Saturday 20 March 2010

Those who have too much land are trespassing

Taxation is a violation of property rights, we have a right to retain the produce of our labour and to retain a sufficiency of land, and other assets, if such are (to be) owned by others.

To demand taxes, against the threat of physical punishment for refusal to pay, is not legitimate, and to enforce the punishment is aggressive. If we cannot retain our property, from theft by the Government, then to what extent can something be said to be owned at all? If the Government can take something from us at any time, then to what extent is it our property? By what right are taxes taken from us? Our only right, in these circumstances, is to withhold services from those who will not pay. If the Government is of the view that too much property is owned by a particular person, they (the Government) are entitled to refuse to protect it from (private sector) theft...

Property is protected by a person attacking people that intrude onto what is considered, by them, to be their territory. There can be no collective consensus on what is an appropriate quantity of land for a person to own, for themselves. If we are witness to one person attacking another, in a dispute over property, then we might form in our minds an opinion of whom (which of them) has the greater claim, and whether the attack can be said to be defensive, or if it is aggressive. We might forgive someone who appears to be defending a suitably modest sum of land.

If someone is using force and violence to defend too great a piece of land then we might choose to prevent their use of force; they are being aggressive. The measure of this dividing line is one of balance.

The best mechanism, to prevent a grievance resulting in violence is to allow someone without a sufficiency of land (who feels their rights are being constantly violated) to make a complaint about this (perceived) violation; they report a crime of failure to recognise legitimate rights. To be in ownership of too great a quantity of land (any natural product of the Earth) is a crime; they are trespassing on the land of others.

To be in possession of too great a quantity of land is to be trespassing on that land.

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