Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway2016a | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2016a

> It's perfectly valid if I'm having the argument with someone who wants to pay zero taxes, but is fine using the roads currently in place.

I would find it hard to find that person even if I went to a gathering of Libertarians.

Being anti-income tax is different than being anti-tax.

Many Libertarian's are OK with (in one form or another):

- Luxury sales and use tax (not on necessities like food and basic clothing)

- Toll roads

- Property tax

- Local income tax

With property tax being a little less common (although I am personally OK with it) because a lot of people will argue that if you have to pay taxes on it you don't really own it.

Then again... I take that back... I WOULD be able to find that person at a gathering of libertarians but my personal experience is that he would be in the minority.

Edit: to add to the lats sentence, perhaps a very loud vocal minority.

View on HN

You don't own the land you own, even if you bought it. You are paying the zombie tax. Which is to say the population is growing too fast, there isn't enough land, and if there weren't regulations humans would kill you and steal your land and eat your corpse because humans are animals.

So you pay a tax, that tax supports a system we call "society", which kills or controls the masses who would otherwise murder you and take everything you think you own.

I call it the zombie tax because the best way to imagine the alternative would be the unstoppable hordes of zombies we see in hollywood films.

Note: I said I personally agree with property tax. I think it is vital to pay for the roads and other critical services homeowners get from the local municipality. I didn't take a stance on whether or not you actual own your real-estate.

If we accept the Zombie Tax premise, then we don't own anything.

Well if you really want to get into the philosophy of this, it is important to first acknowledge that concepts like "society", or "property" are completely fictional, made-up ideas, that people simply invented.

It's not that different from kids playing pretend in their parent's basement, inventing any rules they want for their game. They can do whatever they want, because there isn't anyone else around to tell them differently.

A lot, I mean a _lot_ of people do not often think about this fact, they sort of assume that these concepts were handed down by some impossible deity (god is not real.) But the truth is they emerged from intelligent self-aware people who for various reasons simply decided that these things should exist.

So with that in mind, if property is make-believe, how can you "own" something? What precisely is ownership? Just more make-believe, using different words.

If it exists at all, it's a social contract, and when it's you versus everyone else, hate to break it to you but it means nothing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com