Receiving legally stolen property is wrong.

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by bricklayer, Feb 17, 2015.

  1. btthegreat

    btthegreat Well-Known Member

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    See, I just see you as not keeping your value of liberty/freedom in perspective. I think of liberty/freedom as A value, not THE value. I think order, justice, generosity, public integrity, equality, industry, popular sovereignty, civilian control, are all important American values and I do not prioritize them in general. there are times when an order interest should prevail over competing values, or a justice issue should prevail or needs of the general public welfare should prevail over liberty. On other occasion I think the paramount interest should be personal liberty.
     
  2. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Article 4, section 3, clause 2.


     
  3. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    *shrug* The contract was written over 200 years ago. I'd be surprised if you did.



     
  4. tomfoo13ry

    tomfoo13ry Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A "contract" that is binding against people not even yet in existence...

    ...Witchcraft, methinks.
     
  5. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    .

    No, it is closer to voodoo.
     
  6. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    Then I am not at all bound by it.

    Oh and to answer your signataure:

    It is always reasonable to say no.
     
  7. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    "The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State."

    Nothing in there about ownership of any land being transferred or conveyed to the corporation known as the United States. Try again.
     
  8. Pred

    Pred Well-Known Member

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    Taxes are basically a necessity in a large society. It won't function with everyone just fending for themselves, unless everything is small. You reach a point of critical mass that in order for large projects to be paid for everyone has to chip in.

    The biggest problem with taxes isn't taxes. It's the irresponsible way they are spent and a bloated govt. the more govt the more taxes you need to run it and the less efficient it becomes with layers of bureaucracy which is ALWAYS an efficiency killer.

    Want a simple example? Personal experience. The corporation I work at never had a procurement dept. Go look it up if you don't know what they do. On the surface they seem like a great idea and when purchasing large quantities of items they can save money. However they don't save anything when purchasing small amounts. A simple purchase like say a few USB memory sticks which takes 3 minutes on Amazon can take weeks using a dept dedicated to purchasing who doesn't necessarily have the expertise in all items...even something as simple as some memory cards. It's inefficient, wastes time and resources and doesn't bring any EVA to the table. EVA is economic value added. Google it if you want some insight to how corporations function. Logically it would make sense to just allow managers to manage small purchases, but then a large dept wouldn't have to be as large when all the small purchases can be handled without them.

    Now extrapolate that into the enormity that is the federal govt and it doesn't take a genius to understand how wasteful a bloated govt is, that requires excess taxes to function.

    Add illegals who use our infrastructure, schools and hospitals, but don't pay into it. Sorry but sales tax is NOT paying into the system so if any dimwit wants to use that as justification go brush up on your economics. One emergency room visit and any illegal just blew through any insignificant amount they might have paid in their lifetime. Having children to qualify for benefits is also a scummy way to abuse our VERY generous system they don't deserve.

    Those are the issue people have. Taxes are ok when collected responsibly. They are not ok when spent on large staff that aren't needed. On projects not researched, or given to businesses who feel they are owed govt contracts. It's wasteful spending. Id love to go into govt but I know that the most intelligent and responsible people are generally NOT the ones attracted to it and it would pain me to work with such, let's face it, idiots who can't cut it in the real world.
     
  9. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    I always find it interesting when apparent conservatives address legal theft by government but misdirect their anger over taxation. How about the fact that probably 99% of all land in the United States was acquired by the "legalized theft" of the land from the Native-Americans? People somehow forget that both the nomad and the settler have equal property rights when it comes to the use of the land and the settler only has a right to the use of the land if there is "enough, and as good" as for all other people (i.e. settlers and nomads). That hasn't existed going back to at least the 19th Century and probably much earlier than that. We don't have "enough, and as good" as land remaining for people to settle and the land that was confiscated from the Native-Americans did not leave them enough for their nomadic existance. The first time a Native-American was forced to relocate by our government all of the land acquired after that was based upon "legalized theft" by the US government. The first time a settler raised a firearm to prevent a Native-American from crossing their property line, supported by statutory law, it was legalized theft. The first time a rancher put up barbed wire it was legalized theft of the land.

    Want more? The first time the government granted "mineral rights" or "logging rights" to a person it was the "legalized" theft of those minerals and the timber from the American people that owned those minerals and that timber.

    And you think you have a problem with taxes when virtually everthing we think we own based upon "statutory laws of ownership" is based upon legalized theft.
     
  10. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Since everything the government does is done via the initiation of aggression (including collecting taxes), I would be in favor of looking very hard at everything it does and seeking ways private citizens could could accomplish those functions via voluntary cooperation. This would reduce government costs, reducing the need for taxes.
     
  11. geofree

    geofree Active Member

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    We could sell all the roadways to private individuals and allow them to put toll booths at every intersection. I would buy the roadway leading to your “property” and I would charge you and everyone else who used it to access your “property” one million dollars per passage. I would charge a higher rate to anyone in the private protective services industry. So, if you are under attack from your neighbor and call for private protective services, just remember to add two million dollars to whatever they charge, in order to cover the surcharge of them using my roadway to respond to your call. This would be an Ancap utopia.
     
  12. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    So you are arguing that the provision of roads and policing should continue to be done by the government. Well, as I said, I'd be in favor of looking very hard at everything it does and seeking ways private citizens could could accomplish those functions via voluntary cooperation. If we can't figure out how to manage roads and police voluntarily and continued to have the government provide them, that would still reduce taxes almost entirely, so I'd be good with that.
     
  13. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You are if, 200 years later, you choose to join that club. At least until such time as you choose to exit that club and step off of it's land.

    And (if you are a U.S. citizen) there is a more recent document that bears either your or your legal representatives signature stating you are choosing to accept the benefits and obligations of that club.




     
  14. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I disagree. If the American people owned those resources, then when their representatives sell them or the rights to collect them, it's no more theft than if a used car dealer sold your old Pontiac for you.



     
  15. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It asserts the final authority to set all needful rule and regulations is trusted to the representatives of the United States of America. That demonstrates recognition of the land being owned by the United States of America.

    If you want to argue individuals own lesser, revocable land rights, or that groups of those people in the form of state governments also have rights to those lands — I don't disagree. Or think it's relevant.




     
  16. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Reason implies your answer is the product of a logical process. A logical process that always comes to a single answer, is not a particularly useful one.

    I believe charity is reasonable. I believe it's useful, and I believe it has — and should have — limits.



     
  17. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Only for territories and property owned by the corporation known as the United States. There is no mention of ownership of state land being transferred to that corporation.
     
  18. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    *shrug* Reasonable conclusion. And yet when some states tried to exercise the right you believe they have, Pennsylvania and other states went to war to deny that. Pennsylvania asserted the states were U.S. territory.

    I might not deny your interpretation of Pennsylvania's ownership is reasonable, but Pennsylvania did. And none of us are arguing George or Joe's ownership supersedes either.




     
  19. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    As I said a hundred posts ago: involuntary, and thus unjust. Thank you for confirming my point.
     
  20. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    George did not voluntarily give up his land to the United States. Pennsylvanian fought a war to assert that land taken from George belonged to the United States. If you became a U.S. citizen, you did so voluntarily.




     
  21. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    The right of property is exclusive reserved for the people and government has no right of property. The government didn't own the land or natural resources and the statutory title to the land and resourses by government is established under the ideology of the "divine right of kings" (i.e. god gave ownership of all land and resources to the king, or in our case government, by holy fiat) that is juxtaposed to the "natural right of property" that is inherent in the person.​
     
  22. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    When two people both own something, they are partners. Neither can exclusively set the rules for that thing. They own it, but it's held collectively by the partnership to recognize the rights of each.

    America is just a thing with 316,000,000 owners. And government is just the agent we've hired to execute our collective wishes with regard to it.



     
  23. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am not a conservative. I am not a Republican.

    I don't have a problem with most of your ideas; however, your assumptions about other people say nothing good about you. Stick to expressing your opinions about ideas, not other people. You got me all wrong.
     
  24. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    Logically, precluding the possibly of the correct answer always being "no" is unreasonable in and of itself.

    I am not sure where charity was injected into the conversion regarding taxes, but I can tell you the fact that taxes are coercive preclude the possibility it it being charity as charity is a volutary transaction.
     
  25. proof-hunter

    proof-hunter New Member

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    No good comes from redistribution of other peoples money, I for example work hard, and I really do. now I pay
    about $600.00 a month out of my check to taxes, now I can add up this money to about $7,200.00 a year.
    divide that by my hourly wage and that's how many hours I spend to support the government and not my family.
    Time in my life that I can never get back, what is this called??? slavery? you decide.

    I WOULD like you liberals to tell my children why they should lower their
    standard of living, by $7,200.00 a year, when their dad worked for that money.

    ....
     

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