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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

> After appeals were settled, a total of 95 residents received ballots. Ninety percent of them needed to approve the move for it to pass. That’s 86 votes. They got 85.

Seems kind of daft to make it all-or-nothing AND set such a high bar. Why weren't the 85 residents who wanted to leave allowed to participate on their own, taking the money and leaving those 10 trolls behind to enjoy living in Nowheresville?

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If the point of the scheme is that the government wants to stop providing services to Nowheresville, then they basically have four options:

1. status quo

2. pay 85 people to relocate, keep paying to provide services for 10 people

3. pay 95 people to relocate; 10 of them really strongly do not want to relocate, but force them to do so anyway

4. pay 85 people to relocate, leave ten people to the wolves

None of these are very appealing.

What about stopping the services as well a stop taxing them? Then if it is viable they can stay.

I wish there was ANY government willing to do that in the entire world.

Most governments won't ever do that, because it effectively means allowing a independent nation in their lands.

For example: I am from Brazil, and I am most certainly paying in taxes much more than I get in services, police is unreliable (even simple calls to emergency number because I saw shady shit, never worked, sometimes it didn't even connected at all), fire department is also unreliable (more than once they REFUSED to come, and I had to figure on my own how to handle a fire, once this resulted in half of the trees in my yard getting killed after some asshole made a huge debris bonfire on a empty area outside my house), my family purcahsed our own telephone cables and lines (literally), we purchased our own asphalt, we rely on private security, I was 100% privately educated, my health insurance is "private" (it is a private business owned by the Roman Catholic Church), electricity belongs to a private company, our military suck (in fact, I wasn't allowed to join the military when I signed up when I was 18, with the official stated reason being: Lack of money to purchase basic training equipment).

So... what I am paying my taxes for? Taxes in Brazil are about 38% of someone income, on average (I actually pay more than that, according to my calculations my family pays about 60% of our income in taxes).

I would gadly move to a place with no public services + no taxes, to me this would be 100% profit, since right now I have no public services but still pay taxes.

I hear you. Panama and Belize are poor man's tax havens if you can work remotely with a foreign source of income. I live in Panama. I haven't seen a homeless person since leaving SF.

Err .. if you have foreign employment income in the US, you will be taxed at the source, no?

You need to be a contractor, not an employee, then a lawyer can sort it out so you're all good.

Not paying taxes does not mean an independent nation. The purpose of a government is not to collect taxes, it is to provide services the people need, want and are willing to pay for (all 3 conditions). The taxes are supposed to cover for these services, not whatever politicians want or what the neighbors vote for.

That's the tricky part though, it would be the provincial government that's cutting all services and leaving them to the wolves. The federal government has nothing to do with this and thus will still expect the federal taxes to be paid in full.

From the viewpoint of the residents it will be a 25% tax cut (ballpark estimate) in exchange for the stoppage of all essential services, hardly a fair deal.

That would be tricky. I think fairness depends on the value for money - it's possible that they don't need as many services that are being provided with. It's also possible they could provide for themselves cheaper - perhaps with a few lifestyle changes. In anycase it would be up to them to decide what to do. I understand that it's not a politically viable solution but I wanted to add to the list of options the idea that perhaps there is no need to force them to buy government services or force other taxpayers to bail them out.

It also sounds like the federal government is spending money to support the area - instead of spending taxpayers money on growth (churn) perhaps a rebate on their federal tax as well.

One of the main service provided to the village in the article is a ferry with a subsidized rate since it's on an island. Without ferry, there's not going to be a village.

If the village cannot survive without taxes and without a subsidized ferry then I think the answer is clearly to allow the village to disband. You'd no longer need to force other canadian taxpayers to subsidise island residences lifestyles.

Could the down-voters at least tell me why? Thx

The explanation is simple: Canada is socialist. As Margaret Thatcher said, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.". The problem with Canadians is that they don't like to run out of money to support their socialism, so even suggesting to consider giving up to taxes is worse than blasphemy, it's counter-revolution.

Canada is in no way a socialist country. Perhaps the term you're looking for is "social democracy".

Tomato, tomato. Living in a former communist country that was calling itself "socialist" you can call Canada any way you want, it is socialist. I am not saying communist, that's your "democracy" difference between the two.

That's not how Canada works. We're way to the left of the US. Furthermore, that's outside the power of the provincial government to do.

I understand that it's not politically viable. But I don't think that disqualifies it from a suggestion worth exploring. Politics can change, especially when the money starts running out.

Ack! I wish our political system were so flexible as to permit this sort of exploration!

It is within the power of a province to credit 100% of provincial taxes back, although I wouldn't want to try that if I was governing a "have not" province, especially if part of the deal was cutting essential services subsidized by transfer payments.

yea, right!:) that would create a dangerous precedent, when people may suddenly realize that they can organize their life perfectly well without any government. that reminds me an episode during government shutdown in US a few years ago. local services stopped cutting grass in one of the war memorials. so some veteran brought his own lawn mower and started cutting the grass. the cops showed up! they were very angry and threw the veteran out. instinctively they understood that the illusion that government is indispensable, should be maintained at all cost.

The government in a broad sense is actually any form of political structure that governs a society. When some people secede and do their own laundry, unless you assume for their new society to live in harmony without any form of political structure (anarchy), then there you have got a new government!

____________

P.S.: I haven't downvoted you.

right, but i was obviously talking about government in a less broad sense - as an entity that uses force to coerce public into submission. which is what any self-respecting government is.

please, do not confuse anarchy with absence of political structure. if people invent a structure and voluntarily agree to follow its rules, this is anarchy (in fact this is the definition of 'anarchy'). when some group within the people invents a structure and forces others to comply with it, this is government. unfortunately the term 'anarchy' has been abused and its original meaning has been long lost.

P.S.: thank you for not down-voting, but rather explaining your point of view.

If #4 was actually the option on the table, then perhaps the nay-sayers would have changed their mind, and all would have opted to leave.

It sounds like the option of leaving 9 people to the wolves was on the table; but they didn't want to leave 10 people to the wolves.

Most likely it would be legally difficult for the government to shut off services to the area if any residents remained.

What exactly are those services? There is no public education, no fire department, there is probably nothing, but they cannot just recognize "we give you nothing but we want you to pay taxes, so move somewhere else where we can give you something so you continue to pay up". It's a tax game, not a service game.

Ferry service

Lol, since when transportation is a social service? Is there any common sense left in Canada or socialism ate it all? What is NOT a social service in Canada, providing drugs and booze for the wealthy?

Building a road to my town, even if few people live there is a standard thing that taxes pay for. I'm pretty sure there is not enough traffic for regular ferry service there, yet the govt keeps running it. Maybe they reduce it in the winter, but its there. That island would probably hardly have anyone there if there wasn't regular ferry service.

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