Governments create many illusions to keep their citizens compliant and convinced they are being served, rather than ripped off. One of the most important illusions is a false sense of property. As long as you accept your government’s conditions of ownership, it wants you to believe that you own yourself, your possessions, your home, and your land. In reality, it acts as if it owns you and everything within its territory.
Governments used to steal vast expanses of land with little excuse. When it was more commonly understood that they were violent monopolies, they didn’t need to come up with elaborate excuses to make it seem like theft was not theft. Because the standard of the property illusion is pretty high these days, most governments have to come up with better reasons to steal land. Governments will say they are taking land in the interest of public safety, for public works, or for “development.” Theft justified by any of these excuses is still theft. It is particularly offensive when they don’t even fabricate some noble cause, but simply kick people off their land and hand it directly to special interests.
Sometimes governments will claim that stealing someone’s land isn’t theft, if they are adequately compensated. This is like a carjacker telling you that it’s fine to steal your car if you get to keep the air freshener. Being involuntarily removed from one’s land makes it theft. The only “adequate compensation” that makes it not theft is whatever it takes to persuade a person give up their property and leave it voluntarily.
Property taxes are based on the idea that we must pay for the privilege of living in a particular area and a tax on ownership is a reasonable price to pay for government services. You are really paying a ransom to keep your property, assuming you actually own it. If you do not pay your property taxes, government will eventually kick you off your land. If you believe governments own all the land, then the price of your property is for a usage license and your property taxes are rental fees.
To governments, property is merely a matter of temporary control. They can steal whatever they want, as long as they have a good enough excuse for the enforcers to carry out the theft and keep people from revolting. If your government says you can own property and maintain control of it, but only if you pay property taxes, you are a renter, not an owner. Governments get away with these rackets because enough people still believe they somehow represent “the will of the people,” as opposed to their sponsors.
Chapter 5 Section IV From FREEDOM! by Adam Kokesh
I am the author of FREEDOM!, a book endorsed (I mean banned) by the US Department of “Justice.” You can get a copy here. I’m running for Not-President in 2020 on the platform of the peaceful, orderly, and responsible dissolution of the United States federal government. You can find out more here. I am currently on my #TaxationIsTheft tour! You can find an event near you here. Whoever has the top comment on this post after 24 hours can claim a free signed copy of FREEDOM! by sending me a message with their address.
