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Thread: What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

  1. #1621
    Quote Originally Posted by AquaBuddha2010 View Post
    We've already been through this about 30 pages ago.
    Yes, and all you offered was your highly contrived re-interpretation of scripture to rationalize and justify the sins (very common among landowners) of pride, sloth and avarice. I'm not going to argue interpretations of scripture, as it is known that the devil can quote it to his own purposes -- which certainly include yours.
    God gave Adam the title rights to the earth, and Adam passed those rights to his children, and so on and so on. So the earth is declared by God as a specific sphere of human ownership, just like other earthly temporal possessions.
    That's just indisputably false, as already proved. The MOST you can possibly claim is that God gave Adam and his descendants a TENURE right to the earth. There is nothing anywhere in scripture to indicate that God was granting a title of ownership rather than a right of tenure, and plenty to indicate that tenure was all God intended to grant, as Leviticus 25:23 shows.
    This is why there were laws against moving your neighbors boundary stones...ownership is implied in the commands against land theft.
    Nope. That's just a flat-out fabrication. Boundary stones indicate only the limit of tenure rights, not a title of ownership. This is proved, repeat, PROVED by the fact that in the ancient Celtic tradition, where there was no landowning, they were widely used to delimit the portions of village commons that were to be used by the various households in the village, who DID NOT OWN the land thus delimited and had to relinquish it to someone else in a succeeding year. Legal historians are broadly agreed that while exclusive land tenure dates from the earliest settled agricultural societies, the institution of private property in land similar to the long-recognized property in products of labor was unknown before it was created under Roman law.
    In regards to ownership, there is no distinction between land and other property in Scripture like you are making.
    That's a flat-out fabrication. The Biblical description of the jubilee explicitly states that the LAND is to be reapportioned from those who claim to own it to the heirs of the original holders -- land and nothing else. Here:

    "On the Knesset Web site, the Basic Law on Israel Lands (1960) states: "The ownership of Israel lands, being the lands in Israel of the State, the Development Authority or the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael [Jewish National Fund], shall not be transferred either by sale or in any other manner." Along comes a ministerial committee headed by the new prime minister, which hastily decides that Israel's lands will henceforth be marketed for sale and not for lease. Once again, the cabinet - a ministerial committee decision, as is known, is the same as a cabinet decision - has not responsibly and comprehensively scrutinized the initiative's significance.

    The Israel Lands Administration needs basic reforms. But the decision to sell and not lease lands has far-reaching national-Zionist implications that could bring about grave fundamental changes. Not only is the decision a clear infraction of a Basic Law, it goes against one of the Jewish people's most ancient national and religious laws, the prohibition against selling the nation's land, even to its own people."


    The people who wrote that law have been studying those passages of scripture for over 3000 years.
    Biblically, the sun is not specified as an entity that is possible to be owned by humans,
    And neither is land.
    but the sun is still owned. That is why I said that you are fighting an entire universe of ownership. The Creator is the owner of every molecule of His material creation. Even alphabets and thoughts and those kinds of things are, in the final eternal sense, owned...because God is the ultimate cause of thought itself. God used the Hebrew and Greek alphabets, for example, as instruments to communicate His Word to men. Nothing, not even immaterial things like laws and thoughts, exist independent of the Creator's will.
    What does it even mean to say that God owns everything, material and immaterial both? That doesn't solve anything.
    So, as a Christian, I can take a step back and consider all the arguments for or against IP for example, and not have to make a specific declaration about it, even though I have my opinions on it. But ownership in regards to land on this earth is something that I as a Christian have to make a specific declaration about, because God has given me the specific command of earthly dominion in Scripture and there are actual voluntary title transfers.
    Dominion is only tenure, not ownership; and God specifically told you that land was NOT to be sold forever, "voluntary" title transfer or no voluntary title transfer. If you can't sell it forever, it isn't your property.
    Well, anyway.... I have to thank you Roy, because you have really made me dig deep into my worldview to provide a justification for the things I am talking about.
    Not quite deep enough, though...
    Last edited by Roy L; 01-16-2012 at 10:48 PM.



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  3. #1622

    The constitution provides excise taxes to fund federal operations

    Quote Originally Posted by Mahkato View Post
    Other taxes are illegal including the income tax..States can do whatever they want but they risk revolt and failure if they overstep -gotta love competition
    Freedom brings people together. Government is supposed to protect our Freedom, our Property, and our Privacy- not Invade it..
    Ron Paul 2007

  4. #1623
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Yes, and all you offered was your highly contrived re-interpretation of scripture to rationalize and justify the sins (very common among landowners) of pride, sloth and avarice. I'm not going to argue interpretations of scripture, as it is known that the devil can quote it to his own purposes -- which certainly include yours.
    Aqua, you proud, slothful, avaricious devil you.

  5. #1624
    Quote Originally Posted by sharkcity View Post
    The constitution provides excise taxes to fund federal operations

    Other taxes are illegal including the income tax..States can do whatever they want but they risk revolt and failure if they overstep -gotta love competition
    The income tax is an excise tax.
    Last edited by Danke; 01-16-2012 at 10:00 PM.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.



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  7. #1625
    Quote Originally Posted by presence View Post
    Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated to himself.
    The water in the pitcher has been removed from nature. A location on the earth's surface can't be removed from nature. It's always going to be exactly where nature put it, until we find a way to move the earth.
    John Locke Second Treatise of Government
    Chapter V - On Property Section 28-32

    Sec. 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or
    the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly
    appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his.
    Not so fast, John. They are only rightly his if he did not deprive others of the opportunity to gather them. If the people of the community have agreed among themselves that it is best for all if the wild apples are left on the tree until they are ripe, rather than being harvested too early on a grabbers-get basis, then going to clean out the tree the day before the agreed harvesting time does NOT gain rightful ownership of the apples. Similarly, if others also know about and intend to pick up some of the acorns under that oak tree at the appointed time, going there first and picking up all the acorns plainly violates others' equal rights to access the resource.
    I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he digested? or when he eat?
    or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up?
    and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else
    could.
    It may be plain to Locke, but as shown above, it is not clear they are rightly his at all.
    That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added
    something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and
    so they became his private right.
    No, they did not become his private right if he deprived others of them, as explained above.
    And will any one say, he had no right to those acorns or apples, he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his?
    Blatant strawman fallacy. It was not all mankind that had the opportunity and liberty to use the resources, and suffered a deprivation through his appropriation of them.
    Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common?
    It may well have been, as explained above.
    If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him.
    OTC, if Locke's principle of "grabbers get" had been generally accepted among our hunter-gatherer forebears, the apples would always have been harvested too early, and been sour and lacked nutrients; much time and effort would always have been wasted as acorn harvesters went to the tree when there were too few acorns on the ground to make the effort pay, out of fear of not getting any if a grabber took them all. Not permitting the grabber to appropriate common resources to himself just by taking them first avoids the Tragedy of the Private.
    We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property;
    No, appropriation of common property by private grabbers, with which Locke was surely familiar in the form of land enclosures, violates the pre-existing common right of use.
    without which the common is of no use.
    Locke knew better than this. The commons were of enormous use precisely because they could be used to PRODUCE what had not previously existed as common property; and the right to remove what was already there did not begin with the removal: rather, the removal was only rightful and permissible because the user had a pre-existing right to use the common for that purpose.
    And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners.
    Perhaps not, but it DOES depend on the institutional consent of those who administer the common on behalf of all the commoners.
    Thus the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut;
    and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in
    common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent
    of any body.
    Flat false, as proved above. If permitted, such grabbers-get depredations would indeed result in a tragedy of the privatized commons. Fortunately, real commons were not unmanaged, and thus avoided the tragic fate Locke's notion would have consigned them to.
    The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.
    Garbage lacking any supporting facts or logic. The only way labor secures a property right all by itself is when it produces a product using only resources that either no one else wanted, or that the user made just compensation for depriving others of.
    Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any
    one's appropriating to himself any part of what is given in common, children
    or servants could not cut the meat, which their father or master had
    provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his peculiar
    part.
    Strawman fallacy. No one claims explicit and unanimous consent is needed, as institutions administer common resources on behalf of all. The children and servants know what portion of the meat they are entitled to by tradition and institutional arrangements, and do not try to take more.
    Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can
    doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath
    taken it out of the hands of nature, where it was common, and belonged
    equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it to himself.
    But only because the institution or trust administering use of the fountain on behalf of all who have a right to use it has recognized THAT much appropriation of the common resource as rightful and permissible in that it does not deprive others of their like use of it. Take more than your share, leaving others without, and the property right in what is taken vanishes.
    Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath
    killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon
    it, though before it was the common right of every one.
    But only because no one is consequently deprived of their liberty, as there are plenty more deer like that one.
    And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the
    beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place;
    LOL! Locke lived in the time of the enclosures, and certainly knew better than to imagine they were based on any such principle.
    and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still
    remaining common of mankind; or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by
    the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made
    his property, who takes that pains about it.
    Within the limits identified above.
    Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns,
    or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may
    ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so. The same law of
    nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that
    property too. God has given us all things richly, 1 Tim. vi. 12. is the
    voice of reason confirmed by inspiration. But how far has he given it us? To
    enjoy. As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it
    spoils, so much he may by his Labour fix a property in: whatever is beyond
    this, is more than his share, and belongs to others.
    OK, so Locke understands his claim above was indefensible. He has just chosen an indefensible way of trying to make it defensible.
    Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural provisions there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders; and to how small a part of that provision the industry of one man could extend
    itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others; especially keeping within
    the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use; there could be
    then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established.
    ROTFL!! Wishful thinking refuted by all history. OTC, there must be from the outset an established principle that wherever one's appropriation of common resources works to the prejudice or injury of others, depriving them of what they would otherwise be at liberty to use, just compensation is due for the damages thus inflicted.
    Sec. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the
    earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that
    which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that
    property in that too is acquired as the former.
    But in fact it plainly isn't, as the earth itself -- and the locations on its surface -- cannot be removed from nature by labor as food growing wild can, nor can it be produced by labor as crops and domestic animals can.
    As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property.
    We've already seen that in addition to not being the case for more than a microscopic fraction of all the land that is owned in the world, this claim can't be true, as it implies the landless have no rights to life or liberty.
    He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common.
    Locke knew that was not how the commons were being enclosed, and he hasn't provided any factual or logical support for his claim anyway.
    Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has an equal title to
    it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot inclose, without the
    consent of all his fellow-commoners, all mankind.
    Right: he can't rightly enclose it even WITH the consent of all mankind, because they cannot rightly dispose of the rights of generations unborn.
    God, when he gave the world in common to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay
    out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to
    this command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby
    annexed to it something that was his property, which another had no title
    to, nor could without injury take from him.
    I.e., the product of his labor. Not the location where it was produced, as that cannot be taken from others without injury.

  8. #1626
    Quote Originally Posted by eduardo89 View Post
    Its not hypocritical because I don't believe that owning land deprives anyone of any liberty.
    Well, it's just self-evident and indisputable that owning land deprives others of their liberty, as we have already established; but if it were not true, then you would presumably have no objection to geoist communities administering -- effectively owning in trust -- all the land between them, as it would not deprive you of any liberty.
    I think it's hypocritical that you advocate simply transferring the land title from individuals to government who can then use force to extort money from those who use the land.
    You are certainly industrious at finding multiple ways to be wrong.

    I don't advocate transferring the land titles from private owners (the great majority of land by value in the USA is owned by corporations, not individuals, btw) to government, and it is private landowners who currently use government force to extort money from those who use the land. With LVT, payment of compensation for depriving others of the land becomes a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction: it is GOVERNMENT AND THE COMMUNITY THAT ARE CREATING THE LAND'S VALUE, AND THEREFORE HAVE A RIGHT TO RECOVER IT FROM THE USER.

    Private landowners are not the ones creating that value, and they therefore have NO right to pocket it.
    I think your position is hypocritical, you don't like individual land owners, but when the government or some geoist community owns it it's fine.
    Wrong again. I also don't want any private interest owning the earth's atmosphere or the oceans, but I think it's fine for governments to administer those resources in trust to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all. THAT'S GOVERNMENT'S JOB. You could with equal "logic" claim it is hypocritical of me to oppose private ownership of nuclear weapons, while agreeing that governments can rightly own them. It's just idiotic.
    To sum it up:
    LVT = idiotic
    Geoism = idiotic
    Eduardo = just sad, now.

  9. #1627
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners.
    Perhaps not, but it DOES depend on the institutional consent of those who administer the common on behalf of all the commoners.
    Not "does" - "would" - hypothetical future tense - assuming an administrational institution having such a directive was established. Even Locke was not speaking in terms of then existing ways or institutions, but what he thought, right or wrong, were axiomatic, or self-evident normatives, as principles.

  10. #1628
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Private landowners are not the ones creating that value, and they therefore have NO right to pocket it.
    Not in the case of all landowners. Like you said, if there is no community, how much more advantageous can their location be than the next one? If there is no community, whose liberty are they violating?

  11. #1629
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Not "does" - "would" - hypothetical future tense - assuming an administrational institution having such a directive was established. Even Locke was not speaking in terms of then existing ways or institutions, but what he thought, right or wrong, were axiomatic, or self-evident normatives, as principles.
    There has to be some way the commoners are living together and sharing access to common resources, and Locke's "express consent of all the commoners" is still a strawman.
    Last edited by Roy L; 01-16-2012 at 11:13 PM.

  12. #1630
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Not in the case of all landowners. Like you said, if there is no community, how much more advantageous can their location be than the next one?
    And therefore, how much value can it have? Remember, the Law of Rent compares the economic advantage of a good site with that of a marginal one. If there is no one else around, there is a pretty good chance you are on marginal or near-marginal land.
    If there is no community, whose liberty are they violating?
    Right. And how much value can the land have?

  13. #1631
    You know guys, after watching the debate tonight I got thinking. There will always be issues that even libertarians will argue over. And while the LVT is a very important issue to me, seeing Ron Paul get booed over the golden rule and Romney applauded for supporting the NDAA makes me thank god for the posters on ronpaulforums. If Ron Paul did not have such a fervent following I'd lose all faith in humanity.
    http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/
    http://www.wealthandwant.com/
    http://freeliberal.com/

  14. #1632
    Can't. Let. Thread. Die.



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  16. #1633
    Quote Originally Posted by Tim Calhoun View Post
    Can't. Let. Thread. Die.
    Roy seems to be on vacation.

  17. #1634
    Quote Originally Posted by Tim Calhoun View Post
    Can't. Let. Thread. Die.
    BAD Canuck. Bad, BAD Canuck. You trying to start a riot?

  18. #1635
    Quote Originally Posted by eduardo89 View Post
    Roy seems to be on vacation.
    What's left to demolish?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCcvdrhn3M

  19. #1636
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    My home since I haven't paid my LVT

  20. #1637
    Quote Originally Posted by eduardo89 View Post
    My home since I haven't paid my LVT
    You cretinous liar!

  21. #1638
    You still haven't insulted my family members, decrying them as disgustingly evil and vile. There are also a few third-world tin pot dictators who have yet to be lauded by you as heroes.

    If you're going to crush evil and celebrate good, you should be thorough. Don't just pick off the relatives of a single poster -- crush them all! I want to hear about my great-grandparents' reprehensibility. Otherwise, you lose all credibility in my eyes.

  22. #1639
    Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here. The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time. For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land. This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me. It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.

    The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land. It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources. Neither is the "community value" concept. Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.

    In general all economic markets are community based, so LVT seems to be an argument for pure socialism by claiming that communities create wealth, therefore all wealth should be collectivized.

    Back to my semantic argument. I think that a better way of looking at natural resource ownership is the concept of equitable natural resource ownership in another thread I started here. Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed. People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.

    This is getting down to the core of what private property & ownership is and why societies have a vested interest in protecting it.
    Last edited by furface; 01-27-2012 at 12:03 PM.

  23. #1640
    Quote Originally Posted by furface View Post
    ...there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.
    Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed. People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.
    You can't help the little guy by setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution and instructing it to be on the side of the little guy. Think about it for TWO SECONDS!

    Why are the powerful going to be hurting themselves?

    Why is Queen Elizabeth II going to tax her own land?

    It makes no sense!

    That is an delusion which is really, really common and really, really important for us to point out as naive. It's one of the LVters' and other pro-tax pro-collectivism anti-market people's most favoritest and closely-held delusions. Government is of the little people, by the little people. It protects us and watches out for our interests. Private men, in contrast, care only about their private interests and are devoted to furthering their own wealth by crushing the little people and maiming their children in coal mines. Governments aren't perfect, they have problems, sure. When we see those problems, we vote in new people to fix the problems and things are fixed. After all that's what I learned in Social Studies in 5th grade. I don't need to think any further than that, right? I mean, what could be more sophisticated than the truths I learned in my 5th grade education camp? And no one can tell me that it was biased just because it was run by interested parties. That's loony conspiracy talk. When a private man has a problem, we have no recourse. We can't vote in a new landlord or new mine owner. We're just stuck. that's the difference between the responsive, caring, accountable government and the callous, out-of-control, hegemonic Business-Man or Land-Lord.

    The Nation-State: Our Friend. Our happy friend. Our loyal friend. The only one protecting us from the voracious and deadly predations of the evil private interests.
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 01-27-2012 at 12:50 PM.



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  25. #1641
    Helmuth, thanks for replying. I'd like to clear something up if you don't mind.

    Who exactly benefits by not taxing QEII's land?

    1. Does everybody benefit?

    2. Does QEII benefit?

    3. Is the question irrelevant?

  26. #1642
    Quote Originally Posted by furface View Post
    Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here. The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time. For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land. This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me. It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.
    There is no "Queen of England". England has not had its own crown since 1707. She is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of 16 other countries (all separate crowns).

  27. #1643
    There is no "Queen of England".
    Thanks for pointing that out. You learn something new every day, I guess.

  28. #1644
    Quote Originally Posted by furface View Post
    Thanks for pointing that out. You learn something new every day, I guess.
    Glad you learned something from my nitpicking

  29. #1645
    Quote Originally Posted by furface View Post
    Helmuth, thanks for replying. I'd like to clear something up if you don't mind.

    Who exactly benefits by not taxing QEII's land?
    I had to think about this for a while trying to craft the perfect and most accurate answer, partly because I am not British. So let's change the scenario to one more familiar and American.

    The Queen is part of the government apparatus in Great Britain, correct? So, this question is equivalent to asking "who exactly benefits by not taxing Barack Obama?". In the end, the question is irrelevant, option 3. 100% of Obama's salary comes from the government -- from tax revenues. Likewise, all the Queen's land and other wealth came from taxation. For Obama to tax himself is just taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other. If Obama pays a 50% tax, it's the same as if he just took a 50% pay cut. The government still has the same amount of money either way, whether it spends it on Obama's hamburger or a new toilet seat in Baghdad. So while I am absolutely opposed to taxation, it's impossible for me to care whether the taxers themselves are taxed. It's just a fiction and an irrelevancy. People whose sole subsistence is taxation cannot pay taxes. The Queen absolutely cannot, by the rules of logic, pay any taxes. 100% of her wealth came from taxes. Even to give 100% of it back would just make her a net break-even -- no longer a tax-eater. To be a tax payer, she'd have to give all of it back, then go get a real job, then pay taxes on that.

    To answer 2.: Obviously the Queen benefits from owning vast tracts of land. To answer 1.: It is not clear that anyone would benefit from taxing that land, other than the other parasites in the government, which would have that much more money and power directed to themselves rather than the Queen.

    The right thing to do would be an attempt at redress of grievances of some kind. The people whose land was stolen, or whose property was stolen to pay for land, they or their heirs should be allowed to bring suit against the Queen and be compensated.

  30. #1646
    Quote Originally Posted by eduardo89 View Post
    My home since I haven't paid my LVT
    Why even bother saying something so stupid and dishonest? If you couldn't afford to compensate the community for what you take from others by violating their rights to liberty, you would just sell your house and seek accommodation better suited to your needs and means, much as people do now if they find they can't afford to continue paying their mortgage, credit card bills, alimony, medical insurance, property taxes, etc.

  31. #1647
    Quote Originally Posted by furface View Post
    The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land. It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources. Neither is the "community value" concept. Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.
    It would be more precise to say that Rare Earth metals are worthless without a technologically-based infrastructure. Not community-based. This is proved by the fact that Rare-Earth metals processing does not require the existence of artisans, barbers, antique dealers, blacksmiths, and a whole host of entities that might belong to a surrounding "community". The value of the final Rare Earth metals product cannot be increased by the existence of such entities, which are completely incidental.

    Words like "related" and "based" (e.g., "alcohol related" or "community based") are generalities that attempt to impute CAUSAL relevance or value where none may exist. For example, a statistic on "alcohol related" deaths (rather than the more intellectually honest "alcohol caused") may include an automobile accident that involved someone who was driving home from a bar, even though no alcohol was consumed or involved in any way -- which makes the "related" statistic, to that degree, meaningless.

    Likewise, the Georgist/Geoist concept of "community based" value of land attempts (what I consider a logical impossibility) to view land rent independent and irrespective of "land improvements", or anything that is produced on that land. In other words, what "nature, government and the community" provides is the value of the land rent, completely separate and independent from the value of whatever you do to/on the land, which is seen only as "taking benefit" from what nature, government and the community provided.

    Along with the fundamental tenet that all "community members" have a natural liberty right of access to all that nature provides - nature, government and community are combined, Vulcan-like mind-melded together, as one interrelated, land value-causing entity. Thus, anyone making exclusive use of land is "taking" (stealing, if taken without compensation) value that has been "provided" by this singularized/collectivized NatureGovernmentCommunity entity.

    To me, that's not just a pretzel of convoluted reasoning - it's more like a funnel cake. A web spun by funnel cake spiders.


  32. #1648
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    You still haven't insulted my family members, decrying them as disgustingly evil and vile.
    Post the evidence that they are, and I might oblige.
    There are also a few third-world tin pot dictators who have yet to be lauded by you as heroes.
    Which third world tin pot dictator have I lauded? Or are you just deliberately lying again?
    If you're going to crush evil and celebrate good, you should be thorough. Don't just pick off the relatives of a single poster -- crush them all! I want to hear about my great-grandparents' reprehensibility. Otherwise, you lose all credibility in my eyes.
    Were you under an erroneous impression that you were contributing something worthwhile to the discussion?



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  34. #1649
    Quote Originally Posted by furface View Post
    Ugh, sorry to come in late to this thread and perhaps cause problems, but I think there is a somewhat Orwellian semantic issue going on here.
    There are indeed. The founders of neoclassical economics changed the definition of "capital" to include land, and changed the definition of "rent" to denote how MUCH a factor payment is, rather than how it is obtained.
    The word "land" is interestingly both plural and singular at the same time. For instance "my land" meaning my 1/10th acre plot of land that my house sits on evokes the same usage as "my land" when the Queen of England uses it to describe her ownership of millions of acres of land. This linguistic nuance is not by accident if you ask me. It's by design to hide the fact that there are great disparities in who controls natural resources.
    Others here will be quick to inform you that identifying such facts only proves that you are envious of those who are more successful than you.
    The "exclusive usage" concept isn't unique to land. It's part of all concepts of ownership, especially when you're dealing with natural resources.
    The difference is that excluding others from using natural resources deprives them of liberty and opportunity they would otherwise have. Excluding them from using a product of labor doesn't, as the product did not otherwise exist.
    Neither is the "community value" concept. Rare Earth metals for instance are worthless without a community based technological infrastructure.
    They are also, unlike land and other natural resources, worthless without the labor and investment of those who extract them from the earth, refine them, etc.
    In general all economic markets are community based, so LVT seems to be an argument for pure socialism by claiming that communities create wealth, therefore all wealth should be collectivized.
    No. Please try to find a willingness to know the fact that the value of rare earth elements in the ground, as natural ore, is created by the community, but the DIFFERENCE in value between that ore and the REEs when mined, refined and ready to use is produced by the folks who invested to create the mining machinery and infrastructure, performed the labor, etc. Those who are willing to know that fact are good, honest and virtuous champions of liberty, justice and truth. Those who are not willing to know it are vile, evil, despicable filth who lie to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.
    Back to my semantic argument. I think that a better way of looking at natural resource ownership is the concept of equitable natural resource ownership in another thread I started here. Queen Elizabeth II's land should be taxed. People with one family residence & perhaps a plot of land to do business on should not be taxed.
    Modern LVT proposals typically include a flat, universal individual exemption for secure tenure on sufficient land for a normal person to live on (or, second best, an equivalent citizens' dividend). In practice, most people would pay little or no net LVT, and would be far better off than under the current system.
    This is getting down to the core of what private property & ownership is and why societies have a vested interest in protecting it.
    That is exactly correct.

  35. #1650
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    You can't help the little guy by setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution and instructing it to be on the side of the little guy. Think about it for TWO SECONDS!
    No one has suggested "setting up a mammoth all-powerful institution," so you can stop lying.

    Oh, no, wait a minute, that's right: you can't.

    The LVT authority would be microscopically small compared to current taxing authorities, and would have one (1) power: to secure the tenure of those who paid the tax.
    Why are the powerful going to be hurting themselves?

    Why is Queen Elizabeth II going to tax her own land?
    You have a very peculiar notion of how democratic government works.
    It makes no sense!
    No objection to LVT ever makes any sense.
    That is an delusion which is really, really common and really, really important for us to point out as naive.
    "Justice? Liberty? Fuggettaboutit!" is not a new objection to LVT. But it remains a pretty amusing one.
    It's one of the LVters' and other pro-tax pro-collectivism anti-market people's most favoritest and closely-held delusions.
    LVT is a voluntary, market-based, value-for-value transaction; LVT with a universal individual exemption is the only way to restore the equal individual right to liberty; and LVT would render much current government spending unnecessary, REDUCING TOTAL TAXES, so STOP LYING.
    Government is of the little people, by the little people. It protects us and watches out for our interests.
    Only when we, as voters, watch out for our own interests. The absence of LVT shows how poorly we have been doing that so far. It doesn't show we can never do any better.
    Private men, in contrast, care only about their private interests and are devoted to furthering their own wealth by crushing the little people and maiming their children in coal mines.
    More accurately, the incentive structure of a privilege-based economy makes private interests rob, starve, enslave and kill others for profit whether they intend to do so or not.
    Governments aren't perfect, they have problems, sure. When we see those problems, we vote in new people to fix the problems and things are fixed. After all that's what I learned in Social Studies in 5th grade. I don't need to think any further than that, right?
    Well, at any rate you haven't thought any further...
    I mean, what could be more sophisticated than the truths I learned in my 5th grade education camp? And no one can tell me that it was biased just because it was run by interested parties. That's loony conspiracy talk. When a private man has a problem, we have no recourse. We can't vote in a new landlord or new mine owner. We're just stuck. that's the difference between the responsive, caring, accountable government and the callous, out-of-control, hegemonic Business-Man or Land-Lord.
    <yawn> It's not like much smarter people than you have never thought about these things, Steven.
    The Nation-State: Our Friend. Our happy friend. Our loyal friend. The only one protecting us from the voracious and deadly predations of the evil private interests.
    Bingo, as Somalia proves.

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