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Comment by dv_dt | Hacker News Reader

I guess I don't know about your town, but if you attended a local city meetings where I live, you'd see the many things that get handled by the city.

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I definitely acknowledge a bias and a blindspot on my part.

In my suburban town, the taxes mostly go towards teacher and police salaries. Not much go towards plowing, or etc.

I'm only here because my job is here. If I was able to work remotely, I would move to a patch of desert in Arizona where property taxes are like $200 a year, not $10,000 haha.

It's mostly a case of me not requiring these services. The only government service I've ever willingly used is unemployment insurance, which, I'd rather just not pay income tax instead like they do in New Hampshire.

I'm surprised to hear that you don't think you benefit from spending on education and police. Would you care to elaborate on those viewpoints?

From my perspective, it seems obvious that education is one of the best investments you can make in society, whether or not you have children. After all, it won't be long until those kids are running for office, managing corporations, etc etc. So it affects us all.

I would dare to say that good education at an affordable price would exist in a society that doesn't use tax money to fund it. It definitely depends on population density though.

There are towns and counties in the US that have absolutely no services whatsoever, and no crime occurs there. This is because they are not densely populated at all. Sure there are no jobs and nothing fun to do at night, but they are quiet and peaceful, and property taxes are quite literally $200 a year or less. Think of the desert of Arizona or New Mexico.

Then you have your mid-tier towns and counties that have taxes of maybe $1,000 - $3,000 a year, theres some crime, some jobs, overall not a bad place to live for the price still. Think of South Carolina, Vermont, etc.

And then you have your ridiculously overpriced, dense suburbs and cities. Long Island and New Jersey come to mind, where taxes on nearly any kind of house are $10,000 and up. It's not necessarily easy to find a good job to pay the mortgage, and you're paying those taxes whether you have kids in school or not.

I'll take South Carolina or Arizona, please. My gf and I just simply don't want kids and aren't afraid to live without services.

So if your house caught fire you'd tell the fire dept to fuck off and let it burn?

Don't own a house to have one burn down on me.

Private fire services would be a thing in a governmentless society

Why should I be forced to pay someones salary?

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