One of the subtler – and most vicious – ways the government renders us more dependent on it is by rendering us less able to help ourselves and one another.
I just got the second of my twice-yearly bills from the government demanding about $1,000 in rent – it is styled “property tax” – on what is absurdly styled “my” house, in order to be allowed to continue living in it (hence rent, notwithstanding I am technically the “owner” of my house, having paid the former owner in full for it many years ago).
It’s a lot of money for me – and for most people.
It’s also just about the same amount of money a family member needs to cover rent they can’t pay this month.
I would like to help – and would, were it not for the fact that I haven’t got the means to pay both my “rent” and the family member’s rent. So the family member will have to figure something out. Because if I don’t pay the government the “rent” it says I owe, I will be evicted from “my” house just as surely – and probably sooner and faster – than my family member will be evicted from her apartment for failing to pay hers.
But it’s subtler – and more vicious than just that.
I have lived in my house – the current house – for 16 years. My total annual “rent” is about $2,000. Punch that into a calculator times 16 and you get $32,000 dollars. That amount of money would be more than enough money to turn a little outbuilding I have into a nice little cottage my family member could live in – and pay rent to no one (thereby decreasing her dependence without increasing mine).
But that money is gone, too.
Plus the 15 percent off the top of every dollar I earn as a “self-employed” person, which goes to retirement checks for people I have never met who need them because they, in their turn, had vast sums stolen from them over the course of their working lives to fund the retirement of the oldsters before them – and so on.
The common denominator being we’re all made dependent on the government.
Most of us could not only take care of ourselves absent the government, we would be able to take care of those within our circle of friends and family who cannot care for themselves. This capacity to be charitable – and act on our best impulses – is also stolen from us by government, which reduces us to the status of jealously protecting what we’re allowed to keep.
Instead of goodwill toward men, wariness and resentment toward men – who we come to correctly view as potential claimants without limit on our industry and frugality. If we are careful with money but someone else isn’t, the person who isn’t can use the government to put his hands in our pockets.
We are also deprived of another important thing – the ability to help others find their way back to responsibility and accountability. The government care about neither thing because it wants dependency in perpetuity because that gives the government power – and control.
When we have a family member or friend or neighbor in distress, our desire is for their distress to be temporary. The very last thing we want is for them to become dependent in perpetuity on us – because it’s servile and degrading and also because we haven’t got unlimited means. Our help must by definition be temporary and this, in turn, gives incentive to both the giver and the recipient to figure out and fix the problem so that it goes away.
We help with this month’s rent – but spend the rest of the month helping that person get their finances in order, or a job or whatever is necessary to assure that they are able to pay next month’s rent.
The government has no interest in that because it tends to foster independence – and there’s no power or control in that.
And so, it mulcts us all such that the responsible and industrious can just barely take care of themselves, with the ultimate goal being to keep everyone in a state of anxiety about their security, in order to nudge them ever closer to being dependent on the very thing which is the source of their insecurity. Get your in-car equipment from their range.
Government is a vampire. It sucks the life from the living – and creates fresh corpses wherever it goes.
And there is only one effect treatment for vampirism.
. . .
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I wrote on this subject recently: The Opportunity Cost of Our Socialism
About 40% of my work is taken from me by government, to support other people. Federal expenditures comprise about 24% of our GDP, then adding in state and local spending, it totals around 40% of people’s work, or GDP. I figure about 50-60% of my work is being taken from me, because of my income level. Approximately 70% of government spending is for various redistribution programs, and the interest on the debt that accrues from these programs. 70% of the 50-60% of my work that is taken from me equals about 40% of my work being taken to support others.
Everything government spends, it has to take from the productive sector of society. There are taxes we see, like FICA and income tax, sales tax, and property tax. There are taxes that are harder to see, like gas taxes and special taxes on hotel rooms. Then there are more hidden taxes, like corporate taxes which customers pay in the prices they pay for things. Then there are completely hidden taxes like inflation of the money supply. If government doubles the money supply to pay for their spending, all else being equal, then they have made each dollar worth half as much, and thus they have taxed us 50%.
In 2015 I charged my patients an average of $58 per visit. Suppose I did not have 40% of my work taken from me to support other people. I could charge 40% less, and end up with the same amount. I could have seen the same number of patients, spending the same amount of time and providing the same quality of care, and only charged $35 per visit. I would have just as much left to support my family, enjoy life, and give to those in need.
I could do so much more with it, however. I recently had a shoulder surgery at a free-market surgery center, the Surgery Center of Oklahoma. I paid a total of $6,149 to get my shoulder repaired. It was a fairly involved surgery, considering what a hash I had made of my shoulder. “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage” – Indiana Jones. If the doctors there did not have 40% of their work taken to support others, they could have charged $3,689 for my surgery and come out the same. I would have had $2,460 left to do other things.
Previously, I had an arthroscopic knee surgery at SCOK. I’m not kidding about the mileage. That surgery cost $3,740. If that surgery only cost 60% as much, that would be $2,224. So if not for our socialist system, I could have used my savings from my shoulder surgery to pay for a knee surgery for somebody else, and had $36 to spare. This principle would apply to all our spending and giving. We would have 30 – 40% more to give, and those needs would each cost about 40% less. Alas, how high is the opportunity cost of our semi-socialist system.
I don’t mind some of my money going to help people who truly can’t care for themselves, i.e. enfeebled elderly or severely disabled children, etc. If Gov is going to take my money anyway, this is an OK way to use it IMO. However, I wish they would do a more judicious job of determining who is actually in need. My brother’s live-in girlfriend is apparently disabled and gets full disability due to fibromyalgia. She used a recent check to fund a trip to Utah to ride dirtbikes in the desert. A family friend spent years pickling her brain in Bud Light and now gets paranoid when she goes outside and refuses to shower. Full disability for her too.
Both of these people are capable of working. If they weren’t getting my money, they would be working, their families would be caring for them or they’d be homeless and Darwin would take care of them.
And we seem to be adding “diseases,” which adds more people who are eligible to declare themselves unable to work. Severe obesity, drug addiction and alcohol abuse, for example, are now considered “not my fault,” which seems to be the first step in making their problem my responsibility. The whole thing pisses me off to no end.
It would be better still if the government would stop creating people who can’t care for themselves.
Those who cannot be turned into threats can be used as victims of their own incompetence and become wards of the state to whatever degree required to insure that they become voters.
There is NO such thing as a USELESS person…there’s always TARGET PRACTICE.
Great, yet another arbitrary designation that justifies denying the designated their rights without due process, like Red Flag laws.
Perhaps you missed your calling by not seeking employment in authoritarian governance.
Hi Amy,
I pisses me off, too. I am looking at my feet right now . . . and the holes in my sneakers. Not kidding. I live very frugally, never carry a balance on credit cards; live below my means… and am punished for it. My buddy (and ace mechanic) Tim and I were talking about this recently. I mentioned I have several credit cards with in excess of $30k in “available credit” I could tap.
I could live very high on the hog for several years… and then just flap my wings like a chicken and say, “I can’t pay!”
Why not? Everyone else seems to be doing it… and getting away with it, too.
Hey Eric!
I used to know an unscrupulous rich guy who used to just that: Run up $100K or so in CC debt, then after never paying, he’d get them to settle for ten cents on the dollar…and start over again. I love how he’d never have any problem getting new credit cards….even from the same companies that he stiffed.
Of course, even if people like you and I were to throw our morals in the garbage and do such a thing…it wouldn’t work, since we own the things we own, including our homes, outright; which of course the CC company would just attach. With most people though…they technically own nothing, so the CC company has to take what if anything offered.
$30K: I wouldn’t even know what to do with it. Too little to buy my own island in another country; too much to blow on little frills, like a vehicle or something. Yet, many people out there would sell their grandma for it……
People think of Texas as a conservative, property rights respecting state. NOT! They have sky high property taxes, people have to move out of their home and cut their standard of living because of 5-8k taxes per year on a typical middle income home in a suburban area. $2 k would be AMAZINGLY awesome to us. By the way, the schools the taxes fund are massive moneypits. Most kids, as a matter of fact, are from mostly poor, dis-located, single parent type homes with significant problems and special ed needs.
Hi John,
Yup; of course, taxes in my neck are proportionately about the same. Bear in mind that where I live, anyone making $40,000 a year is doing very well. Where I used to live – in Northern Va – that same $40k was essentially poverty level. You needed to be making $100k to be able to afford a very modest single family home or townhouse.
John, it all varies from county to county. My county rate is low but get into the hill country where all the Ca. people have gone and no telling what their rate will be. One thing in sparsely settled west Texas that helps is oil taxes.
My state, Indiana, has a cap on property taxes. They can’t tax more than 1% assessed value for a home. All the schools have been crying foul. It’s beyond them to figure how to budget, which ironically, I learned how to do in school.
If the residents vote in higher taxes in a referendum, it’s legal to exceed the cap. The morons I live amongst bought the school district’s line of BS that they needed additional money to fund mental health and security measures. I never saw a school shooting used so effectively as did the Clark-Pleasant United School Dist. in convincing a bunch of panicky idiots that their precious progeny are going to die if there’s not an on-site mental health counselor.
And my county wants to expand its jail because too many weed smokers are walking around free, so they just dinged us on income taxes instead of property. A nice workaround there.
I believe every one of us could turn over every dollar we make to local and county government and the schools and they would still say they don’t have enough money. The more they get, the more things they decide they “need.”
When I Googled “cures for vampirism” I got “about 233,000” hits.
Since I am a firm believer in biocentrism rather than apparently imaginary supreme beings, all it ever took to make a vampire leave me alone is to put some candy in his Halloween bag.
I have always been resistant to being told to do things that I thought were ill-advised.
I was driven to make most of the really bad decisions in my life by testosterone. Now that I’m well into the natural decline in it, and my ex-wife has been gone since the very early 80’s with no potential replacements in sight, I feel reasonably certain that having been a vandweller since 1984 will provide more than the necessary immunity to any testosterone-involved decisions, in addition to the opportunity to live down by some very nice rivers.
The most I have made in any single year of my life is $25,000. While doing that, I had the good sense not to spend my disposable income on anything that could go down in value. Although I couldn’t attribute it to Jeff Thomas all of those years ago, his “Following the Greater Depression on eBay” on today’s LRC table of contents is a highly recommended read for today. I have never had to sell anything I have ever bought because its value made it a necessity to sell to pay for necessities, outside of a few well-appreciated ounces of gold that paid for a new engine for van number 2 or to buy van number 3, which wouldn’t bring anywhere near the $3500 that I paid for it a decade ago.
I can’t say where I learned about the inadvisability of going into debt. It certainly was not from my late father, who left a townhouse that neither he nor my step-mother paid off. The only car I ever bought on debt was a $650 beater that I bought from the lot it was on, and made enough using it to deliver pizza to pay off in a third the time provided. I sold it for enough, several years later, to pay the first and second student loan payments on my truck driving school loan, which I subsequently paid off in a fraction of the time provided.
The “rent” on my current “home” is $115 a year and it was paid for the day I drove it off the lot.
Judging by the exponential growth in the attendance at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous from 46 the first year I attended it, and the record worldwide debt that individuals, cities, counties, states, and national government are in, I feel safe in saying that I am finally part of a rapidly increasing lifestyle. If you feel moved, or forced, to consider becoming part of the movement, come on down to Quartzsite, Arizona the second week in January. Yes, the Colorado River is nearby.
Limiting my comment here to the specific topic of property taxes, and not every possible libertarian subject as many would like, let me note something few in the US are aware of, re: taxation of property.
In many places in northern Europe (Netherlands, Germany) owners of homes not only pay property taxes but Income Taxes on the imputed (by the govt.) amount of “rent” they avoid paying to a fictional “landlord” because they are owners, not renters. So the non existent “rent” not paid to their non existent landlords is considered “untaxed income” which therefore, income taxes must be paid by the owner/occupant. No deductions there for mortgage interest paid or even property taxes. So Eric, consider yourself lucky. This is how Europe pays for their migrant invasion, among other things.
Dear goodness, Mugsy! I never knew that! WoW!
That is perverse!
Conversely, up until about ten years ago, there were no taxes on residential or agricultural properties in most South and Central American countries.
It’s like I’ve said: The once-civilized first-world white-people countries are committing suicide and waging war against their own people…while handing everything over to invaders.
Hi Muggles,
I’ve heard about this; if it ever comes to pass here, I will burn my place to cinders and salt the earth before heading off into the Woods with just my backpack.
Instead,
1. Sell everything and hide your cash in gold, Bitcoin, or your preferred off the books store of value.
2. Come to Canada, burn your ID and claim refugee status.
Enjoy the free stuff that actual Canadians don’t seem worthy of receiving, only paying for. A million others already are.
Com on Eric, invading/inviting the world is expensive. Besides what are all those state and local govt workers going to do if we don’t pay the taxes that enable them to do whatever it is they do all day until their 20 years are up?
‘Zactly, Fred! Without those beneficent “civil-service employees”, how would we even know how much water to use to flush our terlits?
I’m absolutely convinced that this modern world wouldn’t be what it is, without government!
I wish my ‘rent’ was only $2K. A spread like yours Eric would have about a $14K annual rent where I am. Could be higher, that’s the low end.
The purpose of politics is to make everything political. To suck everything into the government sphere where people are pitted one against the other. To ignore it means being plundered without a fight.
Virginia has high property taxes.
Why don’t you come to Alabama? Property taxes are much lower here.
And building restrictions in rural areas are less oppressive as well.
Check it out.
It is so much easier to squat on the copious BLM and NFS land that occupy the majority of the west.
I resent school taxes more than real estate taxes. At least that $1,000 goes toward some arguably worthwhile public services. But $2,000 is stolen every year re my small condo — to educate someone else’s children. I never had kids myself, so this theft is doubly irritating. Despite the bromide that “society’s better off if all children are educated,” I don’t see any benefit to me. In fact, I’d prefer having more dimwits in the world. Perhaps that 2K would pay for a part-time housekeeper from the ranks of the uneducated. Half of public school “students” are imbeciles, anyway.
True as this reflection may be, you’ve left something out. Government can only exist by the consent of the governed and if enough of the governed prefer largess from others who are governed, government will be the transfer agent. So those who oppose the transfer need to make the case to the beneficiaries of the transfer that they’ll be better off materially and psychologically/spiritually if, without shame, they accept a bit of “charity” while transitioning out of dependency. It’s probably too late to sell this value to the recipients of government largess (my bugaboo is “close the government schools, there’s so much better way to educate ourselves!”) Regardless, at this point, nature will probably need to take its course and social/economic collapse, like an enema, will do its work, making the old values of independence and accountability a necessity. Meanwhile, your family member may need to occupy a spare room in your house or share a room if you haven’t got a spare room.
Anything the government promises as a monetary benefit is socialism. Somebody has to fund those payments. It’s forced income redistribution on a massive scale. Having the scheme funnel through the hands of government allows for much irresponsibility, theft and inefficiency. The government seems to grow more grabbing hands every election cycle. Politicians (no matter the party) have to make promises to get votes. The first thing a politicians does after being elected is start work on his re-election campaign. Nothing else is more important. Once they get into the cushy job with all the free perks and benefits, they want to keep that job and make it a career. Anybody can run for a government position because there are no qualifications as far as knowledge or experience. Any tax you pay is nothing more than some politician gathering funds to pay for the promises made by him or previous politicians. One simple thing could be done to ease the burden on the working/tax paying man…require that public service workers fund their own retirements instead of the government (on all levels) promising them a pension and free medical coverage. By 2050, worldwide pension expenses will be about $400 trillion payable to retired government workers. Who is gonna fund that massive cost?
Couldn’t agree more about property taxes. The major part of our tax is for the local school which just had a tens of millions of dollars expansion and renovation–for a town of 2200 people! The cherry on top is that we home-schooled our kids but still have to pay for service not used.
The one fly in the “I don’t use it so why should I pay for it” ointment is that carried to its logical end we wouldn’t even have a watchman goverment, which some libertarians think would be great but which is almost comically asinine (yes, I’ve read Walter Block and remain thoroughly unconvinced). I’ve never needed help from cops, in fact, they hassle me on a regular basis. But I can’t begrudge a reasonable tax to keep a justice system going, for example. Childless people might dislike being taxed for schools (and they and we are excessively taxed for the same) but are almost certainly getting a government benefit or two that I’m not. So I owe nothing to anything except from what I directly benefit?
I recall your objections to libertarian antipathy to patents and authorial ownership rights. I have no stake in such things, at least not yet, but still fully support a government that will protect your rights in these matters.
Hi Ross,
I think you’ve answered your own question! Things such a justice system – and peacekeepers – are desirable to most people or at least to enough people to result in the freely generated support for such. We must bear in mind how much more money we’d all have if our incomes and property were not taxed. Most of us would then have plenty of money to pay a subscription for the things you mention – for just the same reason that I freely subscribe to my gym, which prospers without any need to apply force to compel people to pay the monthly fee.
I will not use the word “tax” because I consider the euphemizing of theft to be wrong and the legalization of theft to be catastrophically dangerous to liberty. If you allow any tax then you have set in place the principle for endless taxes.
No one should be deprived of property except as compensation for harm caused.
The corollary of this, of course, is that there is no free lunch. People should pay for that which they use – but not be free to use that which they do not pay for.
So, perhaps the way to address the reasonable desire many (but not all of us) desire for things like a justice system – courts and peacekeepers to protect people’s property rights – is some combination of voluntary tithing toward its support or (for those who lack the means, such as young people) a contract of public service for say two or three years during which time they serve a term as peacekeepers or in some other useful capacity.
No one is forced to either tithe/subscribe or serve. But those who don’t do one or the other thing are denied access to the benefits these things provide – just the same as those who don’t buy insurance (in a free market) don’t get their roof replaced if it blows off in a storm.
Eric, the question I always ask of someone who does not object to the income tax or property taxes is: What is the word we use when someone, or some thing (gov) makes a claim of ownership on our labor and/or the fruits of that labor? Well, that word is slavery. At what percentage is it no longer slavery? 80%, 50%? 10%? The 13th Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude but makes voluntary servitude just fine and dandy.
All law is contract law. How does this play out? Every tax return is considered a contract good for 1 year. When you do a tax return you are admitting to having “gross income.” That is what is taxed. What is gross income? it is a tax based on a percentage of the profits from engaging in a government granted privilege, such as government employment or importing fun beverages. Your IRS master file has you listed as someone importing booze in Puerto Rico or some such thing. Remember, involuntary servitude is prohibited but voluntary servitude is not. Read that sentence again and again until it sinks in.
What about property taxes? You volunteered when you allowed your property to be registered with the county. By the way, there is no law that requires you to register your property with the state. What government granted privilege are you exercising by owning property? If you search the county tax roll you will discover that your land and stuff on it is classified as one of three things: residential, commercial, or agricultural. A resident is an alien temporarily domiciled on Federal property. He is exercising a federally granted privilege. Commercial speaks for itself and agricultural property is much the same as personal. It is presumed you are farming on federal property. There are countless people who do not register their property and never receive a tax bill.
The take away? All taxation is voluntary. You’ve heard it over and over from the IRS et al, the income tax is voluntary. You volunteered into it, you just didn’t know you were contracting. Involuntary servitude is prohibited, voluntary servitude is not.
Of course, there will be the usual howls from the clover/dimwit crowd :How do we finance government without taxes!!!?? Because of the current monetary system government does not need to tax to finance itself. It could print money based on the value of the collective labor of all Americans and the property held by the public in trust which is how the Federal Reserve Note gets its value. The only difference now is that government borrows from the Fed creating massive amounts of debt. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I never volunteered to have my property registered with the county- it already was, as virtually all real property now is in the US.- just in the former owner’s name- and had I not changed it out of the former “owner’s” name, they would have sent the tax bill to him, and when he didn’t pay it, they’d confiscate the property….
When it comes to the government, law is not a matter of contract. Contract law assumes that both parties are free to engage or refrain from engaging in participation. Government operates by force. They might make the pretext of law…but in-fact, no law really applies to them, and they just do what they want as long as they have the power to do it. The pretext of law is just to give it legitimacy in the eyes of the victims, so that they will cooperate and even support and demand the very things they should be taking up arms against.
What contract have you broken if you grow a prohibited plant in the dirt, and the narcs show up and take you away?
The rule of law- and the idea that the government is restrained by law, is a charade.
Nunz, Generally, your attorney (attorn means to turn over) takes care of the registration, you don’t know it’s going on. By changing the name from the former owner to yourself, you registered it in your name. You should have asked the former owner to call and remove the property from the tax roles because he sold it. That’s your fault. But don’t despair very few people know about this stuff. There is a way to remove it and it has to do with the assessor filing false documents into the public record. (assessing your private property as commercial or residential) among other things. Look into it. Bring that up and watch the reaction.
“Contract law assumes that both parties are free to engage or refrain from engaging in participation.” And therein lies the flaw in their enforcement procedures. There is no valid contract. Statutory law is contract law is admiralty is law merchant. Look at any statute and it always applies to persons. Look up persons in the definitions section and you will see it is about legal fictions. These people are acting in commerce and they are commercially liable and they know it. Just because you don’t know how to hold them liable does not mean it can’t be done.
“The rule of law- and the idea that the government is restrained by law, is a charade.” This is true in practice because the people haven’t learned how to hold them liable for their actions.
“What contract have you broken if you grow a prohibited plant in the dirt, and the narcs show up and take you away?” You contracted when you agreed to be a US citizen. US citizen is an office of the United States and is a creation of the United States and to hold that office means you agreed to the terms and conditions which are the statutes. They take you away because you agreed to it.
Rog,
What attorney? Didn’t use one. You can’t just “remove the property from the tax rolls”- it’s ALWAYS there- the only thing that changes is the name of “ownership”- whether it be yours, or the former or future owner’s- but the land itself is perpetually on the county’s tax rolls.
Person, legal fiction? Try growing the wrong plant; driving without a license; or open-carrying a firearm in NYC/DC/SF or many other places….you AND your legal fiction will be spending some time in the barred hotel after encountering the ground at a high velocity.
I would suggest that you look up the definition of “person” in any federal; your state’s and county’s codes as it pertains to any relevant law or code therein…for that will be the definition used by the ones who oppress us.
That Common Law stuff- even what parts of it may be true and justly true and applicable- doesn’t work, because what little of it isn’t mis-applied BS, still has no way of being enforced by us upon those who have superior power.
Nunz, look on the cadestral for your area and you will find the abbreviation UNK. These are properties not on the tax role. Here is a link you should listen to: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bo+and+rocky+property+tax+
I’m sorry you feel so helpless. I understand. There are no guarantees in any of this, but ask yourself this question: If the laws government claims are binding on the people are so confusing to the average Man is there rule of law? If the answer is no, is there justice? If the answer is no, who is responsible for correcting that? Did government just emerge like a zit or did Men and Women create it? If we created it can we un-create it? The guy who wrote the Declaration seemed to think so.
Person in the statutes is always a legal entity. The definitions section just defines what kind of person that section applies to. Ex. “taxpayer” in 26 USC to “driver” in your state’s MVC.
Hey Rog,
Let me preface this by saying that I really appreciate what you stand for, and what you’re trying to do….but….I’m not the one who is confused 🙂
What you are falling for is just disinformation and semantics.
“UNK” just means “unknown”, and is where such things as paper streets that never got built, and anomalies in the surveys, etc. go. Mostly parcels that exist on paper, but not in reality.
And this ‘natural person’ stuff is nothing more than these hucksters purposely perverting the simple distinction in the law which distinguishes between a simple human being vs. a CORPORATION (i.e. an entity formed by filing with the secretary of state, which under many circumstances has the same rights as a person) or a trust, etc.
They (the hucksters) pervert the simple concepts and wording of the laws, so that those who are not familiar with law are led to believe when they see things like “natural person” and “corporation” that they mean things other than what is clearly intended.
Do you own property and not pay property taxes successfully?
Walk into court and try stis stuff; you will loswe; be laughed out of the place, and or be ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Even if what the ‘common law/freemen/sovereign’ hucksters were true….what makes you think that you could require that the tyrants abide by it, when they don’t even abide by the legitimate straight-forward law-of-the-land as set forth in the Constitution?
At least if standing on the Constitution, you would have legitimate law behind you- rather than mis-applied misinterpreted, misrepresented BS.
You’ve got that right, Nunzio.
I guess a lot of younger people are running across this stuff for the first time, however it is nothing new. I got involved in the “Patriot” movement back in the 1970s and have seen every bizarre, twisted, quasi-legal argument you can imagine. In some cases the purveyors were simply misguided, knowing something was wrong and flailing around trying to find an explanation and a cure. However there were, and are, a lot of charlatans around pulling in followers for profit. I’ve seen a lot of good people get themselves into some really hot water with some of the malarkey to be found out there.
The rule of thumb I always apply with these theories is to ask “show me the law that makes it so” – not some twisted, convoluted, hypothetical bullshit.
Of course the system is so corrupt it almost doesn’t matter. If you’re a threat they don’t care what the law says or what your rights are supposed to be. So I guess you might as well just bay at the moon, the result will be the same.
Ha! Well said, Jason!
What kills me too: Just the terminology: “Sovereign citizen”-
“:Sovereign” and “citizen” are diametric opposites! The very term is a contradiction!!! 😀 😀 😀
I think these people believe in magic! Just say the right words, and you can harness and manipulate the power of the corrupt totalitarian system!” Kabbalah for goys! (If only they could conjur some golem to beat the crap out of the cops!)
Jason,
“ got involved in the “Patriot” movement back in the 1970s and have seen every bizarre, twisted, quasi-legal argument you can imagine”
You remember The Kingdom of Moltz?
https://youtu.be/059YiXdMTLo
Hi T,
The only viable things we can do to reduce how hard we’re plucked is to limit how much we have that can be plucked. Earn the least amount of money you can to reduce your tax burden to the lowest possible. Move to a lower tax area and live in a more modest home that isn’t taxed as heavily.
Live below your means – so the taxes you have to pay don’t hurt as much.
That’s the most we can do… if I’m wrong, maybe Rog will show me how.
Tu, and poor Erwin died in prison with cancer at 85 I think. They wouldn’t let him have a single day off his sentence which turned out to be life.
And why? He wrote a book that detailed how the system was rigged. I once tried to buy a copy but due to govt. scarfing them up and the book being banned, copies go for nearly $3000.
Of course no one else is going to publish it since they’d get sent to prison on the same trumped up non-charges as Erwin.
It’s great to be king and take everyone’s real wealth and replace it with pieces of paper.
And to this day, if someone finds some gold from when it was supposed to be “turned in”, the only way they can keep it is to sell it on the black market, not easily done or turn it into ingots that can be analyzed and they’ll still be subject to imprisonment.
No doubt Roosevelt and buddies made huge fortunes with this scam.
Amen, Eric!
Reducing or eliminating taxes; flying below the radar; and avoiding the notice of pigs/staying out of courts; and guarding our privacy, are really the only tools at our disposal- and are as much as we can do.
Conversely, these “sovereign” types spend half of their time researching stupid laws and court decisions (Which are often mis-applied; irrelevant; or misunderstood); and they seem to spend a lot of time being scrutinized by/interacting with pigs [putting a hand-written cardboard “plate” on one’s car will do it!], and a lot of time in these filthy unjust courts…and consequently in jail!
If the object is to secure as much freedom as possible….I’d say that the sovereigns have missed the mark, as they don’t even have as much freedom as the average schmoe.
Arguing the fine points of law with the guy in the black dress who works for your oppressors, and who can snap his fingers and have you taken away to a cage- just on the off chance that ya may prevail now and then on some technicality, is in no way freedom.
Nunz, I’m sorry you are so defeated.
The guy in the video made more mistakes than I can count. Of course he lost!The first glaring mistake was that he admitted to being an “individual,” legalese meaning a single entity. He never challenged jurisdiction. On and on.
A natural person is still a “person.” You will find the term human being in the statutes only once and that is 1USC 8 “the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.” Are you an infant? An infant has no legal status. The word “Man” never appears in any statute, ever.
Just because you can find countless videos of people doing it wrong doesn’t mean there are none of someone one doing it right. Youtube has been deleting or making unavailable videos of cases where jurisdiction has been successfully challenged.Here’s one where the judge was unable to establish jurisdiction over the Man and the ticket is dismissed:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYcmgFK3EIQ&list=PLeg4OzDk5jOerGpf2J_mQDST4CLfxlYS6&index=9
Governments and tyrants maintain power because of fear. If you want to live in fear, that’s your choice. If you want government to stay within the powers we the people gave it you must first know that you are its creator and the created can never be superior to its creator. You must know which jurisdiction they are operating in and how that has anything to do with you.
You are whining and claiming you have no power when dealing with this beast you think is actually something real. Yes, it’s minions think it is real but that judge in the video knows exactly where the Man is going with it and she wants no part of it. Under estimate yourself all you want, that’s your choice.
Hi Rog,
I’ve been at this a long damn time. Long enough to know that the stratagems you posit do not work. The government bureaucrats who will sic the Hut! Hut! Hutters! on you do not care what you claim “the law” is or the mumbo-jumbo you present them with. They will simply point out that (as an example) your name is on the deed to such-and-such a property located at such-and-such an address . . .and you owe this much. Fail to pay what they say you “owe” and they will send the Hut! Hut! Hutters! to seize what was your property and auction it off to the highest bidder to pay what you “owe.”
No judge or court will gainsay this.
Your cries about “contracts” and what you did or did not sign and so on are.. irrelevant.
I will believe what you and others who advocate this dangerous nonsense peddle when you can show me that you no longer pay property or income taxes . . .without being Hut! Hut! Hutted! I know of no one who has ever succeeded in avoiding taxes – and the Hut! Hut! Hutting!
You either pay – or you get Hut! Hut! Hutted! That’s it.
It doesn’t matter whether you (or Larkin Rose or Irwin Schiff) are correct in a legalistic sense as “the law” is what those who enforce it say it is. And they say you – and I and everyone else – “owe” whatever they decide we “owe.”
If this were not the case, neither of those two excellent gentlemen would have ended up in federal prison.
And yet, they did.
QED.
Well-said, Eric!
And Schiff and Rose had legitimate sound legal arguments….
These guys?[sovereigns/freemen/whatever] “Oh, the name on the citation isn’t me. It is a fiction. But the name on the deed to the property? Ummm, yeah…that’s me!”.
I don’t get it. I’ve seen guys playing this game for years; spending more time wrassling with the pigs and wrangling with the courts, and sitting in cells and reading codes and statutes and citations than if they had a full-time job doing so….only to say “:Oh, it would’ve worked if I had said this, instead of that!”- and meanwhile, they have less freedom than anyone.
It’d be like a Jew in Nazi Germany citing the German constitution as the SS is dragging him away…. “Oy! I should’ve spoken in lower-case letters!”
Tyrants are not restrained by the laws which they make, nor can be made to properly adjudicate laws which pertain to them or us- much less can they be retrained by crack-pot arguments which are based on a misunderstanding or fraudulent twisting of those laws.
Nunz!
I just spilled a little into my Depends…
“It’d be like a Jew in Nazi Germany citing the German constitution as the SS is dragging him away…. “Oy! I should’ve spoken in lower-case letters!””
I can’t hear stuff like this without thinking or Irwin Schiff who’s book was banned and was charged with a no-name crime with a sentence that ended with his death in prison with cancer and couldn’t get discharged even a few hours early to not die in that prison.
You know he was speaking the truth in that book or the govt. wouldn’t have expended so much effort to silence an economist.
On the flip side….. How the real crimes of the real criminals just get swept under the rug: Funny how all of the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, implicating so many world overlords is just getting swept under the rug!
How convenient: They can impeach the Trumpster, while creating a diversion to take the heat off of all of their friends.
I guess it’s “illegal” to get the dirt on a former vice-prez (who has lots of vices!) if exposing his corruption will “help your campaign” by exposing your opponent’s corruption.
Although I’m not feeling sorry for Trump either, ’cause if he had stuck to his guns and prosecuted Hitlery and all the other denizens of the Swamp which he promised to “clean up; and would even now run with the Epstein evidence (which may well implicate himself)…..
Uhhgg! They’re all so corrupt. And yet people continue to believe that politics can solve the very problems which politicians created- as it continues to destroy this country and the world right before their eyes…..
Eight,
I met Irwin Schiff many years ago. He was a good man, and an example of the old saying that “It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Some of Irwin Schiff’s books are available in PDF format at constitution.org:
https://www.constitution.org/tax/us-ic/schiff/
Irwin’s name always stood-out in my mind, because coming across a few articles of his when I was probably in my teens, was my first exposure to the fact that there are others out there who “get it”.
After compulsory edumacation and child [anti]labor laws, taxes were the big thing that made me realize just how not-free we are.
I realized that the teachers lied when they used to say that taxes were voluntary; and I wondered how it was that adults came to accept this tyranny over them so willingly and completely.
Just learning of Schiff and his exploits really cheered me, as it made me feel that I wasn’t alone; that there were indeed a few others out there who clearly understood that we are not free, and who would not merely go along to get along.
I admired such people, ’cause all of the adults in my life, when confronted with questions about our predicament, would just laugh, as if knowingly, and dismiss the subject as the impractical idealism of immaturity and youth. Unfortunately, they were the ones who were immature.
Hi Nunz,
I remember snapping out of it – so to speak – while pondering (as a junior high school kid) what I had been told about the tyranny of “taxation without representation.” I reasoned it out. I asked: But what if I am not “represented”? What if I didn’t ask to be “represented”? Who are these people who claim they “represent” me? I never asked them to and they certainly never got my permission. So does the fact that some stranger to me asserts that he “represents” me endow him with the right to dispose of my property contrary to my consent? How so?
Is it because I am allowed to vote for – or against – this person? But my vote doesn’t exercise a definitive yes or no; it is merely one vote among thousands or millions and so largely an impotent gesture. It certainly cannot prevent this person from presuming to “represent” me and do violence to me under the vicious fraud that I have consented to it because I was allowed to vote.
Consent only exists when no is respected.
This is obvious when we consider sexual interactions. No court would absolve three men of rape if they claimed – truthfully – that they and the woman held a vote and the three of them voted in favor of fucking her. She had the opportunity to vote – so the rape was just sex and she consented because she was represented.
Mornin’ Eric!
GREAT analogy, re: taxation and rape!
Yes, the “representation” thing. Funny; some people may be represented on some issues if their candidate won, and somehow represents their wishes on all counts- and even so, how does that give the political gang the right to claim ownership of whateve4r percent of everyone’s property that they see fit to lay claim to? Much less give them that right over the property of those whom they don’t represent?!
It’s all such nonsense; fairy tales for adults; and the adults all pretend to see the emperor’s clothes.
And like yuou said, “No” is never an option.
If they want to play democracy in what is supposed to be a republic, then how about at least letting those of us who object opt out? We don’t get to vote; don’t get to partake of the various redistribution of wealth programs, and thus don’t have to pay taxes. No…that is never an option, because they need our money, our labor, and our participation.
The “representation” thing jusyt makes it sound a little nicer, and less like the slavery that it really is.
Here’s what happens to these guys in court- punch line is at around 11:00:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSd-E3Hb3Y
To the degree that common law still exists, one can remove ones property from the tax rolls by obtaining allodial title on it.
Do you know of anyone who has actually managed to do so?
To further complicate things (and the hucksters who promote this BS capitalize on this) the term allodial has many different meanings- for instance, in NV. one can “apply for an allodial title” if one owns a single-fambly home free and clear….but it in no ways eliminates property taxes; it just changes how they are paid (in ADVANCE!) and helps make the property more judgement proof- but not exempt from eminent domain, criminal seizure and the aforementioned taxes.
The only REAL allodial land is that which can be traced back to pre-Revolutionary War land grants which had never been aquired by the US….i.e. if it’s already on the tax rolls…it ain’t and never can be allodial!
LOL…it doesn’t even work for the poor Injuns who were here before the Limeys.
I wish the hucksters who promote this BS would just stop it; they are so wasting the time of good people and leading them astray, and often putting them in precarious situations.
Morning, Nunz
Agreed in re the hucksters. Some may mean well but that’s beside the point. The idea that you can just file (or not file) a few forms or utter some Magic Words and the government will no longer force you to pay taxes on your income or property or put plates on your car (and so on) is soft-headed wishful thinking. Because “the law” is what the government says “the law” is. Not what it actually says – much less what you or I think it says.
So many obvious examples but the most obvious being the Fourth Amendment, which clearly says no searches absent probable cause and or an individualized warrant, other searches being “unreasonable.” Try arguing the point at the next “safety” checkpoint you have to deal with.
Just because you call a man a negro doesn’t mean he isn’t a nigger, especially if he is not a minority.
Several in Texas, but they won’t talk about it to anyone who thinks they don’t actually exist.
There indeed are a smattering of parcels in TX, LA. AK, HI and a few others, which are truly allodial, as they were part of tracts that had managed to avoid being acquired by the US when those places were annexed.
TX also has a program, much like that of NV, for going ‘allodial’. but just like NV, it has nothing to do with the true allodial status of which we are speaking….
And…I never agreed to be a US citizen. I was merely popped out of the womb here.
Tyrants are not bound by their ownb laws- much less the laws of the past; old legal dictionaries (which were never the law to begin with) or anything else.
What part of the end of a rifled barrel do you not understand?
Your person is a US citizen. You can occupy that office or not.
If force is all that is left, then what do we do about it? It may be true that things are completely out hand, but whose fault is that? Listen to the video, it may give you hope.
Most flintlocks were not rifled.
Yeah….rifling a musket barrel would be pretty pointless!
Except for when greater accuracy at distance was desired, which is why some of them were, like for snipers. Most flintlocks were made in shops lacking the requisite hammer forge and/or strong acids required. Blacksmiths weren’t always very sophisticated machinists.
Hmmm….rifling works on balls as well as bullets? Didn’t know that.
I had always ‘magined that the range and accuracy of such guns were such that rifling wouldn’t make any real difference- but I don’t know squat about old guns.
They usually used a patched ball.
Is that where they set a chicken loose on the field so the empire can call a bok?
Ball is cast .490 for fifty caliber. After the powder charge is poured into the barrel, a greased piece of cloth is laid across the muzzle and the ball is forced into the barrel so that the cloth patch wraps around and forms a lubricated gasket to impart the rifling to the ball.
And a spark from the flint ignited the powder?
See? I can graps[sic] this!
Or percussion caps, after around 1820 or so.
That would depend on the gun. A Kentucky Rifle was a flintlock and virtually won the Revolutionary war.
Except they were originally “Pennsylvania Rifles”
Redcoats just had smoothbores because they were cheaper to make, faster to reload, and the trrops weren’t trained to actually aim them at anybody – just in the general direction of the enemy who were supposed to just stand across the field.
They were actually invented and first produced in Britain.
Then some Pennsylvania gunsmiths began making them and most all were sold in Kentucky. Those Kentucky boys had a need for them due to using less lead and powder and having to deal with unfriendly native Americans…..injuns as it were.
Nunzio,
“Hmmm….rifling works on balls as well”
Works in baseball and football and even on the pool table.
Military still calls common ammo ball.
I hear the flattest shooting ammo has a boat tail and a conical nose.
Fluid Dynamics my friend. Air and water are both fluids.
You already know tons about the subject. You just don’t know that you know.
The aeronauT.
Tu,
I don’t even know why a corked bat works! (But if I remember elementary Loony-Toons correctly, one never wants to mix a corked butt with physics)
Molten lead is also a fluid.
So?
Ball is a type of bullet. You’re correct that boat-tail and very small tips are the most accurate and have the best ballistic coeffecient making them more accurate especially for long range.
We now have BC’s of .6-.7, something we’d never seen back in the 80’s and 90’s.
Of course there are so many types of bullets now I couldn’t begin to name them all off the top of my head.
Well, there’s “ball ammo” which is usually a military term for FMJ bullets in modern cartridges.
Then there’s the old round lead balls for muzzleloaders. I used to cast them out of wheel weights before my TC Hawken got stolen.
anon, I still have my TC .54 and it’s a hoss.
Comanches thought they could back off several hundred yards and observe at Adobe Walls.
They were soon disabused of that notion with killing shots beyond 1200 yds. That’s some damn good shooting and esp. with no scope.
I have a friend building a gun he intends to be accurate to a mile and it’s on an AR 10. And that is one of the reasons the Armalite Rife is so popular. I rarely see two alike and never see the same person with two that are identical.
“Molten lead is also a fluid.
So?”
Yeah, at least if you miss the bear with the musket, you can recast the ball as a sinker and go fishing.
Or you can remove the ball and save it for when you next cast balls again.
In this days of sabots, that’s all I use. Not only are they bullet shaped but are very accurate and much faster.
How is death a contract when it is from natural causes?
Tell that to a probate judge.
Who said that death was a contract?
Whoever said that all laws are contracts.
WP misplaced it.
Must be like the fabled “social contract”- “signify your acceptance of this contract by breathing”!
But don’t forget the Sieg Heil!
Anyone who advocates a government-enforced protection of rights, may be good-intentioned, but can not truly be a Libertarian. Once we elevate other men to a position of superiority, where they become the arbiters of “rights” and have the special privilege of being able to dictate actions, disposition of property and liberty of others….no more Libertarianism.
And that would apply even sans the ability to tax, to pay for such a “service”….. or to tax to provide for the distribution of “services”- which really, is the core foundation of communism- the diametric opposite of Libertarianism. It then comes down to being just a matter of degrees: How much tyranny and how many ‘benefits’ one is willing to accept in trade for how much of their liberty.
This is why, technically speaking, Libertarianism in the common sense is essentially the same as minarchy….which quickly becomes full-blown authoritarian-collectivism; because once the seed of authority over the lives, actions and property of others by a few who possess special privileges is established, it just becomes a matter of degrees and time as to how far it goes. And we’ve seen this play-out before our very eyes over the last 200 years.
This is why ultimately, it is only under true Anarchy [no government] that real liberty can exist.
Good one, Eric!
I was literally just telling my mother yesterday, that I’d build myself a li’l 1000sq/ft house here on “my” lnd were it not for the fact that it would raise my property taxes by $750-$1000 a year or more.
Sadly, my mother’s reaction: “A thousand dollars? Is that all?!”- This coming from a woman who has never owned a home, or even a car in her entire life……and being said to someone who makes about $14K a year, if that these days (I keep my income below taxable level- and live quite nicely, and even save quite a bit- enough to be able to build that house if I wanted to).
Humanity will never recover from the mentality that authoritarian-collectivism has created.
Morning, Nunz!
Yup. It boggles that most people are so blase about property taxes; this includes the people who object to income taxes. But property taxes are far worse because so long as you own property you never stop paying taxes. One could reduce one’s “taxable” income to a level at which there is no tax on that income. But then you’re forced to earn more income to pay the taxes on your property – which will probably raise your taxable income to the point that you now pay income taxes, too.
The intention is very clear: To eliminate the possibility of freeholding. The system is set up to keep you working like a mule, forever, so that you’re always paying. Taxes on your income or taxes n your property Ideally, both.
The very last thing they want is someone who no longer needs to earn any income – and so pays them nothing – because he owns his property outright, beholden to none – and is thus 100 percent independent.
Hi Eric, spot on about property taxes; at least if you don’t have much income Uncle won’t take much of it, but property taxes are forever. Now that I’m retired my income is lower but the taxes go ever higher, and are on a ratchet-only going up. Even back around 2008 when real estate values took a dump our property taxes stayed the same, and now they’re back on the conveyor belt to the sky.
Here in Taxachusetts my “rent” is more than 10 times yours, plus we have to pay income taxes to the state as well as the feds. We bought this house in 1974 and paid it in the 90’s, or at least we paid off the bank; I figured that so far we’ve paid the town 6+ times what we paid for the house. At some point we will be forced out when I have to choose between paying the rent or paying for heat. Have family in Florida but it’s too gotdamn hot most of the time, so I may end up in a van down by the river with the wife and cats.
Hi Mike,
If you’re ever in my neck – SW Va – drop me a line. It’s far from perfect here but the property taxes aren’t as crippling; no zoning rigmarole, either. Would be my pleasure to show you around!
Thanks Eric, just might do that someday; my sister lived in the Richmond area back in the eighties and it seemed nice, better weather than my neck of the woods for sure.
Hey Ya, Mike!
Heh, yeah- how many of my relatives left Long Island even years ago when they got older, simply because they couldn’;t afford the property taxes?! Property taxes were the biggest expense once the house was ;paid off- with nothing else even being a close second.
My property taxes are under $300 a year (Mobile home- which isn’t considered real estate- on <28 acres)…but the time is soon coming, when, just like on Lawn Guyland,m it will start doubling every three or four years. I see the signs already…all-new government buildings in the county seat (pop. 1500….); new mega schools…..
I remember in the late 70's, whgen relatives on LI were only paying $300 a year….then the next year it doubled! Then every year it's go up 20-30%…. It'll be just like that here if time permits: Though I own what I own outright, free and clear….the day would fast come when I wsouldn't be able to afford to keep it for the property taxes. (I'd be worried if I weren't planning on leaving the country!)
Just like on LI- knew people when I was growing up who owned a few acres….after the taxes got so high, they had to sell all or part of it…before the real estate pri9ces caught up to the high taxes…so they got a few grand for their land…which, a decade later, was worth millions.
Like this old man who was like a father to me- Had 2.5 acres. When the taxes started going up, he sold the majority of it, except for about half an acre that his house (which he had built with his own two hands) sat on, for…get this- $3500. Today, what he solkd is worth $1.6 Million.
I guess this is the “freedom” they go around the world killing everyone for and fighting Israel’s enemies for?
Hey Nunz,
Yeah it’s just nuts how everything started taking off in the late 70’s and 80’s. Bought the house we’re still in in 1974 for $32k, total payment (mortgage and taxes) was $250/month. Mortgage is paid but taxes are now four times what I paid for everything back then. Realtor friend says we could sell this place for close to a million easily but I like where I am and all our friends are nearby so I’ll stay here till I can’t. Plus I don’t like the idea of the bastards forcing me out, may end up being here till I get carried out feet first.
Mike, I remember telling you to move to Texas before you retired. Yeah, I know. Being a live long Bostonian and moving to Texas would definitely be a difficult change, but in rural counties like I live in, taxes drop when you get to be 65. It’s a lifesaver too.
I know the sticks don’t sound good, mainly to women, but they have a lot of advantages such as NO people dropping in if you have a locked gate and this whole damn county seems to be for sale.
Land prices are worse than I’ve ever seen. I recently had a billionaire move in down the road from me. He bought every acre of land he could fine for sale and I’m sure wasn’t getting a “deal” on it”.
But I know why he did it. I sit here with the screen open or outside and what do I hear. An owl….maybe. A coyote sometimes. That’s about it. You might hear the distant whine of a highway at times when the wind’s right. Buy land in the part of the county(and they all have this type)with no cultivation and there’s no planes we call flying death(Roundup) nor much of anything.
If you have medical issues that could be an emergency, you might have to find someplace with a bit higher land prices but that’s not a given. Everything’s cheap simply because people here make little money.
You might not like the big predators but the hogs fairly much mind their own bidness. I noticed some cats on the porch last night about 9, retrieved my flashlight(and should have retrieved a gun too)and right beyond where the porch light reaches there was a big skunk. I ran for the shotgun and chases him up the tank dam and offed his stinky ass. Threw him in the tank and went back in. No cats to be seen for a while till I’d been in the house a few minutes and then they all wanted in. They have this thing about guns. I do too. Never leave the house without one in your hand. I need to get a forestock mounted flashlight.
Hi Eight, Texas would be a good fit for me, financially and otherwise, but the wife would never go for it – too far from family for her. We joke about what each of us would do if the other one died first. She’ll move closer to her sister and I’ll be a hermit in a cabin in the woods with the cats.
Mike, yall been listening to our conversations? It would be the same thing for us. A hermit in the cabin in the wood with the cats….and CJ. She could never take care of everything here unless she could get her sister to move which would be tantamount to moving mountains. She’s a city gal and doesn’t even understand the problems we have.
Back when I was on the road and sometimes got to stay at the house for a month, she couldn’t understand why the wife would get up in the wee hours to help me get off. The wife finally (maybe)got it across to her that she’d never see me otherwise. She’d be asleep when I came in and I had plenty things to do before I went to bed and then was up again in 4 or 5 hours getting ready to go again.
I had a DOT ossifer call me out on it one day since I didn’t log. I didn’t have to lie, I’d only been 15 minutes away from where he stopped me after getting loaded. He said I couldn’t make it from the yard to there(60 miles)in 30 minutes. I agreed but said I’d left the truck just a few miles away. Everybody else would just look at my age and not even ask and that was a good thing. They knew I couldn’t put in those hours or at least let it slide if they thought I could.
I hate trucking now with ELD and may never do it again. I’m thinking of setting up a jig in the barn and building trailers.
A jig? That’s really raciss…
By the way Mike, you rarely have to suffer a bad winter. Not saying we don’t have some horrendous cold and ice at times but they rarely hang around long. 4 years ago would make a liar out of me.
Well-said, Eric!
What kills me, is between property taxes and income taxes…we are literal slaves- but the average person is so obtuse and brainwashed, that they will adamantly deny it- even in the most heavily-taxed places, as they slave for half of the year just to pay them.
A property tax is nothing more than the “rent” that the REAL “landlord” charges for the privilege of the parcel being titled in YOUR name, with all the attendant responsibilities and restrictions. Is it REALLY “YOUR” land? Just try NOT paying those property taxes, or defying the restrictions or refusing the easements, levies, and so on, and see how long it remains “yours”. Ultimately, the proverbial “men with guns” will show up and unceremoniously remove you from what was once “your” property, and perhaps take you for a ride to that “nice, greybar motel” downtown, where, likely, you’ll have to pay for THAT as well!
“Most of us could not only take care of ourselves absent the government, we would be able to take care of those within our circle of friends and family who cannot care for themselves.”
That’s the way it WAS in the 19th century. But then the “Progressives” decided that they wanted everybody, in particular illiterate immigrants living in squalor in urban slums brought into this country to be exploited by greedy capitalists, sucking off the government teat.
When the Depression hit in 1932, FDR got the entire country sucking on the government teat, and it’s never going to stop until there’s a full-blown collapse.
I saw once, but not fact check, that by the time you sum up *all* the taxes: Income, real estate, personal property, excise, SoSo Security, Medicare, sales taxes and also the plethora of other GOVCO fees and licenses (driver’s, passport, business, etc.) the overall tax rate is just over 50%. And we all (me included) just drone on, paying and paying. If all that were slashed, then you would have $$ to practice charity. (Like you describe in finishing out the outbuilding on your property). So GOVCO has hijacked our charity, like you say.
And God knows they are scheming to grab the rest of the money we have left over. And I have read stories in the past 10 years or so where some in congress want the SSA to take over and “manage” our pensions and 401k’s to shore up SS.
Yeah, they’ve talked about confiscating 401(k) and IRAs. Five European countries have already DONE IT! This Christian Science Monitor article is over 8 years old, but it shows that 5 European countries have already taken private accounts: https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions
Hi Mark,
I had this convo with my ex, years ago. I told her that I thought it was foolish to “invest” in a 401k because either the Shyster Market would collapse and vitiate the whole thing or most of it – or the government would simply take it and (maybe) exchange it for some sort of pittance benefit.
Regardless, I dislike not having full control over what’s mine. And these 401ks are insufferable in that they have myriad strictures and rules about accessing/using your funds. At least I have physical possession of my land. I grant that the government could seize it, too – but not as easily.
Well, she has the 401k. And I have the land.
We’ll see who does better in the long run!
Eric – you’re young enough to at least invest in various instruments, both tax-deferred and otherwise, and USE your property. True, ultimately the Virginia county you reside in has in effect taken your real estate from you, demanding “rent”, supposedly in return for schools and other “services” which you may want or not (probably mostly NOT), but at least you’re not paying INTEREST on the mortgage that most would have to take out in order to get the property titled to them.
As for your ex, all depends on her investment savvy. Of course, in a SHTF, you’ll likely still have your land, and perhaps the County will, at least for awhile, go on “hiatus”, as money as we understand it would become worthless, as you most of your ex’s investments. But likely, as things go rapidly south, the “Gubmint”, in a desperate attempt to bail water that the sinking ship (of state) is taking on, will CONFISCATE savings and/or retirement accounts, starting with Sen. Warren’s proposed “wealth” tax. Just remember, the Federal Income Tax as authorized by the 16th Amendment (its own passage a questionable event) was initially promised to only hit the “rich”.
True “wealth” in the SHTF scenario will be a defensible homestead, firearms, ammo, tools, GOOD HEALTH, the ability to barter desirable items or services, and good BUSINESS and PERSONAL relationships. Think of us as Rome, ca. 380 AD…the signs of rot are there, but at this time no one can imagine anything other than these here “New-Nited” States. From what I’ve read, though, as Rome supposedly “fell”, it was more a gradual change than a dramatic calamnity brought on by hirsute, snaggle-tooth burly boys like you see in the credit card commercial. If anything, the new rules weren’t REPLACING Rome, they were immigrating in and becoming “Roman” themselves”, only the allegiance to the “Emperor”, be he in Rome, Ravenna, or Constantinople, was nominal and had very little bearing on daily life. We too, might ostensibly, in 30 or so years, still be the “United” States, but if Washington is still there, it will be irrelevant to our lives, the most being that we will be paying little if any TAXES as compared to today!
This is a tricky situation. The stock market, which most 401(k)s invest in, is a Ponzi scheme created by the Federal Reserve. Your ex-wife will probably do better than you, IF she is able to cash out before the Ponzi scheme collapses. If not, she’s the one who’s screwed.
You, on the other hand, won’t have fake government-printed money, you’ll have a tangible asset — land. BUT you’ll have to pay taxes on that land forever or the government will confiscate it from you.
I don’t think ANYBODY wins in the long run…
Hi X,
The main benefit of owning one’s home is not having to pay the mortgage/rent; this makes it feasible to live on much less money – even factoring in the “rent” one is forced to pay the government. Which rent one pays regardless, it is important to point out. It is folded into your payment, whether mortgage or rental.
I might invest – awful word, given the circumstances – in a 401k if I believed the system will more or less function for say ten more years. I do not believe that it will. I believe a sea-change is coming. That it will be either – or. Either outright authoritarian socialism and confiscation of the assets of everyone who has any. Or the physical elimination of the people pushing for that by those who oppose it.
The day is coming.
Soon, I think.
Hey Eric!
Can we say “bail-ins”?! (What happens in Europe…comes here before long).
I concur though…be it a bail-in; hyper-inflation[Not what I subscribe to- but ya never know…]; out-right confiscation; a changing of the rules; civil upheaval; nukular war….etc. something has got to give- and it’s going to be swift and game-changing when it comes…and it’s a’coming soon.
Even in saner times, I never put my meager bananas into “the system”. Just because it may offer a slight shelter from extortion…it none the less is part and parcel of the very government-corporate system which has created that which we need sheltering from!
I’d rather put my clams into tangible things that I and others like me can actually use in real life- tractors; land; guns; etc.- things that always have value, and thus always hold their value, regardless of what the artificial gov’t-corp economy does, or how the currency is manipulated.
I’ve always felt that, if I act like a banker (i.e. putting money out just to gain interest) would I not become a banker (i.e. a parasite who profits from just moving artificially-created worthless currency around)?
I don’;t want to be a banker. (A trader, farmer; tradesman…O-K, but not a banker! I think I’d sooner be a bank robber than a banker- it’s more honest!)
Many women would rather snuggle up to the intangible illusion of the security of a 401k account than with a hard working man who busts his ass to provide. Sad, but true. Women love money and what it can provide them more than their husbands. Thanks feminists!!!
What’s the difference? Either way the only thing the man is seen as is a utility.
My hairdresser (in her 50s, divorcee) is looking for a man only so she can quit working. I think she expected a sympathetic response from me, but I simply said, “hmm” and quickly changed the subject. I find it interesting she chose not to conceal her true intention.
Hi Handler,
The post-divorce dating “scene” is very interesting – in the Chinese curse sense.
According to the social pressures, I’m supposed to be dating women in their 40s but why in the world would I want to do that? Almost all of these women are worn-out divorcees with kids by other men who will always (and understandably) “come first.” But why would any man choose to come second? It’s one thing to have kids with a woman and to know she will put your kids – the ones you had together – at the head of the line. But to start dating a woman who will always put her kids – the kids she had by another guy – ahead of you?
No thanks!
These women are also at the Event Horizon of their fertility and so their sexual appeal as well as their interest in sex, generally speaking. Menopause and the attendant hormonal and physical changes make women mannish – literally. Estrogen declines. They become touchier, less “soft.” Why would a man want that?
I mean, want it from the get-go?
It is one thing to grow older together with a woman you met when you were both young and built a life with together. That is different. But why would you want to pick up someone else’s cast-off? Whose youth and beauty and fertility were all enjoyed by some other guy? I generally don’t dumpster dive.
They (the divorced ones) have also demonstrated that they will break commitments made “for life” – and so why would a man make a commitment to them?
Thus, my interest is rationally focused on younger women without kids and whose “vagine” does not “hang like sleeve of wizard.”
But while they are (some of them) attractive, they are also not to be trusted. I realize this is a general statement and there are still “good women” out there. The problem is that society – and the legal system – are not good. It is foolish bordering on imbecilic to make a legal commitment that can be abrogated at will by the other party on the basis of some vague assertion of boredom or not “feeling” the same without the party abrogating it assuming all the financial consequences.
No-fault divorce made marriage a joke. But the joke is on women more than men.
Men have more options as they get older than women because men’s appeal to women isn’t primarily physical. It is based on a man’s ability to provide and protect; on his status. This is why one routinely sees older – and uglier – men with much younger and much more attractive women. But almost never the reverse. Think about it. Women rarely do. They should, though.
A woman’s appeal to men is almost entirely physical. Her youth, her fertility, her femininity. Most men don’t especially care what she does for a a living or how much money she has. He is interested because she turns him on. That’s the primary. If she is also smart and fun, great. But a man can get smart and fun from his male friends. What a man wants most in a women is what defines a woman in relation to a man. Her sex appeal, her softness and femininity. Her ability to bear children.
But these are fleeting attributes.
A man’s career may have its up and downs. But he can always earn more money; start a new career. A woman cannot rewind the biological clock. Her maximum value to the opposite sex is – roughly – from her late teens to her early 30s. After that, she is of declining value to men who have the choice to select younger women. Which men can do so long as they retain the ability to provide and protect and have high rather than low status – all of which are based to a great extent on things besides their age and physical appearance.
A man who is still in good shape physically and has status can easily date women half his age if he wants to. Women ought to think about this.
A man who is still in good shape physically and has status can easily date women half his age if he wants to. Women ought to think about this.
They should, but they don’t. Women don’t think of this because they were weaned on shows like Sex and the City and movies like Stella Got Her Groove Back and Eat, Pray, and Love. These shows and movies show women having a HAPPY ending to midlife divorce, so women believe it; whatever the TV or movie screen says is reality for women. It’s only when reality hits them upside the head that they realize that reality falls short of the fantasy…
Hi Mark,
Yup… and once it does hit them, it’s too late. These over-40 women are (in my experience) angry – and radiating it – resentful of men for not showing the same interest in them as they do the 26-year-olds… whose “vagines” do not “hang like sleeve of wizard” and who haven’t got hair on their upper lips and aren’t “proud moms” of some other guy’s kids who “will always come first.”
Bye now!
LOL. Check out Plenty of Fish or any of the other dating sites.
Must be 6’+, have a good career ($100K+), be generous….
…..understand that my kids are my life and come first……
Usually with a picture of something resembling a blue haired tattooed walrus with several face piercings in a trash strewn house.
If I made over $100K, I would do what my pipeline friend does, escorts. A new, young, no BS ‘date’ whenever the urge arises. No strings, no needy BS.
We men are nowhere near perfect but ladies, this is the world you have created through hypergamy and feminism. Deal with it. We have to.
Remember much of those lists is BS screening. The problem is just about any woman can go online and get lots of attention. Thus all this nonsense appears.
I guess I do better than a lot of guys at online dating because women will write me. But then that usually takes the form of a woman no sane man (IMO) would want with a message that essentially says you have been selected to apply, now dance for me monkey. Nope. There have been exceptions here and there but usually those often my spidey sense tingling for one reason or another.
As to escorts unless your friend is in right parts of Nevada he’s taking some big risks. Even with proper mitigation it’s still a risk with huge possible downsides. And the reason is the illegality of it.
Of course there is also a criminal element and government stings that will work through online dating sites as well but those tend to be mitigated by simply not being stupid.
Those dating app profile videos on Youtube are hilarious yet disturbing.
Escorts are legal here Brent.
Millennial girls (my generation) are squandering their sexually viable years in college to begin their “amazing” careers. Many of them don’t even try to look (and act) feminine and wholesome. Tattoos, piercings, bad hair & makeup, etc. Plus, they’re even more self-entitled and narcissistic than the older broads. They aren’t any better than a 50 year old divorced hag, in my opinion.
A girl I knew in high school happened to be in the salon yesterday. The only way I recognized her was by hearing her voice. I couldn’t believe what she had done to herself. The girl I remember was pretty enough to go into modeling. High cheekbones, full lips, beautiful nose, excellent hip-to-waist ratio. She had a great personality and came from a decent family, too. She now looks like a man. Apparently, she had met a meathead and became addicted to bodybuilding. And she picked up a few tattoos and piercings along the way. Sad!
I can’t even imagine the freak show that today’s dating scene must be like. Almost makes me glad to be an old fart who just doesn’t care any more. Almost.
What kills me, Jason, is that it used to at least be nice to see the occasional cute, feminine one in public, who dressed in decent taste and conducted herself like a lady (Or at least not a man!)….now, it’s so rare to see someone who is pleasant to look at.
I saw a cute Mexican girl when I was grocery shopping back in the early summer. If I see another one worth looking at before a year is up, it’ll be a rarity.
Hi Nunz,
I go to this coffee dive almost every day to work for a few on the laptop. I see things you people would not believe (channeling Roy Batty from Bladerunner). Including girls around 12-14 or so who dress like Filipino street whores. I am no prude, but it disgusts me to see children dressed like this in public. But these kids see the Kardashians “twerking” and want to be just like them. I am sometimes glad I don’t have a daughter…
But Jason, they’re so smart!!
Ha! Yeah 8, They can run a nukular reactor (If ya don’t mind a Fukashima), and are eggspurts in vocational rehabilitation of captive southeast Asian primates (If only they had concentrated on African primates, they could have at least gotten a job in any prison), but they can’t boil spaghetti or run a vacuum cleaner…..
And the really sad thing is, this has become the default position- It is now just accepted that a girl will be going to college and then on to employment in a government agency or multi-nat corp.
Maybe she’ll have a few sprogs along the way, who will be raised in day-care…just so she can post pics on Facebook and convince people that she “has it all” and has a great happy life.
Wonder if Facebook will still be around when she dies in her 60’s, alone and in some nursing home, with her kid being who-knows-where?
So…..is this the “freedom” and “equality” they were promising women, that the women’s liberation movement would bring? Hows that working out for ya, girls?!
Morning, Nunz!
Excellently said. It is tragic that women – and men – have bought into the idea that a “career” is what gives life meaning. Wake up, folks. Most people have jobs. They do work that may be honest and honorable and necessary, to provide for life’s necessities. But it is just a got-damned job for most people and what you did for the 40 years you worked will matter to no one and be remembered by no one at the end of those 40 years.
But family and transcending your own existence matter very much. Far more so than a quarterly report.
For women, it is particularly tragic because the singular experience of a woman’s life is having and raising her children. This something men cannot do – nor truly understand. Hence why men get their meaning from providing for and protecting their wives and children… through their work.
It’s all so FUBAR.
Hand,
It’s sad, isn’t it? And even if one could theoretically find the mythical ‘good one’, one has to keep in mind that they can change at any time…and often do.
Not only does that entail major legal ramifications (Like slavery for life), but just the idea that everything you’ve invested of yourself into building a relationship/life together can be vaporized at any time, just because the other party gets a bug in her head.
We are now witnessing the very reasons why it was that until recently, women did not have power, and were NOT treated as “equals”; like less muscular men without nads.
As a result of the globalists instituting such things as feminism, we have witnessed just over the course of a few decades, the very thing which is literally destroying society via the inability to any longer create strong families and thus stable cohesive communities, nations and societies.
And it’s going to get worse; as what we are witnessing is just the beginning of the fruits of such things.
But just to see, even on a physical level what these young women (and even girls) are doing to themselves….it is just so disgusting. I am turned off of women forever!
Saw a pic on a local website of a 12 year old girl who had gone missing (Of course, as is almost always the case, they soon found that she had run off with her boyfriend)- she looked like a hardened worn-out tomboyish whore…at 12!!!!
She isn’t a “child”. She’ll never be a “lady”. Just a hard-nosed hooligan who looks like her highest calling would be to guard a junkyard. I doubt any pedo would even want her. I’d imagine that her ‘boyfriend’ is likely either some Harry-potter-esque faggot whom she can use as a punching bag, or some professional-criminal nigger who can put her in her place and be a source of outrage to the parent(s).
I don’t even want to imagine what that one will look like when she’s 20- if she lives that long.
Degeneracy has been successfully normalized by evil Hollywood. Look how many young girls worship those talentless, snicker licking Kardashians along with other so-called “stars”.
I was never hot on the women with a lot of makeup. My wife was wearing none when I met her and has wasted nearly no money on it ever. She had a really nice complexion and didn’t have those fake eyelashes or mascara.
Ditto, 8! I hate makeup!
And especially mess-cara.
Why on earth do they think that coloring their eyelids and making their eyes look big and dark is somehow attractive?
Instant turn-off for me!
Any girl who’s remotely attractive, is attractive in her simplest state. Even if putting on all the crap could somehow make them look better, who’d want to knowingly buy into an illusion?
[sigh]!…this world is so messed up.
Makeup is for the genetically disadvantaged. That’s why it’s called makeup! LOL
Ladies need to return to the classical ideals of beauty. I hate seeing a pretty face go to waste by ugly hair & makeup.
https://www.wikihow.com/Be-Classically-Beautiful
Morning, Handler!
I still see attractive women out and about; the fear I (and many men) have is that dealing with them is not unlike playing with a hand grenade that has a loose pin. No matter how pretty – or how nice – she seems right now, what are the odds she will change... and feel differently in a few years or even a few months?
If you get involved – if you marry one and have kids – and she changes and feels differently after a few years – you are screwed. Possibly ruined beyond fixing.
The social-legal situation is such that – irrespective of the merits of any particular woman – commitment (marriage and family) is extremely dangerous. It is essentially at-will employment, except when you’re fired you lose more than your job. You lose what you already earned.
When marriage meant something – when most people who got married stayed married for life – it was not stupid to get married. One enjoyed not just a real/enduring commitment but the stability of that commitment. You could make plans for the future with a reasonable expectation that those plans would more or less pan out.
Today it is very stupid to get married or even get seriously enmeshed with a woman – and so many men are quite reasonably avoiding it.
The irony is, because women wanted to be “free” of what they style the “patriarchy,” men are free to get sex outside of commitment and thus avoid almost all of the problems which women have created for themselves.
Both sexes lose, of course. But women lose more. Men are better equipped to live on their own and – I suspect – are more capable of being happy on their own. They are without question more able to get sex for longer than women, who may have a “feast” (so to speak) from their teens through their 30s – but discover famine after 40.
eric, there’s an old saying in west Texas. “If you don’t like the weather, wait a while.”
No truer words have been spoken. You can be sweated down and wore out from it during the long day. Ten minutes later you wish you had a jacket or heavy coat.
Before people didn’t have every luxury at their beck and call, women here were much different and knew how to adapt without having a breakdown.
Now it’s only the men(well, most of them anyway)who spend their time outdoors and still carry(like I do)an emergency coat in the pickup year round.
A disconnect with the earth is one of the main problems in this society I think and causes a lot of craziness on ignorant women.
I grew up with very capable women. They could walk miles, find a tractor and take it back to the stuck car or pickup and pull it out. I’ve seen plenty of them come in with ruined hair and wet and dirty with a smile on their face.
Not so now. They call their husband or daddy and chew ass if they’re not answering the phone fast enough. “You don’t care about me. I’ve been out here in the heat/cold/rain/snow for half an hour.”
Ok, where are you and what’s the matter.
I’m out here in the breaks and the car won’t start.
Turn your lights off and wait a few minutes.
My lights aren’t on.
Well, they were for a while. Did you check the battery cables?
I dont’ work on cars…you know that.
Well, better learn cause I’m two hours away . I’d try the battery cables first and I’ll see if I can find somebody to help.
Later on. “Well, I got the damned car going. The batteyr cable was loose from these damned roads”.
Good deal. I’ll be in dark-thirty.
“Oh, I just hate this old pickup, I need a new one”.
Well, that one’s only 2 years old and the market’s down on everything. If you can figure out how to pay for one.
And that’s a good scenario.
Others just set there and have a melt down and god help the guy if there’s a kid involved but then again, they’re probably with him.
Wait until you hit SIXTY, Eric.
While I could readily bang young women HALF my age, or even younger, I have very little patience with their flightiness or “drama”, and get one pregnant? I’ve raised my kids, and I enjoy my grandkids, when I WANT to! As a rule: Parents “own”, GRAND-parents “rent”!
This is why my 51 y.o. “beloved Snips” and get along so well…she too, is done with popping out kids (she has two lovely daughters, ages 24 and 20), and menopause hasn’t seemed to impair her sex drive or her feminine qualities, she pulls her own weight financially. It helps that she was once a gymnast and still has that “dancer’s ass”.
I’d say enjoy your FREEDOM, and be SELECTIVE. Eventually, if you’re PATIENT, and understand what you want, you’ll find the woman best suited for you. Don’t let an empty bed be the motivating factor, for pity’s sake. Better to sleep alone than with the enemy.
And if all else fails, just heeds Quark’s advice..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnULSqHNR-U
I don’t care for property taxes either. The one I object to most is the SCHOOL tax. I don’t have kids, and I will never have them. WTF do I have to pay for something I don’t use? It’s the most expensive part of my tax billl Moreover, even if parents have kids but their kids attend private school, they STILL have to pay the school tax! At the very least, one should at least be able to opt out of the school tax; if you don’t have kids in the local school system, you shouldn’t pay for it. Not only would have freedom of choice when it came to schools; it would put pressure on school districts to shape up! Either they offer decent schools to the local population, or they cease to exist. In any case, I hate paying for something that I’ll ever use…
I believe a similar idea is behind school vouchers. You’re still forced to pay, but you can direct where that payment goes. In theory, this would improve educational outcomes by setting up a pseudo free market for schools to compete in; if a given school loses kids then they lose money. Much of the current trouble in the education system can be traced to the fact that a school gets its slice of the budget pie no matter how bad a job it does; in fact, bad results actually work out better in the long run since they can say they need more Funding to solve the Problem.
Is it any surprise, then, that the teacher’s unions oppose this idea?
The rest of the trouble, of course, can be traced to the fact that, in the words of J. T. Gatto, giving schools more money only encourages them to intensify the destructive operations they already perform.
Hi Chuck,
GovCo never gives away money without strings attached. If a voucher system were widely adopted, the likely result would be the destruction of private schools, not the betterment of public schools.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Morning, Jeremy!
My concern with vouchers/private schools is that it gives government control over private schools since he who controls the money controls. Vouchers come with the same strings held by government. And now government gets to set terms and conditions in exchange for those vouchers. Voila – private schools become government schools.
With vouchers, parents don’t control the money. They have the illusion of control, via the voucher. Real control means being free to pay – or not pay – for something. Using real money that can be spent – or not – as the individual prefers.
“Vouchered” parents are still forced to pay; their only option is to pick the hand that picks their pockets – not whether their pockets will get picked.
I’ve never understood the position that A&B having kids imposes an obligation on C (who probably doesn’t even know A&B and certainly played no part in their decision to have sex) to provide funds for the education of A&B’s kids. This is of course taken as being “selfish” and anti-kids. No. It is merely opposition to being held responsible for the actions of others – and without limit. How many other-people’s-kids am I obligated to “help”? The answer is: As many as are produced. Thus the burden becomes more and more onerous such that a person who might want to have kids and take care of his kids can’t afford to take care of his kids because of the onerous burden of other people’s kids.
Hi Eric,
When I first started to consider myself a libertarian, I was influenced by Friedman (not the good one), Reason Mag, Cato and Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Pretty standard minarchist outlook. The superiority of vouchers just seemed obvious to me. I didn’t even know, that a group of much more radical thinkers out there who opposed the idea, even existed.
My confidence in the possibility that GovCo either could, or was interested in, doing anything that was genuinely directed toward the “common good” was pretty low, but I hadn’t yet followed the reluctant path to anarchy, so beautifully described by Joe Sobran.
http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml
I was still naive enough to believe that the obvious failures of GovCo policies were, at least in part, due to unintended consequences.
Long after I had abandoned that foolish and dangerous idea, Robert Higgs crystallized why it’s such a foolish and dangerous idea.
https://blog.independent.org/2013/09/13/all-government-policies-succeed-in-the-long-run/
No, I only knew of Liberals who opposed the idea. Some of whom were genuinely concerned about poor kids, but entirely ignorant of sound economics or skeptical political theory. Most were obviously influenced by an unacknowledged elitism. I remember discussing vouchers with a female acquaintance who was extremely opposed to the idea. But, you know the punchline, she had attended nothing but private schools, was just entering a private college and would eventually send her kids to private schools. I asked her why poor, but smart, kids didn’t deserve the same chances she did. She responded, perhaps correctly, that vouchers would destroy public schools and that this important institution must be maintained. Of course, not on her back.
Then, as is so common, along came Ron Paul. I followed him in 1988 and found him impressive but he never had a platform big enough to get into anything other than pretty standard libertarian fare (drug war, welfare/warfare, etc…). When he blew up the scene in 2002, a whole new world opened up: Rothbard, Spooner, Tucker, Herbert, DiLorenzo, Woods, etc… These people wrote and thought clearly and consistently. The Beltway libertarians were pretty squishy on some things and downright awful on others. Well, like so many others, there’s no going back for me.
“I’ve never understood the position that A&B having kids imposes an obligation on C”.
I think that the reason most people accept this is complex. First, GovCo knows that it must be viewed as legitimate. So they employ every means of propaganda available to them (public schools, court intellectuals, academics, professors and, of course, the media) to maintain the fiction that government is both necessary and good. Once that is accepted, it becomes easy to claim that, because everyone benefits, everyone must contribute, even if, in any particular case, certain individuals receive no benefit. You see, those who think so are simply wrong, as they receive the benefit of a stable and wealthy society, educated children/people, a functioning justice system, etc… All of which, the Statists insist, would disappear unless everyone contributes.
Second, the primary goal of pretty much all politicians is the acquisition, maintenance and expansion of power and control. A good method of doing this is to take over areas once considered the domain of social power and bring them in to the domain of State power. Child care, education, charity, etc… are all valued quite highly by people. All is needed is to claim that the private sector cannot provide these as well as the public sector and, voila, a massive transfer of social power to State power.
Third, poor political/justice theory coupled with poor economic theory created a seeming intellectual foundation for the transference of social power to State power. The most influential example of the first is “A Theory of Justice” by John Rawls. Which, in its simplest form, posits that public policy and political institutions should be formed around the assumption of what people would believe if they were in a state of ignorance regarding their financial and class position as well as ignorance of their relative ability compared to others. The most influential example of the latter is the growth of public goods and market failure theory in economics. Which argues that many “public goods” exist that cannot be provided adequately by the market. Thus, educating the poor, roads, lighthouses, environmental protection, national defense, publicly accessible parks, justice, etc… must be provided by the State. The fact that all of these “goods” have been provided by the market does nothing to diminish faith in this theory.
Cheers,
Jeremy
The only way to effectively and permanently help the poor is to innovate and compete and drive the market prices of anything you can imagine towards zero while increasing productivity with a stable currency related to productivity.
This way the lot of the poor is improved and they do not become dependents. They go out they work or don’t but can still afford the basics and many luxuries. The ones who have some sort of drive can then afford an education or the tools to start their own businesses or both.
Nothing else actually works sustainably.
Through most of our history the federal government took 3% of GDP. There were sharp increases during the Civil War and WW I but the rates reverted to 3%. Under Hoover the rates doubled. Under FDR rates multiplied. After WW II the rates stayed at about18%. We spend more than taxes received so rates are in the 20s.
During the years of low taxes the main sources of revenue were tariffs and property taxes. All taxes are destructive but these two had the advantage that these were relatively cheap to administer. Tariff agents can set up camp at ports. Once an area is mapped it is simple to calculate the size of properties and charge taxes in proportion to acreage. Income and sales taxes are much harder to administer and require an army of tax collectors.
Nobody wants to pay taxes but there is consensus that some governance is necessary. it should be much smaller than the present. We probably don’t need a radical anarchist revision. We have a successful past that could be repeated. America grew like crazy under the low tax regime.
Hi Patrick,
Government and governance are not the same thing. Anarchists, at least the an-cap, libertarian variety do not argue against governance, the argue that the idea that there needs to be a single, coercive, monopoly institution to provide governance, is false.
Governance is clearly valued by human beings and the vast majority of it arises naturally and mostly without force. The family, churches, charitable organizations, fraternal societies, etc… all provide governance. The government sees this natural governance to be a threat and thus co-opts or destroys many organizations that provide these services. We anarchists believe that government is hostile to voluntary governance at worst, and hinders it at best.
The health care crisis in America was solved over 100 years ago through Lodge practice. These voluntary societies contracted with up and coming doctors, as well as older doctors wanting to retire from full time practice but still wanting to help people. The coverage was extremely affordable and the care was comparable to to what the more conventional services provided. The conventional medical industry saw this as a threat and colluded with government to destroy it.
The first health care crisis in America was that it was becoming too affordable, through Lodge practice and thus had to be destroyed.
You can read the whole sordid story here.
http://www.freenation.org/a/f12l3.html
Cheers,
Jeremy
eric, I just saw a video by an ex-IRS agent and she said she finally read the entire code. Nowhere does it have the power in writing to take money from born citizens. But right now it sucks up $32M……per hour.
I tried to get a question answered back in 07 regarding a bidness. I didn’t get anything but bully talk and threats from two females who sounded as if they live on Massa’s plantation. They were both quite ugly, not a decent word came from their mouth and the last finally said “The only way you can get an answer to that question(and I’m sure this was her answer she’d been told to tell people)is to get audited. I finally gave up. Getting audited would have nothing to do with the question I was asking but she thought she’d scare me away. I was quite mad at that point and told her what I thought about her and her employer after I had pointed out she worked for me, I paid her salary. And that was the last straw for her causing her to use the “audit” threat. I never found out the answer since I didn’t have the money to pay for their civilian left hand, a very expensive thief called an “accountant” who will charge you $2-300 to speak to you for 60 seconds or less. What a racket.
I send my best friend $2,000 in December of last year since he had $3. He did make some money and probably made enough for my wife and I to live off every year but he was terrible handling it and was always broke.
Over 30 yeas ago he and I had just done a big deal it took us a lot of money to put together of which I contributed all of it. We both ended up with a quarter million each. In 3 months he was hitting me up for money. I gave him about $30K and not long after, he was broke again. I had invested what I had left and had none to send him.
I also offered to put him in a trailer here and support him but he couldn’t stand the thought of being in the middle of nowhere with no money. We had no more money to send so he died with nearly nothing. A house worth more if the house had been gone and the land was clean and bare. It was heartbreaking but he’d done it to himself.
To make matter worse, I lost my job last Monday, supposedly because of missing 2 days work. That was a bad joke and one he spoke of was months ago when he said I had to take my wife to the doctor. That was true and he should know how it is since his wife is in bad shape and he’s constantly taking her to the doctor.
Of course the real reason was his son wanted to lease my farm but I had already leased it to my cousin staying with a commitment I had made to him years ago. People do really petty stuff if they have any power over you. He’s the commissioner and I’m unemployed. And that is that. I knew when I leased the farm to my cousin this would eventually happen. It only took a month.
On the upside(I have to have one since I’ve been so sick), there’s about 100 wind generator about to be installed near me. I’m hoping they’ll need a truck driver or equipment operator and I’m sure they will. But now insurance companies are using age discrimination to thin the ranks of the employable.
I’m having a hard time getting employed too. Thankfully, I’m debt free; thankfully, I have a nest egg and live off the dividends, so I don’t NEED a job for survival. That said, I would like to earn extra money, meet new people, get out of the house more, and keep active learning new things.
I have bad knees, so anything involving standing is out of the question. I’ve done office work in the past, so I was applying for that again. I registered with a local staffing agency. I blew away the typing & data entry assessments, and I did well on the Excel test too. I could easily step in and work in any local office around here. Even so, I can’t get anything, either.
It would make sense that the insurance companies are, at least in part, behind the age discrimination. Why? Older people, as a rule, need more medical care, which requires money. Since all insurance companies would rather DIE than pay out anything, I reckon they encourage their client companies to hire younger workers. They don’t come out and SAY that, of course; they’re not that crude. I think that what they do is encourage age discrimination via premiums, which would be lower for companies having younger work forces. How will companies respond? By hiring younger people, of course. Oh, and as a side benefit, younger people are cheaper, so they save TWO ways…
Larkin Rose did a video series (clearly from the VHS days now on the interwebs) where he traced out the federal income tax’s laws, regulations, etc and how they morphed over time. It’s a slight of hand which doesn’t matter if you see the trick because it’s backed up with force.
Exactly Brent. And Larken spent a year in the can, because even though he proved his case against the IRS down to every jot and tittle of the law…..the judge still convinced the jury that they needed to convict him. Not that they likely would have needed convincing, as in the dog-eat-dog system of jealousy and envy Uncle’s chain oif tyranny fosters among the serfs, they would likely say “Who is he, that he thinks he can get out of paying his tasxes; the same taxes we have to pay?!” anyway.
Eric,
I’d rather skip the vouchers entirely. If you put your kid in school, you pay directly. If you put your kid in the local gov’t school, then pay the gov’t; if you put your kid in a private or parochial school, then pay them. I object to having pay the school tax regardless!
I don’t have kids, and at 57, I’m not going to have them. I don’t use the schools, so I shouldn’t have to pay for them. I shouldn’t have to pay for my neighbors’ kids, either. I didn’t have them, while they did. Why do I have to pay for other peoples’ kids?
Even if I had kids, say I put ’em in a private school, I’d not only have to pay the private school tuition for them; I’d still have to pay the school tax too! That’s right; I’d still have to pay for the local public school, even though I didn’t have my hypothetical kids there. How is that fair? Why should I pay for something I don’t use? Why do I pay for something I don’t want?
Agreed on all points, Mark – amen.
I like kids; surprisingly, I’m good with them.I help my friends’ kids as I am able to. But I do not feel a moral obligation to pay for the education of children I don’t even know. It’s a very weird concept.
The first step is to abolished the US Department of Education…I see NOTHING in the Constitution that authorizes the Congress to levy taxes or distribute monies for educational purposes, even to “guarantee” student loans. The Ninth and Tenth Amendment ALREADY covered the subject of “edu-ma-ca-shun”, as with so many others, i.e., the enumeration of specific rights did not disparage other rights of the several states or the people, and all authority not specifically authorized to the US Government is reserved for the states, or the PEOPLE. This alone renders the “issue” of education on a state-by-state basis. Once THAT is done, THEN we can actually DO something on a state-by-state basis to chop down these vampirical educational bureaucracies. Mere pontificating about how education ought to be entirely a private matter is a waste of time unless the head of the monster is chopped off, and damned quick!
“I see NOTHING in the Constitution that authorizes the Congress to levy taxes or distribute monies for educational purposes, even to “guarantee” student loans.”
100% correct, however that ship sailed a long time ago. Are any of the federal agencies constitutional? Maybe the State Department. I don’t think many of them would pass constitutional muster if that document actually meant anything at this point.
Remember, the federal constitution represents a counter-revolution by people wanted a strong, “vigorous” central government. We are living Alexander Hamilton’s vision of the way things should be.
Constitutional federal agencies (3): State, Defense, Treasury.
Number of federal agencies: 450
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies
Hi libertyx,
Yup. Of course, the Constitution is a kind of totem pole – a relic of a dead religion no one takes seriously. It became not much more than “a goddamn piece of paper,” as The Chimp put it, for many reasons but I consider that one of the main reasons it became so was because it was meant to become so.
The Wigged Dead White Men were not stupid men. They were exceptionally literate, precise men. Yet they put up this startlingly vague document, which was open to “interpretation” from the day it was ratified. That should never have happened – and the fact that it was allowed to happen indicates to me it was intended to happen.
It just got out of hand. Of course, that was just as inevitable.
Yep, second extortion due by first of December in my county. What makes me nervous is that every time our county supervisors have their meetings, I have the feeling that they are plotting and scheming to implement a new tax or jacking up current ones. I was reminded that the real estate assessors have been the prowl this year. Result being grab your ankles harder!
Boomers poured the most money into SS. There was a two trillion dollar surplus which was robbed by the Clintons in the 90s so he could claim balancing the budget. I never complained about it as I did not mind helping the elderly knowing how the “family” unit no longer existed in the US like it did in the early 1900s. But then they started expanding it. When I went to the local SS office, (By law you have to sign up when you turn 65), well over 98% were under 40.
Another area is “the children”. Living in Texas A woman living down the road was collecting over two grand a month when the father of her 4 children died in a accident. And this was in the 80s when the dollar purchased 3-4 times what it does today.
I know several families where grandparents adopted their grand children solely to obtain SS / Medicaid benefits. That said I know several “Grandma’s” that would starve to death without their pension.
Oh, how I hate it today when young folks tell me I am a leach on the system when I too paid the same for 55 years which amounted to around three hundred thousand dollars,,, much of that in far stronger dollars then today.
These programs, and others were achievable when we had a real producing economy. That economy was sent to foreign countries for wage arbitrage allowing for huge corporate bonuses and payoffs to the share holders and the blame put on the entire boomer generation. This was all done with the blessing of the US government mainly to keep monetary inflation down. As a note I voted for small government republicans all my life until I finally figured out it was useless. They don’t give a hoot about the nation. It’s all wealth and power.
So today they are devaluing our dollars 100% every ten years, (unless you believe their 2% inflation BS), we are in multitudes of conflicts with a thousand military bases around the world. The military / intelligence complex takes well over half the budget,,, on and off books with almost a million illegals coming in each year.
The nation is toast…..
Hi Ken,
I would happily sign a waiver forfeiting any future “benefits” in exchange for being exempted from this day forward from being forced to hand over 15 percent (I am self-employed) of every dollar I earn (in addition to all the other taxes) …
Mind: I’ve been “paying in” since I was a teenager in the ’80s. So I have paid in a great deal. Rather, a great deal has been stolen from me – as I never consented to any of this.
There’s an old country song I like, which embodies my general attitude:
“I don’t want nothing from nobody, if I can’t get it on my own. If you don’t like the way I’m living, just leave this omg-haired county by alone.”
Of course, the sons-of-bitches won’t just leave me alone. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Eric, You’re right of course. I too would have rather save money for the day when I would no longer be able to provide for myself. At the time I would have received a generous interest rate but what about today? One would have to save 3 to 4 times the dollars to cover for the inflation they are deliberately causing. If it requires a minimum of $20,000 to live a quiet retired life today, it will cost $80,000 in 40 years. How does one save for that with ZIRP and NIRP today?
Using my situation, I still am paying the same in skrool and property extortion taxes as I was when working. I am paying $500 per month for Medicare insurance ($130 per month) and for my wife who is younger not on Medicare. That that takes a good chunk out of SS benefits.
I agree one’s consent would be nice BUT consent is given every time you vote,,, at least that’s how ‘They’ see it. I have to remind the younger gens that boomers did not create the SS system. Medicare yes,,, but during a time when the costs were reasonable, not the insanity we see today.
In closing I’d like to point out we all pay 15%. If employed the employer pays half which obviously reduces what they offer in wages. Corporations and business pay zero taxes as they simply add it to their costs and the customer or employee pays.
And hell of it is…contract? What contract? There AIN’T no STEEKIN’ Contract! Legally, Social (In)Security taxes are just that, TAX obligations, and like any other taxes, they’re collected by the (duped) payors, and doled out to the “beneficiaries”, with a cut for all the bureaucrats and contracted leeches. Methinks even the fictional Tony Soprano takes less for his dubious “protection”. This is a huge reason why the Federal deficit has ballooned irreparably…when the Social Security taxes exceeded the monies paid out, the “profit” was used to purchase more Government bonds, with the interest going to the Federal Reserve Bank, rather than RETIRE any outstanding Government bonds! This, of course, allowed other spending to spiral out of control. As the boomers, of which I’m bringing up the rear, hit retirement like a W88 warhead, launched from the USS Tennessee (SSBN-734), about to hit the Russian Naval facilities at Kaliningrad (formerly Konigsberg, Germany) with a 475 kT(nominal rating, most estimate the actual maximum yield is 750 kT). When we get visited by the calamity that hits with the economic collapse of the United States, the effects of a Russian retaliatory nuclear strike will seem preferable!
Social Security was a swindle from its inception.
https://constitution.org/tax/us-ic/schiff/ss_swindle.pdf
For eighteen years I worked hard and lived in dumps, saving money to buy property. Finally got it done. The property taxes weren’t horrible. That changed, rather rapidly. I now pay more in property taxes than I ever did in renting those dumps. Not surprised by the social disconnect the nation is experiencing. We can’t afford to help each other, and those who need help feel entitled to it. So, we lose both charity and gratitude.
Hi JWK,
Yup. It baffles me that people don’t object more to property taxes, which are even worse than income taxes, in my view because they make the concept of owning anything a laughingstock and thereby eliminate the possibility of ever being truly free.
They don’t object because, unless they’ve paid off their mortgage, the property taxes are folded in to the mortgage payment. All folks know is that they have to pay X dollars every month, and they don’t really think about it. It’s only after they pay off the mortgage that the tax bill becomes obvious. Why? Because they’re now paying it DIRECTLY; they’re not sending the money to the mortgage company, who in turn pays the taxes.
Hi Mark,
Yes, absolutely. I’m not sure what the percentage of people with paid-off homes is – but my bet is it’s less than 25 percent of all “homeowners.”
This “homeownership” also hides the cost of insurance – another way people are impoverished by keeping them in debt.
I have railed about this, as you know, many times. The total sum paid by the average person for “coverage” each year – home, health, car, life – is out of all proportion to the benefit most people will ever realize. It is very hard to accumulate savings when you’re spending $10k or more annually for “coverage.”
Meanwhile, if people just put that money aside, they’d have plenty of money for almost anything that did go awry. And if it didn’t go awry, they’d have all that money…
It wasn’t always like this. I can remember a time when Americans weren’t so got-damned risk-neurotic and felt they had to be “covered” for practically every potential thing, no matter how unlikely.
Eric – it has ALWAYS “cost” to be a land-holder. In Medieval times, only the “nobility” usually owned any land, and not all of them, necessarily..for example, the English King, John the First (which, as the 1973 Disney Robin Hood cartoon mockingly joked, was sure to be known as “John the WORST”) was also mockingly called John Lackland, because, well…he LACKED any land, or more properly, his father, Henry II (aka “Curtmantle”), refused him any estates in order to spite his mother, Elanor of Aquitaine. The entire system of feudalism was necessary in order to derive economic benefit from the lands, the serfs exchanging (not quite “voluntarily”, but the Lord of the Manor did have an interest in their prosperity) their labor for what they were allowed to keep for themselves, the Lord, of course, was obligated to protect them, and knights, squires, and pages didn’t come cheap (and, of course, the Lord’s concubines didn’t put out simply b/c their “Leige” tickled their ‘fancy’!).
In theory, your taxes go for police and fire “protection”, but again, it seems that Tony Soprano would make a cheaper and more forthright deal without all the pontificating. As for the police, it turns out that often it’s we whom need “protection” from those whom ostensibly ARE our “protectors”…but isn’t that how it’s usually worked out in all history?
“Finally, Wang Lung returns to the earthen house of his land to die. Material prosperity has brought him superficial social satisfaction, but only his land can provide peace and security. Even his final days are troubled, when he overhears his two older sons planning to sell the land as soon as he dies.”
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1900_earth.htm#summary
We had to read “The Good Earth” in high school. Actually had to read 1984 and Brave New World too. In high school. In the mid 1980s. DK what kids have to read today but I’ll bet nothing as anti-state or anti-pop culture as this stuff.
I attended in the late 2000s. I was fortunate enough to have 1984, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451 as assigned reading. Reading those books and exposure to this website during those years really helped me avoid being a complete mindless drone like so many out there. Looks like there is someone out there with enough influence to keep these types of books in the curriculum. A pleasant surprise.
The D.E.N.N.I.S system on Always sunny in philadelphia. One of the N’s is ‘nurture dependency”. He does it by calling a girl – disguising his voice – and threatening to kill her. Dennis would have been a fine politician.
You sound a bit like the Tao Te Ching, chapter 75:
The people’s hunger is due to the excess of their ruler’s taxation
So they starve
The people’s difficulty in being governed
Is due to the meddling of their ruler
So they are difficult to govern
Those are kind words, Charles – thank you!
It’s such a tragic thing. I believe most people are good people and would happily step in to help those in their circle who needed occasional help – when that help was legitimately needed – if they could do so without also imperiling themselves.
The whole rotten system is to designed to keep us nervous and at one another’s throats.. so that we forget to choke the sources of our problems…
Or our Masters foist upon us “entertainment”, pornography and other garbage, so we become preoccupied with CHOKING our respective “chickens”!