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Thread: We Urgently Need To Revert To Classical Economics

  1. #211
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Garbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.
    LOLZ! So, who owns you? (FYI, people sell themselves all the time. They sell their labor and surrender free will to employers in exchange for some wage or benefit.)


    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    That is an absurd and outrageous lie. Governments are ALL ABOUT protection of individual property. That's how the rich get rich, stay rich, and get rapidly richer:

    "Government has no other end than the preservation of property." -- John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
    You do realize that Locke included the protection of the poor's property in this, don't you? Contextomy fail. Why is it okay for you to lie about and misrepresent Locke but not okay for others to represent George as they choose?
    Last edited by heavenlyboy34; 08-04-2012 at 03:14 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12



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  3. #212
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    But you are just objectively wrong about that. Increasing the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners can never be beneficial. Never.

    Absurdly and dishonestly.

    And you are wrong and we are correct, as explained in post #135 in this thread.
    I'm having trouble pinning you down because you seem to avoid the point I was making here and post #135 does not address it either.

    Suppose the federal government instituted a revenue-neutral tax shift, replacing the income tax we have now with a land value tax that raises the same amount of revenue. After doing that, would lowering the rate of that LVT, so as to decrease federal revenue, be a good thing or not?

  4. #213
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    The area of disagreement is actually quite limited, and revolves around the manner of reconciling property rights with liberty rights.
    The actual area of disagreement is not limited in area, literally speaking, because it encompasses ALL area - even the land area of the entire Earth, used as a basis for a tax. The "liberty rights" deprivation argument is YOUR framing of the issue, given that you alone feel that they a) exist as you describe them, and are b) being violated by landownership without "just compensation" to the state, no less, which you further seek to reconcile by c) a universal individual exemption amount that is equal for all individuals. I say that Rube Goldberg machine of a trickle-down dog doesn't hunt.

    The anti-LVT side advocates property in things IN ADDITION TO the fruits of one's labor.
    There are no rights to the fruits of one's labor without rights to "property in things".

    That is logically impossible except by removing others' liberty rights to access and use those things.
    But you don't mean "things", do you. Specifically, we're talking about property in LAND, not "things", and your belief that the exclusive holding of land (without "just compensation" to others via the state) is a violation of others' "liberty rights", which I argue do not, and should not ever, exist or be acknowledged as you describe them. That's your house of cards, not theirs.

    It's not a false choice. It's not even a false dichotomy. It's simply an alternative: we can fund public expenditures as we currently do...
    Fund public expenditures as we currently do? I know you mean "method of or basis for funding", and not the amounts currently funded or spent, but that's still a false choice. Most here are arguing that most public expenditures should not even exist. And I agree. So we're not sitting around trying to figure out different ways to fund them. While you propose to stop taxing labor and capital (which they would agree with already), and shift all tax burdens exclusively onto landowners, most here are instead trying to figure out ways to shrink most of the expenditures down and drown most of them in a bathtub, such that there really is no burden to speak of in the first place.

    But even there I'm not exactly on the same page, because I don't think that the size of funding and expenditures in and of themselves are the problem at all, any more than I believe the factor of production targeted is the problem -- in terms of the REAL PROBLEM you're trying to reconcile; that of burden-shifting.

    No taxes --> no government --> no civilization.
    I am not calling for "no taxes", which brings us to my point.

    I believe strongly in taxes -- just not on INDIVIDUALS ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not for ANY $#@!ing reason. That doesn't mean "no taxes", because these rights-endowed individuals are not the only taxable entities. There are plenty of taxable entities who can and should bear the burden, to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of conditional privilege. That includes corporations (who are not people), collectives and speculators of all kinds, and even foreigners...but NEVER REAL PEOPLE ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT.

    You and Henry George have everything just as $#@!ed up as Marx as you focus on "which factor of production should be universally targeted", and, by extension, you falsely think, which class of people will naturally end up shouldering the burden (landowners in your case - GENERIC - regardless of their legal status, all of which you conflate as one and the same, as if all landowning entities were created equal). THAT is the lie, THAT is the false choice. That's how JP Morgan and the average hard-working Joe Sixpack get MUSH-MELDED as one, MUCH to JPM's delight, because not only is JPM treated as if it, too, was CREATED EQUAL in terms of rights, but JPM is also better equipped to avoid the taxes, happy to let a million Joe Sixpacks pay them instead.

    The choice for me deals with legal status, and the inalienable rights of each and every (uncollectivized) individual Citizen, and what types of entities are being taxed -- not the basis for that tax. Wrong target, as the system gets gamed and real people get used as human shields anyway, regardless of the target. If people (individuals) are free, it does not matter what factor of production, or anything else, the state uses as its basis to tax privileged entities who are not acting as a matter of right. Tax their land, tax their income, tax the sales (on purchases from privileged entities only), or anything else. It doesn't even need a reason. Tax them "just because", because it has that power. They're targeted and caught in the cross-hairs, without any human shields to camouflage themselves as or hide behind.

    The power to tax is the power to destroy, and if the state taxes any privileged entity too aggressively, it does so at its own peril, as it can literally tax its own revenue sources out of existence (read=capital flight, right out of the taxing jurisdiction), while only creating more opportunities for competing individuals who are not taxable as a matter of right and cannot therefore be destroyed or driven out of the market by taxation as a matter of principle. So break out that Laffer curve for privileged taxables entities, State, and take care to strike the right balance, because real, free and natural Citizens stand to benefit either way.

    What I propose requires absolutely no "promise" of a universal individual exemption, which may or may not be implemented (and if history is a guide, the chances of any truly meaningful dividend or exemption are an absolute joke of a rotten dangled plum). My proposal does not require any dangled plums, or promises based on "trusting the state" (or worse yet, a tyrannous majority) to do the "right" or "fair" thing. It is not required because the immunity is already inherent in any individual that behaves as a matter of right, a status that ends and becomes privileged behavior with those individuals and other entities to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of privilege.

    It's easy to prove that someone is behaving as a land speculator who is not simply behaving as a matter of right. Likewise, corporations, collectives and foreigners are ALREADY inherently acting as a matter of privilege. They would all, without exception, be subject to your tax, as well as any other tax, as the state saw fitting. And I don't care if it's LVT, income, capital gains or anything else or all of them combined into a fifty-legged stool. But it only applies to them - not real, free and natural Citizens, to whom the fruits of labor, the benefits of capital and economic rents on land and anything else should be freely and privately enjoyed.

    So no, it's not "no tax" (on anyone) vs. "the best tax" (on everyone). It ALWAYS boils down (even in the real world today) to a question of For Whom The Tax Bell Tolls. And that's where individuals, especially the truly productive ones, are the sitting ducks that get shafted every time, without fail, under EVERY regime, every 'ism'. That's why LVT would end up gamed like every other tax, as Zoning laws, Enterprise and Renaissance Zones, Special Exemptions, Abatements and Grants creep in, NATURALLY, to sort out the clever and well-healed from the not-so-connected, and the real people end up shouldering all the burdens anyway. $#@! that.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 08-05-2012 at 05:30 AM.

  5. #214
    Quote Originally Posted by erowe1 View Post
    Where I really differ with you is that I would insist that if that revenue-neutral tax shift were to occur, then we could continue to improve the situation even more by lowering the rates of that LVT. And the lower we took them, all the way down to zero if possible, the better the situation would get. You, it seems, disagree with this. And it is because of this disagreement, and not simply your support for a tax shift, that you have been called "Stalinist." The rest of us think tax cuts are always a good thing. You don't.
    I was right you are confused. Geonomics doesn't tax only land, most followers want LVT as the Single Tax for personal and small businesses at least - no Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax (tax on the buildings), Inheritance Tax, etc. It is so much easier and simple. The state's tax collection bill is very, very cheap. LVT is impossible to avoid as land's location is known to the inch. It cannot be taken off-shore.

    Other taxes on extracting natural resources, like oil, ores and fish from the sea, and use of natural resources apply (e.g., charging taxi drivers a license to use common streets) as do Pigovian taxes, like alcohol, tobacco, congestion charges, polluters, etc.

    LVT promotes enterprise, as taxes on production and trade are removed, and gives economic stability. Enterprise makes people more wealthy, reducing the Welfare bill, etc. The taxes on resources take precedence and if necessary the LVT bill is lowered. But it is a balance. As the LVT gets very low it may spark harmful land speculation (Taiwan increased its LVT rate to counter land speculation and get land & buildings in use). In marginal land the values is very low, so the LVT is near buttons. You can move to an internal tax haven and next to nothing.

    Taxation only falls on commonly created wealth (where it should do), not personal wealth. Common wealth pays for common services.

    Simple.

    If you think we can live in a society without taxation, get out of La-La land.
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 08-05-2012 at 03:34 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  6. #215
    Land monopoly is not the only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies -- it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.

    Unearned increments in land are not the only form of unearned or undeserved profit, but they are the principal form of unearned increment, and they are derived from processes which are not merely not beneficial, but positively detrimental to the general public.

    - Winston Churchill


    Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.

    - Winston Churchill


    No matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see every form of enterprise, every step in material progress, is only undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream for himself, and everywhere today the man or the public body that wishes to put land to its highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior one, and in some cases to no use at all. All comes back to land value, and its owner is able to levy toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry.

    - Winston Churchill


    Some years ago in London there was a toll bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings offended the public conscience, and agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the taxpayers, the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved sixpence a week, but within a very short time rents on the south side of the river were found to have risen about sixpence a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted!

    - Winston Churchill


    I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual land owner who, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched. I have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad.

    - Winston Churchill


    We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.

    - Winston Churchill
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 08-05-2012 at 03:31 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  7. #216
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    LOLZ! So, who owns you?
    ??? Huh? No one. I didn't sell myself into slavery. Duh.

    Non sequitur fail.
    (FYI, people sell themselves all the time. They sell their labor and surrender free will to employers in exchange for some wage or benefit.)
    FYI, that's not selling yourself, it's performing labor for wages, and in no sense do people "surrender free will" to their employers. Give your head a shake.
    You do realize that Locke included the protection of the poor's property in this, don't you?
    Of course. And your point would be...?

    Are you stupidly and dishonestly claiming that the homeless beggar who gets protection of his few dollars worth of clothes and cigarettes is getting the same benefit from government as the billionaire who owns the land the homeless beggar is not allowed to use to house and support himself, and access the government services his sales taxes helped pay for?

    Another non sequitur fail.
    Contextomy fail.
    Stupid, dishonest garbage disproved above.
    Why is it okay for you to lie about and misrepresent Locke
    <sigh> You now have exactly two choices, hb: you can identify, with direct, verbatim, in-context quotes, where I lied about and misrepresented Locke, or you can admit that you are just another evil, lying sack of anti-LVT $#!+. Failure to do the first will constitute doing the second. And you will not be doing the first.
    but not okay for others to represent George as they choose?
    I did not lie about, misquote, or misrepresent Locke. Lying anti-LVT sacks of $#!+ DO lie about and misrepresent what Henry George and LVT advocates plainly wrote. INVARIABLY.



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  9. #217
    Quote Originally Posted by erowe1 View Post
    I'm having trouble pinning you down because you seem to avoid the point I was making here and post #135 does not address it either.
    Yes, it does.
    Suppose the federal government instituted a revenue-neutral tax shift, replacing the income tax we have now with a land value tax that raises the same amount of revenue. After doing that, would lowering the rate of that LVT, so as to decrease federal revenue, be a good thing or not?
    No, because that would give landowners an increased welfare subsidy giveaway of unearned wealth at the expense of reducing the earned wealth of the productive. It would do this by bringing back the inefficiencies and counter-productive incentives that LVT removes, as I explained in post #135.

    You need to find a willingness to know the fact that preventing people from earning wealth by devoting their labor and investments in capital goods to productive ends reduces their wealth just as surely as taxing away their earned income does. Other taxes like income tax have what economists call an "excess burden": the amount by which they reduce total wealth OVER AND ABOVE the amount of money they take from taxpayers. For taxes other than LVT, which bear on productive economic activity, the higher the tax, the greater the excess burden and the less wealth is produced.

    But LVT has the OPPOSITE of an excess burden: the amount by which total wealth is reduced by failing to recover the full publicly created value of land and eliminate the welfare subsidy giveaway to landowners. With LVT, the higher the tax rate, the LOWER the excess burden, and the MORE wealth is produced.

  10. #218
    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamShrugged View Post
    exactly, they wouldn't be a slave. They would be a servant. Fail.
    No, you are lying. Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can. Servants can't be compelled to labor by force. Slaves can.

    EPIC FAIL.

  11. #219
    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamShrugged View Post
    Then why state this to me stupid
    Because in post #190 you wrote:

    "I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks."

    It would be nice if you would provide the post number of comments you are not responding to directly, so readers could check for themselves why you deleted the context without having to go through many previous posts looking for it.

  12. #220
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Garbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction.
    wrong

  13. #221
    Quote Originally Posted by silverhandorder View Post
    I know I feel the same way. I look at you with complete disgust.
    Then you're not even close to what I feel. Try adding contempt, pity, horror, frustration, loathing, incredulity, and revulsion.

    In 1984, George Orwell created a famously horrific image of a totalitarian future that would be like, "a boot stamping on a human face, forever." When I read fallacious, absurd and dishonest anti-LVT lies (and yours are no different from any others in that respect), I see the boot stamping on the human face, forever -- and the face eagerly kissing and licking the boot in grateful worship, as it stamps down again and again and again.
    Yes that is exactly what I advocate.
    Right. You advocate injustice, I advocate justice.
    I want reparations instead of penalties. If a man takes something away, I want that returned.
    Except if he takes away others' liberty to use land.
    Now as far as rewards go I will not even entertain the idea that justice is rewards commensurate with contributions.
    But in fact, you know that that is what it is.
    The value put to rewards and the contributions are completely subjective.
    Nonsense. Value is what a thing would trade for in the market, which by definition can't be subjective as it requires two different agents' inputs.
    As such it can not be used to objectively define justice.
    Yes, it can, as proved above.
    Yes I would be ok with someone homesteading the sun and the air.
    That's an obvious lie.
    I don't see how it is possible with our technology at the present.
    That's not the point, and you know it.
    So I would not accept any rents until it is possible.
    So if someone invented a giant machine that compressed atmospheric air, and ran his machine until people became short of breath and had to pay him rent for air to breathe in order to keep from suffocating, you would accept that and just pay the rent?

    You are lying, and you know it.
    Human organs and bodies are the property of their owners.
    Propertarian nonsense. They can't be sold.
    Only the owners of their property can give it away.
    If you can't sell it, you don't own it.
    And absolutely property rights should exist for them. That means you can not murder me or tax me.
    Absurd non sequitur.
    You not at liberty to use it until someone puts their labor into it.
    ROTFL!!! No, that's just another flat-out stupid lie from you, not to mention a blatant self-contradiction:

    How did the first person to use it put their labor into it if they were not at liberty to do so, hmmmmmm?

    You are destroyed. What you don't seem to understand is that ALL your garbage is as stupid, irrational and dishonest as your brain-dead claim above.
    It is just for the land to go to the person who put work into it instead of the latecomer.
    No, that's just a false, absurd and dishonest claim not supported by any facts or logic. If it were true, Crusoe would be within his rights to point his musket in Friday's face and give him a choice between permanent servitude and getting back in the water. But he self-evidently and indisputably is not.
    Ideas and words are not scarce that is the reason they are not property.
    ??? They often ARE property under patent and copyright laws. Like land, they have been made into property by law. That is the point.
    I do not support intellectual property.
    Ignoratio elenchi. Making ideas and words into property MAKES them scarce. That is why they are made into property.
    What are your premises?
    Equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.
    List them and I will show you how I am right.
    No, of course you won't. Don't be stupid.
    Instead of hiding and making me guess at them.
    I haven't hidden them or made you guess. I have stated them frequently, including in this thread. But in post #126, you wrote:

    "Everything comes from the land. So again that would negate property rights if we allow your premises to stand."

    You are the one who claims my premises negate property rights. So you need to identify the specific premises you are talking about, and show how they negate property rights. (Hint: "Everything comes from the land," being obviously false, is not one of my premises.)

    I'm waiting. But I'm not holding my breath.
    So is the land that had a fence put on it, that a had a hole dug in it, that had a seed planted in it, that was fertilized, that had a house put on it.
    Blatantly false. The fence does not alter the natural land underneath it or around it, and the same is true of the hole, the seed, the house, and any other product of labor that happens to be produced or located on the land but is not and cannot itself be land.

    HOW COULD PUTTING A PRODUCT OF LABOR ON LAND THAT NATURE PUT THERE MAKE THAT LAND A PRODUCT OF LABOR?
    All of that land had labor mixed into it.
    False. It is physically impossible to "mix labor into" land. That is nothing but a misleading metaphor. A fence is a product of labor, not land, and it is sitting on top of the land, not "mixed into" the land. Likewise the house, seed, hole, etc.
    All of that land is property.
    Nope. Conclusively refuted above. Producing a product gives you ownership of the product, not the location where you made it or put it.
    All of that land can be considered a good that had labor mixed into it.
    Wrong again. That is literally nonsense. Land, by definition, HASN'T had labor "mixed into" it. It is what nature provided.
    Bread has nothing to do with your claim that society produces goods that people use.
    It most certainly does. You can't expect to take bread from someone else without paying for it, and you likewise can't expect to take the economic advantage society produces at a given location from everyone else without paying for it.
    Society gets a benefit from every single individual in it.
    Wrong. The comatose, the criminal, etc. give society no benefit.

    But they still have rights.
    It is a subjective benefit and as such it can not be taxes.
    It's subjective in the true sense: it's imaginary, exists only in your own mind, and is nothing but some $#!+ you made up.
    My participation in society as a peaceful individual brings peace to society as much as they bring peace to me.
    Clearly false. You don't face down armed criminals. Society pays someone to do that for you.
    As such those goods are equal.
    Refuted above.
    A bread seller gives me as much benefit as my money gives him.
    So you do agree you can't expect to take his bread and not pay for it? Then why do you think you can take someone else's liberty and not pay for it?
    Everything is a equal subjective trade.
    The landowner's removal of others' liberty to use the land is not an equal trade. He just takes away their rights to liberty and gives them nothing in return.
    As such you can not levy a tax on that.
    I don't propose to tax trades. Landowning is not a trade.
    Even if trades were not equal but they must according to basic logic they are still just since they are done voluntarily.
    When did I voluntarily give up my right to use the land others claim they own?
    I am going to abandon the argument from practical stand point because of two reasons. It is too easy to win and second this type of argument can only be won from a moral stand point.
    Right: it is too easy for ME to win, and I have already won it from a moral standpoint.
    No one taken this liberty from you, you never had it in the first place.
    That is a lie. You could with equal "logic" claim a child of slaves has not had his liberty taken from him because he "never had it in the first place."
    You have liberty to take unused land.
    That's not true (I am forbidden to "take" or use unused but owned land), and it's not liberty anyway. Our ancestors for millions of years were at liberty to use land whether or not others had used or were using it. THAT is liberty. "Taking" land is a blatant violation of others' liberty rights to use it.
    Stop being a parasite, trying to take something for nothing.
    Stop telling such stupid, despicable lies. I have not tried to take anything for nothing, other than my human rights, which I am supposed to get just for being alive. But my right to liberty has been taken from me by landowners. It is the landowner who takes something for nothing, living as a parasite, as already proved in post #6 in this thread. It is the parasitic landowner who gets something for nothing by charging others full market value for what government, the community and nature provide:

    "The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract the third nettle and call it rent." — Thomas Carlyle

    "The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price" — Andrew Carnegie

    "Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economising. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not the individual who might hold title." — John Stuart Mill

    Etc.

    Stop lying.

  14. #222
    Quote Originally Posted by Swarmed View Post
    wrong
    It is fact. Ownership includes four distinct powers, one of which is the power of dispostion or transfer. You can't transfer yourself to anyone else, because you are immutably inside your own body. No one else can operate your body, perform labor with it, etc.

  15. #223
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    No, you are lying. Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can. Servants can't be compelled to labor by force. Slaves can.

    EPIC FAIL.
    In post #203 you state
    [QUOTEGarbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.] [/QUOTE]

    You just said that a person can choose to become a slave (which in real terms would be a servant). If they have the power of choice then how do they not own themselves? I doubt many would choose to become a slave (a forced servant with no deciding power of contract or free will.) A servant can sell their service to someone else as long as it is agreed between them and whoever they are serving (normally set up by contract, verbally or written). Why? Because they own themselves and because of that they get to choose. EXTREME EPIC FAILURE
    Once more into the fray...
    Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
    Live and die on this day...
    Live and die on this day...

  16. #224
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Because in post #190 you wrote:

    "I'm pointing out your stupid elitist remarks."

    It would be nice if you would provide the post number of comments you are not responding to directly, so readers could check for themselves why you deleted the context without having to go through many previous posts looking for it.
    What i am posting is directly what im addressing.

    Ecowarrior's pointless post #182 saying
    You are institutionalized, unable to shake off the pre-conceived notions bouncing around your head. That is sad. Also, unable see basic common sense devoid of simple logic. Again sad. Think outside the box that your mind has been put into.
    Notice all he did was talk down his opponent without making a point? I called that out. He keep assuming something else (like a stance) when my point was his stupid elitist talking down.

    Then you decide to be his hero and say in post 196...

    There is nothing elitist about advocating equal human rights to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor.
    Clearly you missed what i was referring to in his post (which i stated multiple times, and why i question both of your intelligence). Which i point out had nothing to do with his ideology or stance. So you claim you didn't say that i did in post 201. THEN WHY SAY THE POINTLESS THINGS YOU SAID IN #196??? Did you have to say something that didn't pertain to what i was discussing with Ecowarrior?
    Once more into the fray...
    Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
    Live and die on this day...
    Live and die on this day...



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  18. #225
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L
    Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can.
    Tell that to any MLB player that just got force-traded to another team without any advanced warning, and must pack up and leave within hours, and be ready to suit up and play for his new master. It is by virtue of a contract provision that this 'servant' can indeed be sold to someone else.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L
    Servants can't be sold to someone else. Slaves can. Servants can't be compelled to labor by force. Slaves can.
    Then I guess it's safe to say that you were never in the military, huh, Roy? Your ass belongs to Uncle Sam as a matter of contract (even compelled against your will in the case of involuntary conscription), wherein you become the property of the U.S. Government. You can't even get a bad sunburn without risking punishment for damage to U.S. Property. You can also be sold to someone else (shipped and reassigned without your consent to another master within that same regime), and you can be compelled to labor by force.

    So tell me, Roy, with regard to certain major league baseball players and members of the military, just as two examples: are they slaves, or are they more like indentured servants?
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 08-05-2012 at 03:23 PM.

  19. #226
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    No, because that would give landowners an increased welfare subsidy giveaway of unearned wealth at the expense of reducing the earned wealth of the productive. It would do this by bringing back the inefficiencies and counter-productive incentives that LVT removes, as I explained in post #135.
    So you don't think the federal budget of $4 Trillion per year should be cut any. You just want it to be funded by a different method.

    Should the budget increase? Or is it coincidentally at just the perfect size right now?

    Or does that even matter? Maybe your view is that, as long as we have an LVT, it makes no difference how large it is.

  20. #227
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    It is fact. Ownership includes four distinct powers, one of which is the power of dispostion or transfer. You can't transfer yourself to anyone else, because you are immutably inside your own body. No one else can operate your body, perform labor with it, etc.
    Now you're just being silly. Can you "operate" your pets? No. Therefore, you do not own pets.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  21. #228
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Tell that to any MLB player that just got force-traded to another team without any advanced warning, and must pack up and leave within hours, and be ready to suit up and play for his new master. It is by virtue of a contract provision that this 'servant' can indeed be sold to someone else.
    Nonsense. The player isn't being sold, that's just a metaphor. It's the exclusive right to his services that is being sold. Totally different thing. Nobody is going to try to make him play by beating or starving him. Give your head a shake. All they can do is not pay him, and arrange for no one else in the league to pay him, either. So what? He can still go and play in Japan and make a ton of dough. Slaves can't. That seems to be a slight difference you missed.

    Really, Stephen, comparing MLB millionaires to slaves? What were you thinking?
    Then I guess it's safe to say that you were never in the military, huh, Roy? Your ass belongs to Uncle Sam as a matter of contract (even compelled against your will in the case of involuntary conscription), wherein you become the property of the U.S. Government.
    You'll need to provide some kind of evidence for that claim, and you can't.

    You are at least closer with the military than your absurd MLB nonsense. When you join the military you do sign a very draconian contract that subjects you to military discipline, military courts, etc. and may stop you from leaving should you decide you don't like it as much as you expected; but the military can't turn around and sell you to Argentina.
    You can't even get a bad sunburn without risking punishment for damage to U.S. Property.
    Absurd.
    You can also be sold to someone else (shipped and reassigned without your consent to another master within that same regime),
    No, that's just a lie. There is no monetary exchange between the units involved in a soldier's transfer.
    and you can be compelled to labor by force.
    That is indeed close to slavery, even if you do agree to it when you sign up.
    So tell me, Roy, with regard to certain major league baseball players and members of the military, just as two examples: are they slaves, or are they more like indentured servants?
    MLB players are pampered, privileged rich guys. Soldiers (especially draftees) are much more like slaves. In WW I, the British army executed more than 300 of its own soldiers for desertion. In some armies the toll has been much higher: the origin of the term, "decimate" was a form of Roman military discipline in which every tenth man was executed, and this measure was actually used in the field as late as the 20th century. So yeah, that's very much like being a slave.

  22. #229
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    Now you're just being silly. Can you "operate" your pets? No. Therefore, you do not own pets.
    A pet is not the one transfering ownership of it to another, and it is no less subject to the will of the second owner than the first. A person, by contrast, is immutably subject to his own will.

  23. #230
    Quote Originally Posted by erowe1 View Post
    So you don't think the federal budget of $4 Trillion per year should be cut any.
    I think most of it should be cut. The NYT had a web page where people could try to balance the budget, and I found it was quite easy to do by just cutting out the obviously wasteful and corrupt stuff like corporate subsidies and bailouts, military procurement, military operations in other countries, etc. But income tax funds less than half of that.
    You just want it to be funded by a different method.
    Yes, but I also recognize that if government at all levels were not spending a lot of money rescuing the landless from the effects of landowners removing their rights to liberty, Americans would be destitute, starving and dying by the millions, as the landless typically are in countries that have landowning but not massive government rescue programs for the landless.
    Should the budget increase? Or is it coincidentally at just the perfect size right now?
    It's insanely bloated by corporate welfare and military excess, and could be much smaller still if the landless did not need to be rescued from the harmful effects of the removal of their rights to liberty. IMO LVT should be a more local tax, a role to which it is ideally suited, and the federal government should be financed largely by issuing money (instead of privileging private banksters to do it) and taxing federal privileges like spectrum allocations, IP monopolies (if they can't be abolished outright), use of federal port facilities and airport landing slots, recovering the full market value of oil, mineral and water rights, etc.
    Or does that even matter? Maybe your view is that, as long as we have an LVT, it makes no difference how large it is.
    The larger the better for both justice and efficiency, up to the full rental value of the land.

  24. #231
    Hey, Land Rents Marxist, you missed one.


    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    The area of disagreement is actually quite limited, and revolves around the manner of reconciling property rights with liberty rights.
    The actual area of disagreement is not limited in area, literally speaking, because it encompasses ALL area - even the land area of the entire Earth, used as a basis for a tax. The "liberty rights" deprivation argument is YOUR framing of the issue, given that you alone feel that they a) exist as you describe them, and are b) being violated by landownership without "just compensation" to the state, no less, which you further seek to reconcile by c) a universal individual exemption amount that is equal for all individuals. I say that Rube Goldberg machine of a trickle-down dog doesn't hunt.

    The anti-LVT side advocates property in things IN ADDITION TO the fruits of one's labor.
    There are no rights to the fruits of one's labor without rights to "property in things".

    That is logically impossible except by removing others' liberty rights to access and use those things.
    But you don't mean "things", do you. Specifically, we're talking about property in LAND, not "things", and your belief that the exclusive holding of land (without "just compensation" to others via the state) is a violation of others' "liberty rights", which I argue do not, and should not ever, exist or be acknowledged as you describe them. That's your house of cards, not theirs.

    It's not a false choice. It's not even a false dichotomy. It's simply an alternative: we can fund public expenditures as we currently do...
    Fund public expenditures as we currently do? I know you mean "method of or basis for funding", and not the amounts currently funded or spent, but that's still a false choice. Most here are arguing that most public expenditures should not even exist. And I agree. So we're not sitting around trying to figure out different ways to fund them. While you propose to stop taxing labor and capital (which they would agree with already), and shift all tax burdens exclusively onto landowners, most here are instead trying to figure out ways to shrink most of the expenditures down and drown most of them in a bathtub, such that there really is no burden to speak of in the first place.

    But even there I'm not exactly on the same page, because I don't think that the size of funding and expenditures in and of themselves are the problem at all, any more than I believe the factor of production targeted is the problem -- in terms of the REAL PROBLEM you're trying to reconcile; that of burden-shifting.

    No taxes --> no government --> no civilization.
    I am not calling for "no taxes", which brings us to my point.

    I believe strongly in taxes -- just not on INDIVIDUALS ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not for ANY $#@!ing reason. That doesn't mean "no taxes", because these rights-endowed individuals are not the only taxable entities. There are plenty of taxable entities who can and should bear the burden, to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of conditional privilege. That includes corporations (who are not people), collectives and speculators of all kinds, and even foreigners...but NEVER REAL PEOPLE ACTING AS A MATTER OF RIGHT.

    You and Henry George have everything just as $#@!ed up as Marx as you focus on "which factor of production should be universally targeted", and, by extension, you falsely think, which class of people will naturally end up shouldering the burden (landowners in your case - GENERIC - regardless of their legal status, all of which you conflate as one and the same, as if all landowning entities were created equal). THAT is the lie, THAT is the false choice. That's how JP Morgan and the average hard-working Joe Sixpack get MUSH-MELDED as one, MUCH to JPM's delight, because not only is JPM treated as if it, too, was CREATED EQUAL in terms of rights, but JPM is also better equipped to avoid the taxes, happy to let a million Joe Sixpacks pay them instead.

    The choice for me deals with legal status, and the inalienable rights of each and every (uncollectivized) individual Citizen, and what types of entities are being taxed -- not the basis for that tax. Wrong target, as the system gets gamed and real people get used as human shields anyway, regardless of the target. If people (individuals) are free, it does not matter what factor of production, or anything else, the state uses as its basis to tax privileged entities who are not acting as a matter of right. Tax their land, tax their income, tax the sales (on purchases from privileged entities only), or anything else. It doesn't even need a reason. Tax them "just because", because it has that power. They're targeted and caught in the cross-hairs, without any human shields to camouflage themselves as or hide behind.

    The power to tax is the power to destroy, and if the state taxes any privileged entity too aggressively, it does so at its own peril, as it can literally tax its own revenue sources out of existence (read=capital flight, right out of the taxing jurisdiction), while only creating more opportunities for competing individuals who are not taxable as a matter of right and cannot therefore be destroyed or driven out of the market or off their land by taxation as a matter of principle. So break out that Laffer curve for privileged taxables entities, State, and take care to strike the right balance, because real, free and natural Citizens stand to benefit either way.

    What I propose requires absolutely no "promise" of a universal individual exemption, which may or may not be implemented (and if history is a guide, the chances of any truly meaningful dividend or exemption are an absolute joke of a rotten dangled plum). My proposal does not require any dangled plums, or promises based on "trusting the state" (or worse yet, a tyrannous majority) to do the "right" or "fair" thing. It is not required because the immunity is already inherent in any individual that behaves as a matter of right, a status that ends and becomes privileged behavior with those individuals and other entities to the extent that they exist or behave as a matter of privilege.

    It's easy to prove that someone is behaving as a land speculator who is not simply behaving as a matter of right. Likewise, corporations, collectives and foreigners are ALREADY inherently acting as a matter of privilege. They would all, without exception, be subject to your tax, as well as any other tax, as the state saw fitting. And I don't care if it's LVT, income, capital gains or anything else or all of them combined into a fifty-legged stool. But it only applies to them - not real, free and natural Citizens, to whom the fruits of labor, the benefits of capital and economic rents on land and anything else should be freely and privately enjoyed.

    So no, it's not "no tax" (on anyone) vs. "the best tax" (on everyone). It ALWAYS boils down (even in the real world today) to a question of For Whom The Tax Bell Tolls. And that's where individuals, especially the truly productive ones, are the sitting ducks that get shafted every time, without fail, under EVERY regime, every 'ism'. That's why LVT would end up gamed like every other tax, as Zoning laws, Enterprise and Renaissance Zones, Special Exemptions, Abatements and Grants creep in, NATURALLY, to sort out the clever and well-healed from the not-so-connected, and the real people end up shouldering all the burdens anyway. $#@! that.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 08-06-2012 at 12:16 AM.

  25. #232
    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamShrugged View Post
    What i am posting is directly what im addressing.

    Ecowarrior's pointless post #182 saying

    Notice all he did was talk down his opponent without making a point? I called that out. He keep assuming something else (like a stance) when my point was his stupid elitist talking down.
    What?? Oh. My. God.

    Post #182 was a direct, immediate response to post #181, an epic of sneering trash talk.

    So you decided it was EW that needed to be called out?!??

    Give your head a shake. Seriously.
    Clearly you missed what i was referring to in his post (which i stated multiple times, and why i question both of your intelligence). Which i point out had nothing to do with his ideology or stance.
    Clearly you missed -- or deliberately ignored -- the context he was responding to. Read post #181 and try to get some kind of clue.
    So you claim you didn't say that i did in post 201. THEN WHY SAY THE POINTLESS THINGS YOU SAID IN #196???
    To help you get a sense of perspective. You need it.



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  27. #233
    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamShrugged View Post
    In post #203 you state
    Garbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, if people owned themselves, they would be able to sell themselves into slavery -- that has certainly been done -- in which case owning a slave would NOT be a violation of rights.]
    You just said that a person can choose to become a slave (which in real terms would be a servant).
    No. A servant can choose whom he works for. A slave can't.
    If they have the power of choice then how do they not own themselves?
    Ownership is a legal condition, not a physical one.
    A servant can sell their service to someone else as long as it is agreed between them and whoever they are serving (normally set up by contract, verbally or written). Why? Because they own themselves and because of that they get to choose.
    Nonsense. It's nothing to do with owning or selling yourself. You just enter into a contract to provide your labor.

    Self-ownership is self-contradictory because it is alleged to be the reason one can't own slaves. But if you owned yourself, then you could sell yourself as a slave to someone else, who would then own you.

    EXTREME EPIC FAILURE

  28. #234
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Hey, Land Rents Marxist, you missed one.
    Above is clear political indocrination. Sad but true.
    The power to tax is the power to destroy
    It is also the power to create and encourage as well. It all depends on what you tax. Tax production, as we do now, and we destroy. Tax community created wealth and use for community purposes, eliminating taxes on production, and we create. Very simple.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  29. #235
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Yes, but I also recognize that if government at all levels were not spending a lot of money rescuing the landless from the effects of landowners removing their rights to liberty, Americans would be destitute, starving and dying by the millions, as the landless typically are in countries that have landowning but not massive government rescue programs for the landless.
    True. Welfare is mainly for the benefit of landlords, as they are the major beneficiaries. Large landowners like the welfare system. It stops the poor from looking at the root cause of the problem and then uptuning the system getting fairness in society.
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 08-06-2012 at 01:27 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  30. #236
    Quote Originally Posted by EcoWarrier View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
    The power to tax is the power to destroy
    It is also the power to create and encourage as well.
    You actually typed that with a straight face, too. The idea that the purpose of taxes is to "create and encourage" is clear leftist/statist political indoctrination. Sad but true.

  31. #237
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    You actually typed that with a straight face, too.
    I actually typed:

    "It is also the power to create and encourage as well. It all depends on what you tax.
    Tax production, as we do now, and we destroy.
    Tax community created wealth and use for community purposes, eliminating taxes on production, and we create.


    Very simple. "

    < snip tripe >
    Last edited by EcoWarrier; 08-06-2012 at 01:49 AM.
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  32. #238
    Quote Originally Posted by EcoWarrier View Post
    I actually typed:

    "It is also the power to create and encourage as well. It all depends on what you tax.
    Tax production, as we do now, and we destroy.
    Tax community created wealth and use for community purposes, eliminating taxes on production, and we create.


    Very simple. "
    Your reasoning was irrelevant. Your premise, as well as the naive, half-baked rationale that followed, was nothing more than leftist/collectivist/statist political indoctrination. Very simple[ton].

  33. #239
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Your reasoning was irrelevant.
    It was very relevant. A simple tax shift that fits into any political ism. Pick you ism, it will fit.

    < snip the rest of the confused drivel >
    “I have made speeches by the yard on the subject
    of land-value taxation, and you know what a supporter
    I am of that policy.”

    - Winston Churchill


    The only war Winston Churchill ever lost was
    against the British landlords.

    - Fred Harrison (economic writer)

  34. #240
    I'm not going to bother coming back to look for any responses to this, but your theory of how self-ownership is a contradiction is crap. I own myself, and I do indeed have the right to sell myself into slavery if I want to. If you claim I don't, it means you think you have some sort of ownership stake in me, and that's a slavery I didn't even consent to. Massah.



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