What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

Wishful thinking.

Yes, but only on your part. I proved you lied. I proved you objectively wrong on every substantive claim you have made. I proved that contrary to your claim, there is no private landowning in Hong Kong or China.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND
THAT YOU HAVE BEEN
OBJECTIVELY DESTROYED?

 

[Cabal]

<sigh> Land value taxation is NOT theft, for reasons amply proved in this thread. It is LACK of land value taxation that is theft, because land value is identically equal to the minimum value of what the landowner expects to take from society and not repay in taxes. Read the freakin' thread.

Does the tax require the initiation of violence to collect on?
Yes? Then it is theft.
No? Then it is not a tax.

The thread is 92 pages long, I'm not going to read 92 pages of a thread when the issue can be broken down very basically on the truth that taxation is theft, and there is no justification for theft.

Society is not a a human being, and thus does not act. Society is an artificial term used to describe a collection of individuals. Individuals act, individuals have rights, society does not.

If property is acquired through voluntary exchange, this is moral. Nothing is being stolen from some artificial entity known as society. Thus, this property is rightfully owned. To claim a right to taxation of that rightfully owned property on behalf of the artificial concept of society is fallacious.

Also, using big bold letters is not beneficial to an exchange.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Yes, but only on your part. I proved you lied. I proved you objectively wrong on every substantive claim you have made. I proved that contrary to your claim, there is no private landowning in Hong Kong or China.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND
THAT YOU HAVE BEEN
OBJECTIVELY DESTROYED?

No, because I haven't. I even gave you links. http://search.knightfrank.com/property-for-sale/hong-kong
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/world/asia/16iht-web-0315china.4927191.html?pagewanted=all

Feel free to continue living in your fantasy land, though.

 

[eduardo89]

No, because I haven't. I even gave you links. http://search.knightfrank.com/property-for-sale/hong-kong
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/world/asia/16iht-web-0315china.4927191.html?pagewanted=all

Feel free to continue living in your fantasy land, though.

Oh Knight Frank, great company. I rented from them when I lived in London.

 

[Roy L]

No, because I haven't.

You most certainly have. I have destroyed you conclusively, comprehensively, and for all time.

I even gave you links. http://search.knightfrank.com/property-for-sale/hong-kong
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/world/asia/16iht-web-0315china.4927191.html?pagewanted=all

ROTFL!! As already proved, your links prove that I am right and you are wrong.

Feel free to continue living in your fantasy land, though.

LOL! ANYONE with ANY knowledge of Hong Kong and China can tell you: there is no private ownership of land there. Period. That you would even pretend to argue otherwise speaks volumes for your ignorance and/or dishonesty.

 

[Roy L]

Does the tax require the initiation of violence to collect on? Yes?

No. The landowner already initiated violence or threats thereof to deprive others of their liberty to use the land, or got government to do it for him. There was no other way he could possibly have done it. LVT simply recovers, for public purposes and benefit, the publicly created value that the thieving landowner stole. The only theft involved is by the landowner, who is a thief and a parasite.

No? Then it is not a tax.

Thank you for agreeing that I am objectively right and you are objectively wrong.

The thread is 92 pages long, I'm not going to read 92 pages of a thread when the issue can be broken down very basically on the truth that taxation is theft, and there is no justification for theft.

Garbage. The 92 pages should have told you that your jejune comprehension of the issue was at the kindergarten level. If you had read even a little bit of the thread, you would have seen the proof that LVT is not theft because it is the landowner who must initiate force. The land tax authority simply redresses the theft the landowner commits.

Society is not a a human being, and thus does not act.

False and absurd. Societies act all the time. In particular, societies institute governments to secure and reconcile the individual rights of their members.

Society is an artificial term used to describe a collection of individuals. Individuals act, individuals have rights, society does not.

More stupid garbage from you. Individuals act in a social context. It is only through society that individual rights can be expressed and recognized. No society --> no individual rights.

If property is acquired through voluntary exchange, this is moral.

As land can never initially be acquired through voluntary exchange, any exchange of land is trafficking in stolen goods.

Nothing is being stolen from some artificial entity known as society.

It is being stolen from each member of society. They just can't redress the theft on an individual basis, so society rightfully does it for them through its agent, government.

Thus, this property is rightfully owned.

No, I have already proved it cannot possibly be rightfully owned, as it cannot initially have been appropriated except by initiation of force -- a fact that every land title in the world has in common.

To claim a right to taxation of that rightfully owned property on behalf of the artificial concept of society is fallacious.

No, to claim that goods appropriated by force are rightfully owned is not only fallacious, it is a flat-out lie.

Also, using big bold letters is not beneficial to an exchange.

Some people have trouble paying attention.

 

[Steven Douglas]

No. The landowner already initiated violence or threats thereof to deprive others of their liberty to use the land, or got government to do it for him.

That made no sense to me, please help me to understand using the following example. And please be aware that this is coming from someone who believes that a natural, inalienable right to homestead exists for all people on Earth, so the following example would only apply to land that is occupied and/or otherwise directly worked by its inhabitants - natural persons only - and especially as a matter of survival.

I'm a homesteader traveling with a group of fellow travelers possessed of a wide variety of skills, in the foothills of the Sierras in 1850. We go slightly off the beaten trail, only to discover a nice secluded area with an abundance of natural resources on which we can all survive. We like it so much that we decide to forget the gold rush entirely and settle there. We live like this, in our log cabin community, unmolested (and for that matter undetected), for an entire generation. We are never attacked, and never once are forced to defend ourselves (against other humans). No government papers are ever filed, and no government is ever directly involved in our affairs.

Because we have worked so hard to establish and build up our community, we have zero intention of ever moving. The only way we will move from this land is if someone initiated sufficient force against us - furthermore, it is against our very "Gandhi-esque" religion to exercise force or initiate violence, or threats of violence, against others. So while this makes us (if but in our minds only) "owners" of the lands we occupy, in that we will never, EVER submit voluntarily to a tax of any kind, nor will we leave the land we occupy willingly, we are admittedly vulnerable to removal by unilateral initiation of violence and/or actual use of force by others.

But we are not facing any of this. Not yet. It's just "a territory" at this point - most people are not even aware that we exist, and no taxes have been suggested, let alone levied. Nobody in the settlement has any dispute with anyone else regarding ownership or use of land, let alone any conception that others may be depriving them of any liberty or right by simply existing and occupying a nearby plot of parceled off land.

1) Where is the violence or threats of force on our parts?

2) At this point has anyone outside our little settlement been "deprived" of a liberty, and if so, who, how, how far does that extend, and how is that determined?

3) Have WE been deprived of OUR liberty to use land that is occupied by others outside our settlement? If so, who has deprived us, how far does that extend, and how exactly is that determined? In addition to whatever compensation we owe, how can we be compensated in return?

4) Are those within the settlement depriving each other of their liberty to use the land that others' respective homes are now on? If so, what if you presented this idea to them and they unanimously disagreed? If they don't feel deprived in any way, would their 'voluntary waiver' of what you consider a liberty right to use lands that are occupied by others count for anything?

5) I trade places with one of my neighbors - straight across trade - his cabin located near the creek is more useful to me as a grain miller, where I can erect a paddle wheel, and my cabin and farm house located by a large meadow are more useful to him as a grain farmer. Based on this exchange, have we "trafficked in stolen goods"?

So here is my difficulty: I am now occupying and claiming an unqualified right to use what amounts to a "parcel" of land (practical boundary delineations only: a house, a yard, a farmhouse, a fence to keep livestock in, and other fences to keep animals out of farmed lands). Nothing else. No "claims" to lands which do not serve a useful purpose, or are otherwise not actually worked or improved upon. At this point, theoretically, could someone - anyone - enter THIS community, without staking any land claim ("usage" or otherwise) on any of the surrounding (and abundantly available at this point) land, or making any improvements of his own, and approach each of us, saying, in effect, "I have an equal right to use each piece of land that you have all parceled off for yourselves. This constitutes a deprivation to me, as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me."?

If one man cannot do this (or can he, assuming he is the only other one around?), can two? Three? Can just one do this, but only so long as he is acting on behalf of a government? If so, is "government" the key, without which no one or more people could justify such a claim (not to "ownership", but to a right to receive compensation for land that is "occupied", or otherwise "in use" by others, but is no longer available for him to use)?

 

[Cabal]

Right, this was clearly a waste of time.

 

[Roy L]

Right, this was clearly a waste of time.

Chanting a jejune mantra like, "taxation = theft" is most certainly a waste of time, which it is designed to be. Its purpose is to prevent any thought about which taxes might be better than others, and why.

 

[Roy L]

And please be aware that this is coming from someone who believes that a natural, inalienable right to homestead exists for all people on Earth, so the following example would only apply to land that is occupied and/or otherwise directly worked by its inhabitants - natural persons only - and especially as a matter of survival.

I was talking about real landowners, not fairy story landowners.

I'm a homesteader traveling with a group of fellow travelers possessed of a wide variety of skills, in the foothills of the Sierras in 1850. We go slightly off the beaten trail, only to discover a nice secluded area with an abundance of natural resources on which we can all survive. We like it so much that we decide to forget the gold rush entirely and settle there. We live like this, in our log cabin community, unmolested (and for that matter undetected), for an entire generation. We are never attacked, and never once are forced to defend ourselves (against other humans). No government papers are ever filed, and no government is ever directly involved in our affairs.

In fact, of course, the area was in seasonal use by aboriginal people whom you dispossessed. You did no such thing, you say? Perhaps not directly. But experience taught the people who were there before you to abandon their claims to use of the land once you stole it, because their rights would be ignored, and your theft of the land would be enforced by the US Army.

Because we have worked so hard to establish and build up our community, we have zero intention of ever moving. The only way we will move from this land is if someone initiated sufficient force against us - furthermore, it is against our very "Gandhi-esque" religion to exercise force or initiate violence, or threats of violence, against others.

Sure, you count on government to initiate force for you, like almost all landowners. What else would prevent the aboriginal people who used the land before from using it again?

So while this makes us (if but in our minds only) "owners" of the lands we occupy, in that we will never, EVER submit voluntarily to a tax of any kind, nor will we leave our land willingly, we are admittedly vulnerable to removal by unilateral initiation of violence and/or actual use of force by others.

The land is not "your" land, and you have already dispossessed the aboriginal users by taking advantage of the reputation for highly effective violence people of your general type had already established in their minds.

But we are not facing any of this. Not yet. It's just "a territory" at this point - most people are not even aware that we exist, and no taxes have been suggested, let alone levied. Nobody in the settlement has any dispute with anyone else regarding ownership or use of land,

Yeah. Right. Anywhere people are appropriating land, it takes about 15 minutes for disputes over it to arise.

let alone any conception that others are depriving them of any liberty or right by simply existing and occupying nearby land.

Garbage. Why are you -- a "homesteader" and your variously skilled companions -- in the Sierras in the first place, if not to get some good land without having to pay a landowner for it? You might not think of it in terms of violation of your rights, but you know damn well why you left your homes for the wilderness.

1) Where is the violence or threats of force on our parts?

What stops the aboriginal seasonal users from coming back at their usual time of year and using the land?

2) At this point has anyone outside our little settlement been "deprived" of a liberty, and if so, who, how, how far does that extend, and how is that determined?

Anyone who wants to use that land and can't because you have appropriated it has been deprived of their liberty: mainly the aboriginal population that you pretend not to know existed because once you showed up, they avoided you (and you had probably killed most of the wild game animals they were counting on).

3) Have WE been deprived of OUR liberty to use land that is occupied by others outside our settlement? If so, who has deprived us, how far does that extend, and how exactly is that determined?

WHY ARE YOU THERE IN THE SIERRA FOOTHILLS, "HOMESTEADER," INSTEAD OF STAYING NEAR YOUR PREVIOUS HOME?

4) Are those within the settlement depriving each other of their liberty to use the land that others' respective homes are now on?

That is self-evident and indisputable.

If so, what if you presented this idea to them and they unanimously disagreed?

I would ask them the same kinds of questions I have been asking you, to see if they developed any willingness to know facts.

If they don't feel deprived in any way, would their 'voluntary waiver' of what you consider a liberty right to use lands that are occupied by others count for anything?

Sure: evidence of their gullibility.

5) I trade places with one of my neighbors - straight across trade - his cabin located near the creek is more useful to me as a grain miller, where I can erect a paddle wheel, and my cabin and farm house located by a large meadow are more useful to him as a grain farmer. Based on this exchange, have we "trafficked in stolen goods"?

Yes, of course.

So here is my difficulty: I am now occupying and claiming an unqualified right to use what amounts to a "parcel" of land (delineated by a house, a yard, a farmhouse, a fence to keep livestock in, and other fences to keep animals out of farmed lands). Nothing else. No "claims" to lands which are not actually worked. At this point, theoretically, could someone - anyone - enter THIS community without staking any land claim ("usage" or otherwise) on any of the surrounding (and abundantly available) land, or making any improvements of his own, and approach each of us, saying, in effect, "I have an equal right to use each piece of land that you have all parceled off for yourselves. This constitutes a deprivation to me, as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me."?

Of course. And he'd be right. But if good land is so abundantly available, each occupied site is worth very little, so the just compensation is very little.

If one man cannot do this (or can he, assuming he is the only other one around?), can two? Three? Can just one do this, but only so long as he is acting on behalf of a government? If so, is "government" the key, without which no one or more people could justify such a claim (not to "ownership", but to a right to receive compensation for land that is "occupied", or otherwise "in use" by others, but is no longer available for him to use)?

Government is just the means by which people's rights can be secured and reconciled. Without it, you would just ignore your violation of his rights and his claim to compensation.

 

[eduardo89]

Roy honestly just strikes me as an anti-white, anti-rich, jealous, sad communist, tax loving troll.

Roy, do you own a home? If so, I think you should give back the stolen property you occupy back to some Indians.

 

[Steven Douglas]

In fact, of course, the area was in seasonal use by aboriginal people whom you dispossessed.

Ah, the "aboriginal" people. Is that the ticket? Or is "seasonal use" grounds for an exemption (i.e., nothing is ever owed for temporary usage of land)? And who did their ancestors dispossess upon their arrival across the Bering Straits? Each other?

Forget my settlement for a moment, then. I'll respond to that later.

What if approached an aboriginal settlement, and declared to them, "As a fellow human being, I have an equal right to use each piece of land that all of you now occupy, including all that land that you are now farming using that nifty "Three Sisters" planting method that I've heard so much about. This constitutes a deprivation to me as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me as my natural liberty right."?

According to your theory, I would be in the right, and that tribe would owe me something, regardless of the amount. Even if neighboring land really is abundantly available, and their "just compensation" to me would be very little, it would be required nonetheless. Otherwise, they are nothing more than thieves who could rightfully be removed from the land if they did not comply. Would I have to form a government to do that? Get a neighboring tribe to do it for me, given their natural liberty rights have been violated as well?

Or are you suggesting that aboriginals are a special class of people with a different set of rules, for whom "The Laws of Dispossession" do not apply as a matter of principle?

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Roy honestly just strikes me as an anti-white, anti-rich, jealous, sad communist, tax loving troll.

Roy, do you own a home? If so, I think you should give back the stolen property you occupy back to some Indians.

+rep Don't feed the troll, y'all.

 

[Roy L]

Roy honestly just strikes me as an anti-white, anti-rich, jealous, sad communist, tax loving troll.

Which might have something to do with the fact that you cannot refute a single sentence I have written. Your absurd accusations are amply refuted by my posts.

Roy, do you own a home?

<yawn> I know how that one plays out: if I don't, I'm just jealous of those who do; if I do, I am a hypocrite. The sad thing is, you probably think yourself quite clever to have contrived such a sophomoric trap.

If so, I think you should give back the stolen property you occupy back to some Indians.

They have no more right to it than anyone else -- and NO LESS.

 

[Roy L]

Ah, the "aboriginal" people. Is that the ticket? Or is "seasonal use" grounds for an exemption (i.e., nothing is ever owed for temporary usage of land)?

EXCLUSIVE use is what requires compensation, as that is when others are forcibly EXCLUDED. That is why your group could settle on the land at all: the aboriginals' use of the land was not exclusive, so they didn't keep you off it. Yours is, so you do keep them off it, whether you admit it or not.

And who did their ancestors dispossess upon their arrival across the Bering Straits? Each other?

Undoubtedly.

What if approached an aboriginal settlement, and declared to them, "As a fellow human being, I have an equal right to use each piece of land that all of you now occupy, including all that land that you are now farming using that nifty "Three Sisters" planting method that I've heard so much about. This constitutes a deprivation to me as an individual, and you all therefore owe me for what you have taken from me as my natural liberty right."?

The evidence is that the aboriginal population was at first entirely willing to share the land with newcomers. They later learned that sharing was not going to be one of the options.

According to your theory, I would be in the right, and that tribe would owe me something, regardless of the amount.

If they excluded you from the better land, yes.

Even if neighboring land really is abundantly available, and their "just compensation" to me would be very little, it would be required nonetheless. Otherwise, they are nothing more than thieves who could rightfully be removed from the land if they did not comply. Would I have to form a government to do that?

Probably. Securing and reconciling people's rights is government's function.

Get a neighboring tribe to do it for me, given their natural liberty rights have been violated as well?

That could get violent, as the violation has gone both ways.

Or are you suggesting that aboriginals are a special class of people with a different set of rules, for whom "The Laws of Dispossession" do not apply as a matter of principle?

No. But the land use of hunter-gatherers and nomadic herders is generally not exclusive. They may compete and even fight for territory, but that is for tribal -- i.e., communal -- tenure, not private property.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Well, I am not convinced, Roy, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to you. I know that you passionately and earnestly believe in what you are talking about, to the point of considering it all so self-evident that only a liar wouldn't see it. In other words, they see it your way, and secretly agree that you are right, but just won't admit it. I know that is not the case with me, because for as obvious and self-evident that you believe it all is, I do not share your view, and for me personally I did not find your arguments compelling, nor did I feel that you made a coherent case as a matter of principle, as opposed to a dogmatic axiom.

I am trying to put myself in a situation where I could honestly convince myself, in any way, that nobody has the right to exclude me from what I consider my right to travel through, use or otherwise occupy any land, including that which others are exclusively occupying without some form of compensation to me.

I am having particular difficulty seeing land used by others who might be hundreds of miles away from me, in an area I would likely never even visit, let alone use, as somehow constituting a "deprivation" to me specifically. I cannot even conceive of this unless I draw a boundary around an entire country, and then draw up a deed, wherein I and everyone else are named as collective owners with equal travel and usage rights.

Hence, this CAN be put in strictly "propertarian" terms, to use your word, because you are claiming, in effect, rights of ownership by some other name; that the whole of a given country is collectively owned by all of its inhabitants, en masse, all at once, all of whom are effectively the collective landlords to any who make exclusive use of any part of it.

What you object to is NOT ownership of land, but rather individual ownership which excludes collective ownership. Call it by any other name, that is the net effect, and therefore what it is. As such, it is not as new or novel a concept as I thought, now that you have explained it. If I had to characterize it to others I would say that it was kind of "Communist Libertarian" in it inception - one that could easily have been inspired by song "Signs" by The Five Man Electrical Band:

SIGNS
So I jumped on the fence and I yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you the right?!"
"To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in,
If God was here he'd tell you to your face, "Man, you're some kinda sinner!"

So the collective deed to the country, one that is inherited by everyone as an inalienable birthright, might read:

The Communist Libertarian Manifesto Deed

Every square inch of this country belongs to you and everyone else, with an equal, non-exclusive perpetual claim to the whole and every part therein at all times, for the purposes of individual travel and a right of common shared usage. As such:

• You have an absolute right to travel anywhere in this country that you please, and to make use of any land therein that you find.
• Regardless of your location or usage of land, anyone who occupies or makes use of any land, to the exclusion of anyone else, without just compensation to all joint owners, as outlined separately, shall be guilty of both theft and the violation of everyone's individual liberty and collectively shared right of usage. This is without regard to whether anyone else might have intended to travel to, occupy or otherwise use any portion of the land in question. If it is exclusively used or occupied by anyone else, a payment shall be assessed and due to the collective owners of the land.

Does that sound about right?

 

[jascott]

His bid will make it hard for the farmer to keep it all.

How so? His bid will tempt the farmer to sell, but the farmer is free to refuse to sell. His bid doesn't cause the levied LVT to increase, or cause any other hardship for the farmer. His bid has no effect whatsoever if the farmer refuses to sell.

BTW I hope my post #843 wasn't overlooked in the noise.

And setting aside my sci-fi scenario of the colonization of Mars, consider the real scenario of the colonization of the Americas, which you're discussing with Steven. How do you say the situation should have been originally handled when the colonists arrived? Was there already an existing government(s) with the authority to manage exclusive allocation of land and collect LVT? Was this government headquartered in Europe? Did justice require the granting of citizenship to the native Americans? How should the government have handled natives who refused citizenship and refused to respect the grants of exclusive land tenure? Or were the native tribes the legitimate governments, and no colonists should have ever claimed exclusive tenure on any of the land if the legitimate governments refused to grant such tenure?

 

[Sola_Fide]

More stupid garbage from you. Individuals act in a social context. It is only through society that individual rights can be expressed and recognized. No society --> no individual rights.

Wrong. God titled Adam (a specific person) with dominion when he was the only man to exist. Property is prior to society. The individual is prior to any collective. Your worldview is completely backwards because it is not Biblical.

As land can never initially be acquired through voluntary exchange, any exchange of land is trafficking in stolen goods.

Wrong again. God voluntarily gave Adam the inheritance of what He initially owned. The first act of a property title conveyance was completely voluntary. And as Adam gave his sons inheritance, the subsequent conveyances were voluntary.


Property and inheritance rights are entirely Scriptural. God blessed people with property and inheritance rights:

Ezekiel 47:13-14, 21-23 NASB

Thus says the Lord GOD, "This shall be the boundary by which you shall divide the land for an inheritance among the twelve tribes of Israel; Joseph shall have two portions. You shall divide it for an inheritance, each one equally with the other; for I swore to give it to your forefathers, and this land shall fall to you as an inheritance.

Even aliens in the land were afforded with property and inheritance rights:

"So you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You shall divide it by lot for an inheritance among yourselves and among the aliens who stay in your midst, who bring forth sons in your midst. And they shall be to you as the native-born among the sons of Israel; they shall be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And in the tribe with which the alien stays, there you shall give him his inheritance," declares the Lord GOD.

I have to thank you RoyL. This thread and your objections to property have caused me to dive into the Scriptures and discover how rich the legacy of property really is in God's Word. Thanks again.


What a blessing property is!

Psalm 37:29 NASB

The righteous will inherit the land
And dwell in it forever.

 

[Roy L]

Well, I am not convinced, Roy, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to you. I know that you passionately and earnestly believe in what you are talking about, to the point of considering it all so self-evident that only a liar wouldn't see it. In other words, they see it your way, and secretly agree that you are right, but just won't admit it. I know that is not the case with me, because for as obvious and self-evident that you believe it all is, I do not share your view, and for me personally I did not find your arguments compelling, nor did I feel that you made a coherent case as a matter of principle, as opposed to a dogmatic axiom.

No, it is the case with you; you are actually fully aware that I have proved I am right and you are wrong. That is why you cannot refute anything I have said. I have seen the same pattern repeated many times: you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but you decline, merely on that account, to reconsider your proved-wrong beliefs.

You can't admit I am right because that would be to admit that you have been and are serving evil. Very few people are able to come to grips with the knowledge that they have been and are doing evil. They will say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid knowing that fact. It is the most terrifying possibility in the universe, because it means that they have betrayed everything they should have guarded with their lives -- even their own humanity.

I am having particular difficulty seeing land used by others who might be hundreds of miles away from me, in an area I would likely never even visit, let alone use, as somehow constituting a "deprivation" to me specifically.

It might not be. You are only suffering a deprivation wrt the land and resources you would otherwise have been interested in using if their owners did not initiate force to stop you. That's one reason I advocate LVT mainly for local (or at most state) governments, with national government funded by other means. I think I have explained this before.

I cannot even conceive of this unless I draw a boundary around an entire country, and then draw up a deed, wherein I and everyone else are named as collective owners with equal travel and usage rights.

The relevant right is the individual right to liberty, not some fancied collective right to property. However, it is indisputable that some national government expenditures add to land value, and to that extent constitute a welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners. Justice self-evidently requires that welfare subsidy giveaway be redressed by either taxing away its value to pay for the expenditures that create it, or eliminating those expenditures, or if they are deemed necessary, downloading them onto junior governments that can recover the value they create through LVT. FWIW, IMO the US federal government does many things that would be better done by state or local governments, including an enormous amount of spending undertaken in a futile attempt to undo the social and economic harm inflicted by not using LVT.

Hence, this CAN be put in strictly "propertarian" terms, to use your word, because you are claiming, in effect, rights of ownership by some other name; that the whole of a given country is collectively owned by all of its inhabitants, en masse, all at once, all of whom are effectively the collective landlords to any who make exclusive use of any part of it.

Nope. Wrong. I have explicitly stated that land use rights are liberty rights, not property rights. Propertarianism -- the religion that worships at, and lays human sacrifices on, the altar of the Great God Property -- is a cult of human sacrifice. Adherents of the cult simply recast everything outside the cult's catechism in terms that are familiar to the cult.

What you object to is NOT ownership of land, but rather individual ownership which excludes collective ownership.

No, you are just lying about what I have plainly written, so that you can recast the facts and logic that prove your cult is false and evil into terms that fit into its catechism, and thus do not threaten belief in it. Collectives have no more right to deprive the individual of his liberty without just compensation than individuals do. Only by undertaking to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all does a community or society collectively, through government, obtain legitimate authority to administer possession and use of the land it occupies.

Call it by any other name, that is the net effect, and therefore what it is. As such, it is not as new or novel a concept as I thought, now that you have explained it.

No, you have simply altered what I have said to make it fit into the catechism of your propertarian religious cult.

If I had to characterize it to others I would say that it was kind of "Communist Libertarian" in it inception - one that could easily have been inspired by song "Signs" by The Five Man Electrical Band:

That is silliness.

So the collective deed to the country, one that is inherited by everyone as an inalienable birthright, might read:
Does that sound about right?

No, it sounds more like some stupid garbage you fabricated out of whole cloth and attributed to me in order to avoid thinking about facts that are not compatible with your propertarian religious cult.

 

[Steven Douglas]

No, it is the case with you; you are actually fully aware that I have proved I am right and you are wrong. That is why you cannot refute anything I have said. I have seen the same pattern repeated many times: you have been proved wrong; you know you have been proved wrong; but you decline, merely on that account, to reconsider your proved-wrong beliefs.

Roy, statements like that are compelling evidence that you are operating strictly from within your own private bubble and calling it reality and truth. Not only can you declare, axiomatically and with utter certainty, what is "self-evident" and "just" in the absolute regarding land and liberty and rights, including declarations as to what has been "proved" (both right and wrong as you declare it), but you also claim with equal certainty and authority what is going on in other people's minds.

I don't buy that you're clairvoyant, Roy. Oddly enough, however, your self-perceived potent omniscience, as implied by both your attitude and words, seems honest to me. I believe that you really do believe that you have not only proved all points beyond any shadow of doubting, but that you also know exactly what is in the minds of others.

You can't admit I am right because that would be to admit that you have been and are serving evil. Very few people are able to come to grips with the knowledge that they have been and are doing evil. They will say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid knowing that fact. It is the most terrifying possibility in the universe, because it means that they have betrayed everything they should have guarded with their lives -- even their own humanity.

Take that wisdom to heart, then. Self-projection is one of the easiest traps in the world to fall into. Self-awareness, on the other hand is one of the toughest things in the world to come to grips with. Is it possible that you are serving evil? Is it possible that you will "...say, believe, and do ANYTHING WHATEVER to avoid..." even the exploration of such a possibility?

Nope. Wrong. I have explicitly stated that land use rights are liberty rights, not property rights. Propertarianism -- the religion that worships at, and lays human sacrifices on, the altar of the Great God Property -- is a cult of human sacrifice. Adherents of the cult simply recast everything outside the cult's catechism in terms that are familiar to the cult.

Well, call me simple, then, because if I disappear into a forest, and dig an underground fortress for the sole purpose of excluding you and anybody else who is possessed with nasty, truly evil tentacles of collectivist expectations, and I occupy and use land that nobody else even wants to visit, let alone is interested in, let alone knows I am using, there isn't a chance in even your own private hell, Roy, that you can demonstrate that I have deprived anyone of their "liberty".

Truth is, Roy, you believe in land ownership far more than I do. In the collectivist absolute. That's your dirty little secret.