Hong Kong Backs Down on ‘Moral Education’ Plan | Hacker News Reader

Hong Kong Backs Down on ‘Moral Education’ Plan

nytimes.com

56 pointsdaegloe39 comments

I am a 16 year old, locally schooled Hong Kong resident.

The rash implementation of Moral and National Education is but another attempt by the Central Government in the grand scheme of things to assimilate Hong Kong. Although the protest will probably succeed in stalling it, given its massive public inertia , such victory is short-lived.

China will reclaim Hong Kong, no matter how vehement we protest . Deng Xiaoping's 'One Country, Two Systems' is the sole reason why Hong Kong has been allowed to escape the fate of its neighbouring provinces, and evolve into what it is now.

According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of HKSAR reads: 'The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.'

28 years has passed. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already demonstrated that it will not lie dormant until then.

Consider the 2012 Legislative Council Election, which is to be held tomorrow. It introduces the new system of 'Super Seats', where elected 'Super' district councillors' votes will count twice as much as their 'ordinary' colleagues. Thanks to CPC, pro-establishment district councillors' are likely to be voted in, and thus fulfill their function as pawns of the Hong Kong government in the legislative council, passing whatever law CPC desires.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1030842/electile-d...

For the past decades, Hong Kong has never been a true democracy. I fear my generation will fare worse.

Excerpts from linked article:

'The [Hong Kong political] system ensures that every government-led initiative -- which otherwise would have been killed by democratically elected lawmakers in a separate vote count -- sails through the Legco without a hitch. As a result, our legislative and executive branches always march in lock steps. How is that for a separation of powers?'

(How functional constituencies hinder the city’s path to full democracy:)

'Functional constituencies are the reason why taxpayers are forking out HK$67 billion for 26 kilometers of wasteful express railway, why the investigation of C.Y. Leung’s conflicts of interest in the West Kowloon bid was dropped, and why the government is sitting on trillions of foreign reserves and we still don’t have a social security plan.'

Not sure which 28 years you are referring to, but the handover was in 1997 and the 15 year anniversary has just been celebrated in July.

35 more years to go before Hong Kong becomes another Chinese province (or not if China decides that this 2-system thing works well for their interests), but I'm also worried about the direction taken by China and its obvious hand in trying to shape Hong Kong politics to its liking.

I'm still hopeful in that in Hong Kong, pragmatism usually prevail and even if schools were force-fed such propaganda it's dubious that it would have much of a real impact, given that information is still free in HK and people know better.

I will be very worried when censorship or monitoring laws start to pass through the legislature.

True democracy will never be achieved in Hong Kong, there will always be intense supervision by China.

It's fairly obvious that many aspects of the freedoms we currently enjoy in Hong Kong will be under siege over the next 35 years.

probably a reference to the agreement signed in 1984 by Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping

For a 16yrs old locally schooled HK student your English amazed me.

Foreigners can think of this as "real-life SOPA", where not your speech, nor your online activities, but your moral values are being manipulated by what is being thought by others as "your own country".

> what is being thought by others as "your own country".

Are you Hongkongese? I live in HK now (American) and am curious to hear your take on this and China's exertion of authority over HK in general.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hong_Kong_Bas...

The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.

This is clearly not happening. Socialistic ideology has crept up all around, and we have lost hope in restoring this city we once called home.

Even in Taiwan, which is still a de-facto country and not even a SAR, the media influence of the PRC is frightening. Just a few days ago, there were protests against a (pro-PRC) media monopoly:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/09/02/20...

...but I doubt it'll help. At least I don't have to feel bad for the Taiwanese majority because they get what they've voted for.

Biased television and newspaper media.

government passing draconian copyright laws.

moral national education.

functional constituencies.

corrupt heads of state. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f5055f20-628b-11e1-872e-00144... (accepting free private jet flights but only paying economy fares for them.)

the candidate with most votes from the people have the least from representatives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Chief_Executive_elect...

chinese influence on majority shareholders of radio stations; this one in particular is closing next month or so: http://www.dbc.hk, one of the major shareholders was even quoted saying "CCP wants to shut you down" (in chinese). http://www.scmp.com/article/1014470/politics-play-dbc-radios... (scmp is one of the most pro-beijing newspapers in hk, but I couldn't find any other article in english; yes I was surprised to find this there, no the quote isn't in the article.)

more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Beijing_camp (the most funded political party is the DAB, which is pro-beijing.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_legislative_election,...

In Hong Kong, even though pro-democracy party has more votes than pro-beijing parties, they have less seats.

Oh and just as a coincidence, today is election day in Hong Kong, tell your friends to vote!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19533116

http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/8sep2012

Live stream of protest outside government headquarters in Hong Kong.

I was educated in Japan, and we did (and still do) have the moral education as one of the subjects in the elementary school. I never thought anything of it until now, but I can easily see that such a subject would be highly controversial in the US or in Hong Kong.

Just FYI, Wwat they teach you in that subject is more or less common sense stuff (apologize if you wronged someone, protect elders and smaller children, be nice to your friends, and so on), and the separation of state and church should still serve as a safe guard against introduction of any religious/politiacal topics. So it's not like you get indoctroinated, but then again, I'm not sure if I trust some states in the US to maintain that separation properly...

>So it's not like you get indoctroinated, but then again, I'm not sure if I trust some states in the US to maintain that separation properly

I'm not really sure what this article has to do with the US, but what you're talking about is not up to individual states in the long run.

>separation of state and church should still serve as a safe guard against introduction of any religious/politiacal topics.

How does separation of church and state prevent the introduction of political topics?

> Wwat they teach you in that subject is more or less common sense stuff

Most schools in the US have at least something similar, but how does that matter at all? Just because the US and Japan have something that could be called "moral education", it doesn't mean that something called "moral education" in Hong Kong would be similar.

No, the article has nothing to do with the US. It's just that it got me thinking because I live in the US, that's all. Wherever you live, you take certain things for granted. Being an immigrant, I've been interested in finding things that I took for granted, and this article helped me find one, that is the moral education as a teaching subject in school.

And you are right, I take back the "political topics" part.

I also didn't know that "most schools in the US have something similar." This is from a parent of a 2nd grader in California --- I guess I better pay more attention on what my kid is learning, eh? What is this subject called in the US? I'd love to find out more about what that teaches and what that doesn't.

Wrt "not up to individual states", my understanding is that the states are responsible for the K-12 education curriculum, and so if there's moral education in K-12, I'd assume the state education board controls what goes in there. Am I wrong on this?

> my understanding is that the states are responsible for the K-12 education curriculum, and so if there's moral education in K-12, I'd assume the state education board controls what goes in there. Am I wrong on this?

Separation of church and state is a Constitutional matter, and therefore enforced by the federal government. Individual states don't get a say. If they refuse, the federal government will seize control.

This is what happened with racial desegregation of schools. After the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that "separate but equal" was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to physically block black students from entering the white school (which had already admitted them). President Eisenhower sent in Army troops and federalized the Arkansas National Guard, overriding Faubus's authority.

"Separation of church and state" is absolutely not a Constitutional matter. That phrase comes from a letter written by, IIRC, Thomas Jefferson.

The constitution says "Congress shall make no law concerning an establishment of religion..." and that's all. It has, or should have, no bearing at all on the actions of state legislatures; if I recall correctly, at least one state still had an official church at the time the Constitution was ratified.

Furthermore, it has essentially nothing to do with the Fourteenth amendment, except maybe a few idiots who tried to use religion to justify racism.

> The constitution says "Congress shall make no law concerning an establishment of religion..." and that's all. It has, or should have, no bearing at all on the actions of state legislatures

The Constitution does not explicitly state it, but the Supreme Court has a long history of rulings interpreting that part of the Constitution which have explicitly dealt with it, going back to the 1800s. Those cases include Reynolds v. U.S., Everson v. Board of Education, Engel v. Vitale, Epperson v. Arkansas, and Lemon v. Kurtzman. In a common law system, as that used in the US, these rulings have the force of law. As they were Supreme Court rulings, they apply to the entire country and overrule any state laws.

> Furthermore, it has essentially nothing to do with the Fourteenth amendment, except maybe a few idiots who tried to use religion to justify racism.

Read what I wrote again. I wasn't suggesting any connection between separation of church and state and the Fourteenth Amendment. I was merely giving an example of when the federal government directly intervened in the public school system and overrode state authority in order to enforce federal laws and judicial rulings.

  > It has, or should have, no bearing at all on the 
  > actions of state legislatures;

Almost all of the Bill of Rights, including Amendment I, have been held by courts to be "incorporated" against the states as a consequence of Amendment XIV.[1].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Ri...

>What is this subject called in the US? I'd love to find out more about what that teaches and what that doesn't.

It's not a specific subject, but usually something built into the overall curriculum. It's generally called character education: here's the relevant link for CA http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/se/charactered.asp

Here's the relevant link for my state (Georgia). https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/GPS%20Support%20D...

>Wrt "not up to individual states", my understanding is that the states are responsible for the K-12 education curriculum, and so if there's moral education in K-12, I'd assume the state education board controls what goes in there. Am I wrong on this?

You are correct. However, if a state does something that clearly violates the Constitution, e.g. a state promoting a specific religion, it would eventually end up before the supreme court.

Thanks. These are interesting (and the difference between Georgia and California is far greater than I would have thought.)

If anyone is interested, http://www.hi-ho.ne.jp/taku77/papers/thes595.htm provides a reasonably comprehensive but short enough coverage of what the moral education subject looks like in Japan.

The full name of the subject is "moral and national education", emphasis on the "national" bit. The NYT headline has since been corrected.

It's funny, if it weren't for the "Hong Kong" in the title, I would have automatically thought this was about the US christian right trying to indoctrinate kids. Instead, it's the PRoC/HK government.

Of course, the Left would never use the educational system to indoctrinate kids. In fact, I hear that public education is a bastion of conservatism and that most teachers vote Republican (or worse).

I never said that the left-wing wouldn't try to do such a thing. (in fact, the far-left routinely do, such as in the OP ;)

  Faced with tens of thousands of protesters contending that a Beijing-backed 
  plan for “moral and national education” amounted to brainwashing and political
  indoctrination...

Do you find yourself reflexively siding with the protesters? Perhaps you have been exposed to some "brainwashing and political indoctrination" of your own, by none other than official American (or other Western) public education.

Not really. For large amounts of people to get worked up enough about a proposed government policy to bother protesting in public, it usually means the proposed policy is really bad. People don't get off their butts otherwise.

Good government policy involves enough stakeholders, and propose reasonable enough solutions, that there's no reason for protests. So while certainly not every large protest is 100% right, they usually do indicate a breakdown of effective processes for representative government, as applied to the policy area in question.

Your response is a case in point. Your views on "stakeholders", your belief in "representative democracy", and your faith in the wisdom of the People are fully in line with the progressive orthodoxy that is the bedrock of Western public education. That doesn't necessarily make your views wrong, but it's unlikely that you were reasoned into them from a blank slate. It's more likely you came to them after a lifetime of exposure to a press and public educational system that almost uniformly espouses such views.

As a thought experiment, consider what a hoplite educated in a Spartan agoge would think of your views. What about an aristocrat educated in Antonine Rome, or in France under Louis XIV? Would they share your sanguine views on the wisdom of the People? If not, why not? How confident are you that you are right and they are wrong, and what is the basis of that confidence?

None of this is a defense of current Chinese government policy. My point is that using official education for brainwashing and political indoctrination is par for the course in a country founded on the principle of popular sovereignty. One consequence of this is that virtually every educated Westerner, including most readers of Hacker News and the New York Times, has been exposed to the same sort of brainwashing and political indoctrination decried by the protesters in the OP. One effect of this is a reflexive support of popular movements of all sorts without an appreciation of the potential costs of that support.

Louis XIV might even have been sanguine, but his descendant Louis XVI would know what I mean.

You are fighting a losing battle here I think but it is a reasonable question. In political studies folks often use economic success as a proxy for evaluating the quality of governance, by that analysis the US system would score highly. and African feudalism would score poorly. However such discussions are fraught with conditions, such as what are the natural resources available? What are the hindrances? China makes an interesting case because its economic growth under strict communism (Mao's model) was quite poor, whereas its economic growth under a more capitalist system (Den Xioping's model) has done much better. But its also perfectly valid to wonder if economics is a good proxy. What about life expectancy? happiness ? hunger?

Ultimately though you are going to run into debating philosophy and that makes for wonderful rhetoric but few conclusions.

Aren't all those other factors pretty strongly correlated with economic success? "Happiness" is obviously slippery and hard to measure, but to the extent it's not dependent on the individual's choices, it depends a lot on physical/emotional/economic comfort. And money works pretty well for getting medicine and food.

Yes, they correlate, although the causal linkages are subject to debate. It is is also one of tenets of American politics sort of "If you're so good how come the economy has tanked while you were driving?" this encompasses both the evaluation criteria and the assumption of causality.

Marcus Aurelius once remarked that "the object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

>Not really. For large amounts of people to get worked up enough about a proposed government policy to bother protesting in public, it usually means the proposed policy is really bad. People don't get off their butts otherwise.

The "large amounts" can be a figure media put out of their asses.

Take Putin, as a case in point. He has the majority vote by a large margin, the common people love him, but in western media he is portrayed as a dictator.

E.g they take some pro-westernization demonstrations of 10,000 people and blow them out of all proportions. The equivalent would be to use the "Occupy Wall Street" footage as proof that the majority of Americans are against their leadership and the country is a dictatorship.

It doesn't hurt that the minority of Russians that americans find closer to them and their views are anti-Putin. For them, those people (bloggers, tech-geeks, young westernised people etc) represent what most Russians want, when in reality they represent a small minority.

Perhaps you have been exposed to some "brainwashing and political indoctrination" of your own

Speak for yourself. Have you ever been to Hong Kong? Do you speak Chinese? I have been following the news on political and educational developments in Hong Kong since the 1970s, when I began my study of (standard) Chinese and Cantonese, and have especially followed news from Hong Kong from multiple sources since the first time I traveled to Hong Kong in 1982. People in Hong Kong have a legitimate, grave concern that the central government of the P.R.C. will restrict the freedom of people living in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. One of the reasons that few people in Taiwan support "reunification" on P.R.C. terms is that many people in Taiwan are well traveled in the P.R.C. proper and in Hong Kong, and know that they enjoy more freedom under their independent government.

As Confucius said, in one of his most famous take-downs, "始吾於人也、聽其言而信其行、今吾於人也、聽其言而觀其行。At first in dealing with people, I would hear their words and trust their deeds, but now my way of dealing with people is to hear their words and observe their deeds." Maybe the P.R.C. regime mostly has benign intentions toward Hong Kong, which is part of its national territory since retrocession from Britain in 1997. But retrocession has not been all upside for the people of Hong Kong, and they ought to be the people who decide what policy trade-offs they desire to live under. Action speaks louder than words, and people close to the action speak more persuasively to me than armchair observers in the United States.

AFTER EDIT: Responding to the kind reply, I have to strenuously disagree that what goes on in the United States, where most but not all primary schools are operated by (local units of) the government, and where government officials from time to time issue press releases to a free press with no prior restraint on publication, is in any way comparable to the situation in China, where all primary schools are tightly regulated by the national central government, there is no free press and much prior restraint of all publications, and where the ruling party has never subjected itself to the discipline of free and fair elections.

The term "brainwashing" originated in Chinese ("洗脑") and was used without irony by Communist Party of China political cadres in the leadership echelons of the Chinese armed forces fighting in Korea to describe practices of torture to influence the ideology of captured Korean and United Nations P.O.W.s. The current news about the situation in Hong Kong includes the background that people in Hong Kong objected to new textbooks slanted to support the Party as "brainwashing,"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/09/07/hong-kong-educ...

and then a pro-Beijing leader of an NGO said "A brain needs washing if there is a problem, just as clothes need washing if they're dirty and a kidney needs washing if it's sick." That statement by Jiang Yudui, chairman of the China Civic Education Promotion Association of Hong Kong (essentially a CPC front organization) further alarmed residents of Hong Kong.

So, no, I respectfully submit that you are comparing apples to stones, and have made an inapt suggestion in the comment to which I first replied here. Again, I base my point of view on this issue on actual overseas residence in the Chinese-speaking world, including time in Hong Kong speaking to people who were born and who grew up there.

My comment wasn't intended to defend current Chinese government policy. My point is that using official education for brainwashing and political indoctrination is par for the course in a country founded on the principle of popular sovereignty. One consequence of this is that virtually every educated Westerner, including most readers of Hacker News and the New York Times, has been exposed to the same sort of brainwashing and political indoctrination decried by the protesters in the OP. One effect of this is a reflexive support of popular movements of all sorts without an appreciation of the potential costs of that support.

I think that a question has been developing world-wide that remains without a solid answer: How do we, the people of this planet, evolve into a species that is free from the chains imposed onto us by governments?

Now, I know that I am solidly floating on utopia here and that what I am thinking about might require centuries of change. No issue there.

I just feel that almost every nation on this planet is enslaved, in some way, by its own government --whether put into place by the people, by force or inheritance (royals).

I happen to think that most people on this planet are good people and that most of us want pretty much the same things: To live a good and peaceful life, have a family, provide for them and do the things we enjoy doing.

Governments, on the other hand, are all about power and control. And they, invariably, take liberties that we, the people, might not want to take. They get us into wars and conflicts, they enslave people, they engage in genocide and they create antagonisms that might not exist.

I am not so naive as to not understand that some people will behave badly. History is full of these examples.

You take a country like China. Over a billion people. And a few dozen (or less) call the shots? Why?

Take the United States. Do you realize that you can never really own your home here? Why? Property taxes. That's why. If you don't pay them the government can take your home away from you, even if you paid all loans and have no debt. Why is our government entitled to tax our homes? And why are they entitled to take our homes away? If you really think about it and make an effort to clear your mind of any preconceived notions or indoctrination it becomes clear that this is but one example of the lunacy that government has become.

I think that humanity needs to evolve away from these systems if we are going to survive and thrive. Of course there are too many issues to even attempt to list them here. Like I said, maybe in a few centuries. John Lennon said it best:

  Imagine there's no heaven
  It's easy if you try
  No hell below us
  Above us only sky
  Imagine all the people
  Living for today...

  Imagine there's no countries
  It isn't hard to do
  Nothing to kill or die for
  And no religion too
  Imagine all the people
  Living life in peace...

  You may say I'm a dreamer
  But I'm not the only one
  I hope someday you'll join us
  And the world will be as one

  Imagine no possessions
  I wonder if you can
  No need for greed or hunger
  A brotherhood of man
  Imagine all the people
  Sharing all the world...

  You may say I'm a dreamer
  But I'm not the only one
  I hope someday you'll join us
  And the world will live as one

  "Imagine" ... is virtually the Communist manifesto, even 
  though I'm not particularly a Communist and I do not belong 
  to any movement. 
  
  —John Lennon

Before proposing "Imagine" as a founding document for your political philosophy, you might want to consider the fate of people in nations founded on the principles of the Communist Manifesto. (N.B. I love Lennon's qualification: he's not particularly a Communist—which means, by implication, that he kinda sorta is one, even by his own admission.)

I don't interpret it that way and certainly don't propose communism. I'm a libertarian, so that would be diametrically opposed to my beliefs.

All I am saying is that I think --again, this is my belief-- that the future of humanity probably lies in no countries and governments reduced to simple administrative tasks.

I have no desire to be at war with some guy in Iran or Afghanistan any more than a family man there wants to be at war with me. Governments start these things and rope us all into them.

I mean, look at World War 1. Why did it even start?

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm

Governments. Not the people. Governments.

Thirty seven million casualties.

http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html

Did the farmer or doctor in Germany or Russia want to go to war? Probably not. It was their stupid governments that triggered the entire thing and tens of millions died for it.

And that's my point. Governments as we have known them for the last century or two need to mutate into something very different in order for us to evolve further as a society and culture. We can't have the kinds of things you are seeing around the world happen to us. Nobody "owns" me or you. Therefore, the whole concept of governments telling and dictating what we can and cannot do is at odds with what I might call "natural" laws.

I, we, hire government workers to do things for us that have community scope. Build roads. Run the local school. Upholds laws that we agree upon, etc. Beyond that, things are completely upside-down. No government should have the power to declare war. Not any more. If anything, the people should reserve that power and exercise it through voting. The same is true of a myriad of other roles government plays today.

Take China as an example: Over a billion people allowed a handful of people in Beijing to keep them from having more than one child. Over a billion people. Really? What is it about the human condition that we allow such things to happen. The point isn't to argue about the merit of the decision in the context of population explosion. I believe that those things take care of themselves one way or the other. The point here is that a society of over a billion people somehow allows a handful of communist leaders to control their reproductive rights. That's just wrong. If you allow that, of course they are going to come into your schools and indoctrinate the shit out of your children.

Here's another example. Times are tough right. Let's say you are unemployed and have to feed your family. You happen to own a fishing pole and live near a lake or stream. Here in California you can't go fishing and feed your family without a fishing license. You have to buy a fishing license in order to engage in the most fundamental act a human being can engage: hunt for food in order to survive. Really? Yes, really? You are not allowed --by government-- to fish, no matter the circumstances. If they catch you fishing without a license it can cost thousands of dollars and possibly end up doing time in jail. In what alternate reality does this make any sense whatsoever.

OK, I understand about conservation, etc., etc. Still, it is my right, as a human being on this planet, to hunt, fish and farm in order to feed myself and my family. No government should have the power to prevent me from doing so.

If John Lennon wrote that song thinking about communism then I have to find other words to describe some of my ideas, because communism is far, far from it. When I read the words to the song I don't interpret communism in there but rather people living freely WITHOUT or with minimal government.

Now, before anyone goes off on me. Admittedly the problem is very complex and, if it can even happen, it would take centuries of cultural evolution in order to reach even a portion of what I am talking about. Take religion as an example. It's got to go. That will, I am sad to say, take a very long time. The same is true of the attachment to the concept of countries. That's got to go too. Earth. One people. True freedom. Not government subjugation. Government must be reduced to administrative workers who work for us, not against us.

> I think that a question has been developing world-wide that remains without a solid answer: How do we, the people of this planet, evolve into a species that is free from the chains imposed onto us by governments?

What is your government stopping you from doing? Why is that a problem?

> Property taxes.

Property taxes are a compromise. They rob the rich (especially the rich who are sitting on assets but not working them), which makes it easier for the poor to build a bit of wealth.

It's like putting a time limit on patents. Sure, it sucks to have your wealth stolen, but it may create a wealthier society.

I can't fish to feed my family unless I purchase a license from my government.

I can't keep my home unless I pay the government a tax.

I can't travel out of my country unless I present the government with documents I can only get from my government.

I can't prevent my government from waging war.

I can't prevent my government from causing untold economic damage world wide through moronic laws.

And more.

> Property taxes are a compromise. They rob the rich (especially the rich who are sitting on assets but not working them), which makes it easier for the poor to build a bit of wealth.

Sorry but I find all "rob the rich" arguments down-right repugnant. No government or individual should have the right to take what I have. Period. I am not rich, but, as a long time entrepreneur I have done well. And I have also faltered, and I have also been down in the mud. I have suffered, struggled and recovered only to come out of it better off in the end. At no point have I ever thought about "sticking it to the rich". Nah. You own your own destiny. If someone is a lazy fuck who wants others to provide for them, then, well, communism or socialism is the answer. This concept of "fair share" is such bullshit. Why does someone with more money have to pay more? Because they have more money? Circular argument, I guess. If they want to be kind and contribute more money then that's their choice. Otherwise, we all share alike. If we have to build a new road that will benefit all, we split the costs evenly. That's fair. It isn't fair to point to the guy with more money (not rich, just more money) and make them pay more.

See, this argument gets lost very easily because people tend to talk about the rich. Let's say that you make 50% more than your neighbor. Nobody is rich. He makes $100K per year and you make $150K per year. Well, this liberal concept of "fair share" means that you should pay 50% more taxes at the gas station when you get gas. That's your "fair share". Because you make more money. Not fair, you say? Damn right. Fair share, if you are going to be reasonable, means that you either split it equally or you base it upon consumption. It does not mean that those with more money get clobbered over the head. The formula has to be universally applicable. You can't say that the alternate-reality fairness rule starts to kick-in after, say, $200K. If the rule isn't fair at $100K it sure as heck ain't fair at $1 million.

Back to property taxes. I recognize that governments need money to run. I get it. The issue here is that I ought to be able to own my home. Free and clear. Forever. By taxing my home this is impossible. The government, in effect, almost "owns" my home. If I stop paying property taxes I loose the house. That should not be possible. You work hard your entire life to buy a house. Once it is paid for it should be yours forever. It should be impossible for government to take it away from you. That's my argument, plain and simple. It isn't any more complicated than that. I want to own my home free and clear. Government can go get the funds they need through some other means.

Here's another example. Let's say that I own a piece of land. And, that, over a period of twenty years, I build my own home on this land. Brick by brick. Nail by nail. Through my own efforts and that of my family, my kids, we physically build our own home. Sure, it took twenty years but we built it and it is 100% paid for.

But, wait a minute, you can't do that. Not without paying the government for a building permit before you even begin.

Why do I have to pay government for a permit to build a shelter for my family?

OK, let's say you play along.

What's the first thing that will happen in the US once you are done?

The property will get be appraised based on the value with the home you built and you will owe the government taxes for the rest of your life.

Then, when you die, your kids will have to pay a huge tax bill to the government based on the value of the property.

And, after that, your kids will have to continue to pay an annual property tax to the government based on the new value of the property.

Despite the twenty year effort and family sacrifice that went into building your home, the government has its hooks into your property for, well, eternity. If you or any of your successors falters at all, the government gets to take it all.

That is wrong. That should not be possible.

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