Steven, it is not, because we are not discussing who the competent appraisers are, but what they know.

Ergo, only an "incompetent" real estate appraiser would argue otherwise.

That is certainly true.

Stop your habitual use of evil lying fallacies, Roy. It's downright creepy.

<yawn> It's true there are some people here who are nothing but evil, lying filth. But they are called, "apologists for landowner privilege."

Yeah, and three fictitious value "creators"

They aren't fictitious and you know it, so stop lying.

are all melded together as One Rationale for a Single Tax:

NATURE: The only true provider, tied into a fictitious natural "otherwise would have been at liberty" right.

That liberty is an indisputable physical fact.

GOVERNMENT: Run-of-the-mill, dime a dozen infrastructure

Thank you for proving you have nothing to offer but absurd lies.

- the only rightful SLAVE which is OWNED IN COMMON, puffed up and taking "value" credit where none is due.

That is an obvious lie, as it is the landowner who (with the help of his lying apologists, like you) takes credit for land value where none is due. The Henry George Theorem proves that to the extent that government spending on services and infrastructure is not wasted or diverted by corruption, it becomes land value.

Remove the landowner, and the land's value is unaffected. Remove government, OTOH, and the land's value drops to Somali levels. This fact proves you lied. Again. As always.

COMMUNITY: A fictitious,

Lie. Everyone reading this knows that communities are real, including you. You are LYING.

nebulous blob, where unnamed individuals are imputed to be equal contributors,

Lie. They just have equal rights, and their individual contributions cannot be disentangled or calculated.

which "community" somehow "provides" value to land, which must therefore be compensated.

Again, you cannot argue against that fact. You can only make a fool of yourself by denying it.

Again, all melded together as a combined rationale for a single tax.

No, just indisputable facts of objective physical reality, which you have to refuse to know because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

You know that you believe there is, Roy. Of course you do.

You know that you are deliberately lying about what I have plainly written, Stupen. Of course you do.

Even separate they are inseparable in your mind - as combined rationale for One Tax.

Their contributions also cannot be disentangled, but they are not a single entity any more than the individuals in the community are a single entity, and I have never said or implied that they were a single entity -- indeed, I have been at pains to keep them separate -- so you are just lying again, as usual.

It is the very foundation of your LVT Geolibertarian House of Cards. Three entities - which, combined, "create" ALL land value - Nature, Government, and Community. By virtue of three fictions derived from each,

They are fact, not fiction, stop lying.

a landowner can be seen as "taking" from others by virtue of occupation and usage to the exclusion of all others,

Which he is, as a matter of indisputable physical fact.

and by a commonly held fictitious liberty right,

You either believe in the equal human rights to life and liberty or you don't. You don't. Simple.

outright confiscation - theft - can be spun to mean "just compensation".

I have already proved to you that it is the landowner who is the thief. Here is the proof again:

THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

And come to that, how is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?

Meanwhile, the very real landowner "rights", which really do now exist as rights, not privileges,

No, they do not, as they inherently contradict genuine rights such as the equal human rights to life and liberty. Landowner privilege cannot possibly be a right, as there is no way it can exist except by violating others' rights.

are referred to by you only as landowner "privilege".

I have proved that it is privilege and not right.

That's how you make what is fiction real, and what is real fiction. In your mind.

It is still an open question whether the apologist for landowner privilege is infinitely evil and dishonest, or just inconceivably evil and dishonest.

The two Holocausts a year that landowner privilege causes are not fiction. The billions of innocent people crushed into poverty and despair for the unearned profit of greedy, evil, privileged landowning parasites are not fiction. The assassinations of land reform activists at the behest of landowners in bastions of landowner privilege like the Philippines, Pakistan and Brazil are not fiction.

Nature, Government, Community is your mantra, Roy, one that you repeat ad nauseam as that which "provides" all land value - it is your Geoist Creed and Holy LVT Trinity that gives rise to One Taxer, Indivisible, with collective control of all lands and rent collected for all. Forever and ever, Amen.

Merely facts that you refuse to know, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Wow, Helmuth was right, you really are a Turing machine with a limited number of self-referencing, intelligence-simulating forks. I could map out pretty much everything you've written in this thread as a predictable flow chart, and that could be stuck on auto-pilot in an infinite self-referencing loop. Whenever something does not compute, simply choose from a short list of dismissive auto-responses, and, without argument or further refutation, move onto the next line. Some of your posts are mostly that.

Let me leave you in one of your loops, Roy, as it is your trademark - one of your defining characteristics:

The evil always have to accuse the virtuous of the very crimes of which the evil are themselves most guilty. That is why you feel an irresistible compulsion falsely to accuse me of lying.

I agree, and you must be the evil, guilty criminal in this case, Roy, since every true Scotsman, and any virtuous real estate appraiser that is worth his or her salt, will tell you that I am virtuous.

 

[Roy L]

Actually, I kind of did, but you forgot. Here's a few such square inches:

http://www.flexmls.com/cgi-bin/main...ublic_link_tech_id=wutgwel92px&s=6&id=1&cid=1

Nonsense. Previous occupants and "owners" of the area had been forcibly dispossessed. The USA took the area from Mexico by force, just as the Spanish had annexed it by force before Mexico won its independence. Even the aboriginals had forced out their predecessors, and though the Mormons were "invited" to settle there by one tribal chief, it was just a response to duress from other intruders, the invitation had little real legitimacy, and there continued to be violent conflict over the land (see the Walker War).

 

[Roy L]

I don't know about the "original appropriator who came to possess it without the violation ... of anyone else's rights" - tall order proving that never happened. No peaceful settlers anywhere on Earth?

Sure. But once those settlers style themselves as landowners, they never stay peaceful. They always have to initiate force to violate others' rights. Always.

Only conquerors, enslavers and rights violators one and all?

Once they claim to own the land, the enslavement and rights violations are inevitable.

I guess that could be true, if you first invoke anti-propertarian geolibertarian gibberish.

It is your propertarian rationalizations of evil that are gibberish.

Then every homesteader in existence is a de facto violator of someone's fictitious rights.

The rights to life and liberty are not fictitious. You just don't believe in them.

As for the "unbroken line of consensual transactions" nonsense, that is no testament to anything but the fact that landownership and homeowner rights have been abused, abrogated and violated since the beginning of time.

No, it is testament to the fact that no private land title on earth is valid or morally defensible.

Usually by government. Isn't that a bitch?

As government's legitimate function is to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the products of their labor, one of the things it can rightly do is redress landowner theft and extortion.

Nobody protecting private landownership,

Lie. Land thieves have always tried to retain their own ill-gotten gains, have usually successfully enlisted government's assistance in doing so, and have consequently destroyed many great civilizations in their unlimited greed for unearned wealth. The genocide of aboriginals in the New World by land thieves dispossessing them and either murdering them or removing them to land where they could not survive is a fact of history. It is merely a fact that you refuse to know, because you have already realized that it proves you are a servant of the greatest evil that has ever existed.

everyone wanting to eat away at it,

You misspelled, "trying to regain their rights to life and liberty after landowners forcibly removed them."

and erode landowner rights by every nasty contrivance the human brain can come up with?

Nope. It is historically always landowners and land grabbers who have come up with the nastiest contrivances to erase others' rights to life and liberty. ALWAYS.

Shame on you for taking it so over the top, Roy. Talk about a full-on desire for unbridled evil.

You disgrace yourself and all your ancestors -- and condemn your Immortal Soul to Eternal Damnation in the Pit that is Bottomless -- by your despicable dishonesty in the service of the most monstrous, satanic evil that has ever existed.

You want the worst offender of all to reign

That is a monstrous, disgraceful lie. It is not government that inflicts two Holocausts a year on innocent human beings. It is not government that has laid billions of human sacrifices on the altar of the Great God Property. It is the evil you serve, landowner privilege, that has done so.

- with a complete abolishment of landownership, along with the most naive, childish trust that this somehow would not equate to widespread abuse and poverty of individuals

Where was the widespread abuse and poverty of individuals in Hong Kong, Stupen, hmmmmm? Where? HK has no private landowning, and hasn't for 160 years. Yet it has routinely topped lists of the world's freest economies, and been one of the most prosperous places on earth. By your philosophy, that fact is inexplicable, impossible, inconceivable. By mine it is inevitable.

See? The facts of objective physical reality prove that I am right, and you are a lying sack of $#!+.

There is nothing naive or childish about being willing to know facts of economics, Stevid, so stop lying. You just hate those facts, and refuse to know them, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false, vicious, and evil.

Your infinite viciousness, dishonesty and evil are making me physically ill again.

- regardless how innocent the intentions of the benevolent camel whose nose AND body you want fully in the tent, and fully empowered.

Stupid lie.

In fact, you're so blitheringly naive that you can't even conceive that YOUR particular brand of geolibertarianism ALREADY DIFFERS dramatically from other LVT proponent's views,

No, the differences are quite minor, so stop lying.

and therefore would NOT be implemented as you envision.

No one can tell what will happen in the future (except that apologists for landowner greed, privilege and parasitism will lie -- that is absolutely certain), and it can't overturn eternal truths. In any case, it's not relevant to the current discussion: the physicists who identify the facts of reality that make it possible to build safe bridges are not responsible for the errors later made by engineers, construction workers, machinery operators, maintenance workers, etc. that result in bridges collapsing.

But somehow your view is the only one. And therefore LVT is to be trusted - cuz youza lubs Roy-styled gubmint.

No, I have identified the facts of objective reality that imply LVT is necessary to the achievement of liberty, justice and prosperity for all.

Helmuth has left you limbless and headless on the battlefield too many times to count, but you are the Black Knight who calls it "just a flesh wound" as you vow to keeping hop on, while declaring victory.

??? ROTFL!!! Helmuth?? You can't be serious. I have demolished and humiliated him on every substantive claim he has made. As I have you.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Once they claim to own the land, the enslavement and rights violations are inevitable.

What a strong argument against LVT based on a monopoly control of land right there. That's one of your biggest challenges, Roy. How do you have all the effects of perpetual ownership and rent-seeking via monopolistic control of lands, and then convince everyone that such control and rent collecting cannot be considered a form of "ownership"?

Ask anyone with half a brain (not to mention every true Scotsman) and they will tell you, "Show me the one who is collecting the rents, and I will show you the owner."

Don't see how you can get around that one, Roy. That particular rose by any other name or verbal/mental contortion will smell just as rotten.

You disgrace yourself and all your ancestors -- and condemn your Immortal Soul to Eternal Damnation in the Pit that is Bottomless -- by your despicable dishonesty in the service of the most monstrous, satanic evil that has ever existed.

If I didn't know better, I would think you were accusing me of heresy, Roy. Are you implying that I am a heretic? My, such untoward language - and what a marvelous quotable!

 

[Steven Douglas]

 

[Steven Douglas]

The genocide of aboriginals in the New World by land thieves dispossessing them and either murdering them or removing them to land where they could not survive is a fact of history.

Yeah, taking away their right of possession, not recognizing any right of ownership on their parts, and forcibly removing them from their land was monstrously evil. All you need for that to happen is a bunch of conquerors who can look at aboriginals as possessing land without just compensation to the conquerors (which "just compensation" happens to be control over the land itself).

What happened to aboriginals would happen to everyone under an LVT. Pay up or move out. Unless, of course, the Very Goodly & Benevolent Roy L. is personally in charge, of course. He would like to give all individuals an 'exemption', unlike present governments, most of which, including Hong Hong, consider a property tax just another means, and another source of revenue. Governments' idea of an exemption, when it is offered, is in the form of a discount, as those offered to seniors and disabled, who still have to pay, but just not as much. How benevolent of them.

No one can tell what will happen in the future...

Well, fortunately, we do have history as a very important guide. Even when the realities of abuses, corruption and debauchery are identified, and stern, strict, sweeping laws are passed with the intent of preventing them, government eventually finds a way around them, the crafty, resourceful little bastards. No leash strong enough or short enough to contain them for long.

 

[Roy L]

Yeah, taking away their right of possession,

Lie, as always. They had no right of POSSESSION to the land, that claim is merely another confirmation that you always have to lie. They had a right to LIBERTY, a right to ACCESS AND USE the land, until it was forcibly removed by greed-besotted, evil, parasitic filth who claimed a right to extinguish the original occupants' and users' rights to life and liberty by owning land that had never been -- and could never rightly be -- owned. The landowner always forcibly removes everyone else's rights to liberty. That is why those who try to rationalize and justify landowning are always pure evil, and can only be understood as despicable, subhuman, monstrous filth, and the most disgusting, scummy, vicious entities that could possibly exist.

not recognizing any right of ownership on their parts,

Because there cannot be a right of land ownership any more than there can be a right of ownership over the sea, the air, or the sky. The aboriginal inhabitants understood that, and consequently did not claim to own the land.

and forcibly removing them from their land was monstrously evil.

It wasn't "their" land, that is just a monstrously evil lie on your part. The aboriginals were indeed willing to share the land, and to recognize the European settlers' rights to liberty. They did not understand until it was too late that they were up against the most vicious, monstrous evil that had ever existed, or ever could exist: landowner greed.

All you need for that to happen is a bunch of conquerors who can look at aboriginals as possessing land without just compensation to the conquerors (which "just compensation" happens to be control over the land itself).

No, that's self-evidently and indisputably just another stupid, evil lie from you, Stupen. You are just vomiting pure evil.

What happened to aboriginals would happen to everyone under an LVT.

No, that's self-evidently and indisputably just another stupid, evil lie from you, Stupen. You are vomiting pure evil, and you know it. The aboriginals' rights to liberty were forcibly removed by landowner greed. LVT restores everyone's equal rights to liberty.

Pay up or move out.

Only if someone else justly compensates you and everyone else for depriving you of the opportunity.

Unless, of course, the Very Goodly & Benevolent Roy L. is personally in charge, of course. He would like to give all individuals an 'exemption', unlike present governments, most of which, including Hong Hong, consider a property tax just another means, and another source of revenue.

HK doesn't use LVT. So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," LVT must be rejected because governments that don't use it also don't secure the equal rights of all to life and liberty.

And you even claim this with a straight face, as if a thinking human being could have said it. Remarkable.

Governments' idea of an exemption, when it is offered, is in the form of a discount, as those offered to seniors and disabled, who still have to pay, but just not as much. How benevolent of them.

Governments do all sorts of things. In what you are no doubt pleased to call your, "mind," LVT must therefore be rejected because governments that don't use LVT do many other things that you find objectionable.

Sorry, Stepid, but no amount of ridicule on my part could possibly make that "argument" look any more absurd and dishonest than it already is on its face.

Well, fortunately, we do have history as a very important guide.

For you to ignore.

Even when the realities of abuses, corruption and debauchery are identified, and stern, strict, sweeping laws are passed with the intent of preventing them, government eventually finds a way around them, the crafty, resourceful little bastards. No leash strong enough or short enough to contain them for long.

You are speaking, of course, exclusively of governments that do not use LVT...

And you have the gall to accuse me of a post hoc fallacy!

 

[Roy L]

I am virtuous.

A virtuous person could not tell hundreds of lies to rationalize and justify the greatest evil that has ever existed, as you have.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Yeah, taking away their right of possession, not recognizing any right of ownership on their parts, and forcibly removing them from their land was monstrously evil. All you need for that to happen is a bunch of conquerors who can look at aboriginals as possessing land without just compensation to the conquerors (which "just compensation" happens to be control over the land itself).

What happened to aboriginals would happen to everyone under an LVT. Pay up or move out. Unless, of course, the Very Goodly & Benevolent Roy L. is personally in charge, of course. He would like to give all individuals an 'exemption', unlike present governments, most of which, including Hong Hong, consider a property tax just another means, and another source of revenue. Governments' idea of an exemption, when it is offered, is in the form of a discount, as those offered to seniors and disabled, who still have to pay, but just not as much. How benevolent of them.



Well, fortunately, we do have history as a very important guide. Even when the realities of abuses, corruption and debauchery are identified, and stern, strict, sweeping laws are passed with the intent of preventing them, government eventually finds a way around them, the crafty, resourceful little bastards. No leash strong enough or short enough to contain them for long.

Another thing on this subject-not many aboriginals believed in land ownership. One of the reasons they remained far behind the West in terms of human/cultural progress.

 

[Roy L]

What a strong argument against LVT based on a monopoly control of land right there.

Nope. Land is a canonical example of monopoly, so all control of land is monopoly control. Government's unique function and ability, and therefore its unique qualification to exercise control over land, is to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all.

That's one of your biggest challenges, Roy.

You have never offered me any challenge at all, Stuvid (other than to my stomach for exposure to the pure, distilled essence of evil), and that will not be changing now.

How do you have all the effects of perpetual ownership and rent-seeking via monopolistic control of lands, and then convince everyone that such control and rent collecting cannot be considered a form of "ownership"?

A trust is a form of ownership, but administration in trust for all, the rightful function of government wrt land, is not ownership. I have explained this to you before, many times.

There is no way to allocate exclusive use of land but by force. That force will be wielded either to violate the people's rights for the unearned profit of the privileged (the current system), or to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life and liberty (LVT).

Ask anyone with half a brain (not to mention every true Scotsman) and they will tell you, "Show me the one who is collecting the rents, and I will show you the owner."

Your true Scotsman is unfortunately as truly ignorant as you: trustees collect rent, but do not own the property they collect the rent from.

Don't see how you can get around that one, Roy. That particular rose by any other name or verbal/mental contortion will smell just as rotten.

You know that I have already refuted you, Stepid. Government administers our use of the sea, the atmosphere, orbital positions, etc. but does not own them. You know this. Of course you do. You just always have to deliberately lie about it.

 

[Roy L]

Another thing on this subject-not many aboriginals believed in land ownership. One of the reasons they remained far behind the West in terms of human/cultural progress.

Yes, and that explains why Hong Kong is so far behind landowning paradises like Bangladesh in terms of human/cultural progress...

Tell me, boy: do you ever actually think about what you have written before you click the "Post" button?

 

[Roy L]

I hate property taxes too.

Landowners hate property taxes much as young children accustomed to candy and soda hate vegetables and milk.

Personally I think that they shouldn't exist for individual residences & small businesses. I have a different opinion about larger entities, though.

Please consider the merits of a flat, uniform land tax exemption for all resident citizens.

One thing I really hate about it is the idea of governments taxing you to give you back "services" that most people really don't want.

The point is, the landowner is occupying a space that those who DO want those services could be using to access them. If you leave the grocery store with a loaf of bread, you have to pay for it because you are depriving the store of the chance to sell it to someone else who wants it, even if you decide you don't want it, and drop it in a mud puddle right outside the door. If you don't want the services government provides, just move far enough out of town to a place where you won't have to pay for them because you aren't depriving anyone else of them.

Wouldn't it be better to just let people keep their money, & be more financially secure than to make them insecure & give them schools that they'd rather not send their kids to,

But someone else would, which is why proximity to schools is a major determiner of land value.

police forces that harass them for things that should be legal like drug use,

Don't blame police forces for what their corrupt and evil bosses in government make them do.

& firefighters that tend to be over paid and under worked,

Uh, you should thank your lucky stars your firefighters are "under-worked." I live a block away from a firehall, and they don't seem under-worked to me.

all things where the community would be better served if they were privatized.

Garbage. The evidence shows such services are worse and more expensive when privatized.

Let people keep their money, be more financially secure, and decide for themselves what to spend.

Having no police force does not make people more financially secure, sorry.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Nonsense. Previous occupants and "owners" of the area had been forcibly dispossessed. The USA took the area from Mexico by force, just as the Spanish had annexed it by force before Mexico won its independence. Even the aboriginals had forced out their predecessors, and though the Mormons were "invited" to settle there by one tribal chief, it was just a response to duress from other intruders, the invitation had little real legitimacy, and there continued to be violent conflict over the land (see the Walker War).

The various imaginary borders that various nation-states drew around the continent were of little relevance to St. George -- nor to the rest of the Mormon colonies in what is now Utah, but we are focusing on St. George for now, and just a few square inches within St George at that. Take your pick of which inches from my MLS page, just let me know which ones you're claiming were got by aggression.

Which other tribes were previously possessing and occupying St George, whom Paiutes "forced out"? In what way did the Mormons in St. George use aggressive force to steal St. George from the Paiutes, or anyone else?

Just pick one of the lots, and explain to me in simple words exactly who was dispossessed of this lot, and when. Your position is that the history of the lot (as with all lots) is an unbroken line of bloodbath after bloodbath, holocaust after holocaust, with robbery, aggression, and other rights-violations mixed in. So: Show me the Blood!

http://www.flexmls.com/cgi-bin/main...ublic_link_tech_id=wutgwel92px&s=6&id=1&cid=1

In fact, there were no rights violations which occurred in connection with the original homesteading of any of the listed lots in St George, so far as I am aware and history records. Homesteading works. Mutual respect for other human beings works. Mutually acknowledging each other's land claims works. Works all the time.

Aggression happens too. Not as often as the programmer of Roy imagined (i.e.: always), but quite frequently. The frequency of this aggression will lessen the more my own political philosophy -- the philosophy of liberty, the non-aggression principle -- takes hold and wins out over dead and dying cobbled-together Franken-philosophies like Georgism/Geoism and nation-statism.

To a bright tomorrow and an ever-growing cadre of youthful anarchocapitalists! Lift your glasses and three cheers!

Noli Me Tangre!

Liberty!

FREEEEEDOOOMMMMMMM!!

 

[Steven Douglas]

Lie, as always. They had no right of POSSESSION to the land.

Of course they did. You know this. Of course you do.

The fact that a geographic location is immovable does not make it unpossessable. Governments with geographical boundaries are proof of that. It is only a question of division of sovereignty from there.

Because there cannot be a right of land ownership any more than there can be a right of ownership over the sea, the air, or the sky. The aboriginal inhabitants understood that, and consequently did not claim to own the land.

Stop imputing Roy-like warped sensibilities onto the aboriginals, Roy. It's disgusting and insulting to both common sense and the aboriginals. Stow your romanticized idyllic hunter-gatherer nonsense. Aboriginal thought was much simpler, but they did had a concept of their own forcibly attained rights, as they were as territorial as any other territorial animal. Humans are territorial, Roy - that is the concept of landownership rights at the core.

And even when rot-brained idiots collude to become Super-territorial, in the name of justice, fictitious rights, a public "trust" or anything else, it is only an expanded version of the same concept which all humans have about OWNERSHIP. It's not anti-propertarian or anti-landownership at all. It's ownership on crack, making that mush-brained thingy that you're into nothing more than collective ownership and rent-seeking greed on a statist level.

It wasn't "their" land, that is just a monstrously evil lie on your part.

Oh, well drive them off it forcibly then.

The aboriginals were indeed willing to share the land, and to recognize the European settlers' rights to liberty. They did not understand until it was too late that they were up against the most vicious, monstrous evil that had ever existed, or ever could exist: landowner greed.

Oh, stop with your romanticizing idiocy of one group, Roy, and your mindless vilification of another - as simplistically enlightened and innocent peace-loving hunter-gatherers were all "willing to share", but were faced with evil greedy landowner types instead. It was nothing more than one group of territorial barbarians facing off with a smaller, very different and less sophisticated group of territorial barbarians. Animals, Roy, in both cases - both groups of which had fundamental rights to exclusive territories of their own - all at the individual level, each and every barbaric one of them.

HK doesn't use LVT.

You intellectually dishonest curmudgeon, you. That's like saying that China was never a Communist country. True, but so what? That's the ideal they are trying to approach.

So no, Roy, not your version of LVT to be sure, but the mechanisms are in place. And you keep playing on both sides of it, throwing up Hong Kong as an example of why LVT could work - while insisting at the same time that HK doesn't use it - even though it has basic elements of it in place. The point of Hong Kong (and I didn't bring it up, you did) was not to show how an LVT-only single tax wouldn't work, even If Hong Kong had one. My argument is not that it would not work - my argument is that it would work for some, and not for many - and that it would be MORE EVIL if it did manage to function.

My only point with Hong Kong was to show that whatever they have, which is a form of "public trust administration of land" highlights that it is only another revenue stream by government.

And you have the gall to accuse me of a post hoc fallacy!

Nah. In this case it's not a fallacy at all. Government abuse-seeking is not only possible and probable based on history - it is probable enough to be considered inevitable in all cases.