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Comment by orthecreedence | Hacker News Reader

> However, the idea that the government has any right to tax private property at whatever valuation they see fit is a quick step towards a totalitarian nightmare.

Not really? Only in the case where the government is no longer beholden to the people (or the rich). Right now, the federal government in general is more or less a captured agency of Wall St and the tax policy follows as such. Either way, no matter who controls the government, there's a vested interest in setting tax policy that above all else, optimizes for stability. I mean, you're a voluntary exchange type, right? Is it in the government's rational self interest to set a tax policy that causes revolt?

Also, who protects that private property you love so much? There's a cost associated with that. This whole "taxes are theft!" nonsense is becoming tiresome. You're part of a society. Pay your membership fees and stop whining.

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> Only in the case where the government is no longer beholden to the people (or the rich)

No. The exact opposite. Only in the case when the government is beholden to the people can it be expected to protect the rights of those people. Otherwise, it is rule by those in power, which is just as bad (if not worse than) as rule by the rich. Power does not always come in the form of money.

> taxes are theft!

Stop with the strawmen. I didn't say taxes were theft, I just said this wanton approach to the legal system, especially at the highest levels of law, without any forethought for what kind of thing this opens up, should be met with universal criticism. Taxing property of the rich sounds like a great idea, but the truth of the matter is that giving government this broad power allows it to also do things like take poor people's personal possessions whenever they see fit.

Already, even with our rather strong legislation in place, some government agencies have found it okay to use search warrants to seize private property (thankfully the SC reversed that idiocy), but the fact of the matter is that government is one of the few agencies well known to overstep any and all power given to it.

> You're part of a society. Pay your membership fees and stop whining.

I'm quite happy to support a liberal government. I would not be happy to support authoritarianism, and I think you wouldn't be too.

The argument that passing a constitutional amendment using the approach to constitutional amendments set down in the original constitution is a "wanton approach to the legal system" is ridiculous.

I don't think it's ridiculous at all. I never said it would be illegal, I said it would demonstrate a lack of care and consideration -- like Prohibition (also passed legally, without doubt).

And the original constitution's treatment of tax apportionment expressly acknowledged slavery as a legitimate practice. So perhaps a constitional amendment process can do good things too!

Back in the real world, the federal government has always used its constitutional entitlement to tax people, and despite your clearly bad faith insinuations, the Sixteenth had absolutely no impact on its [in]ability to take the possessions of the poor whenever it saw fit or implications for search warrant seizures. What the amendment actually did after nearly two decades of careful consideration and public debate was remove an odd quirk in the constitution whereby in the eyes of the Supreme Court the federal government could directly tax individuals and companies as much as it liked, but only if the total amount contributed from a state was proportional to its population (which made assessing direct taxes based on variables like incomes and corporate profits rather than fixed things like the right to vote difficult).

If your definition of the difference between a "liberal republic" and an "authoritarian state" is based on whether the constitution mandates that the quantity of direct tax collected in each region is proportional to its census counts, you really, really don't understand the concept of liberty.

Hmmm... I don't think I ever argued against an income tax. I only argued against a personal property tax, pointing out that the government is typically very happy to take from the poor, even without any law making it explicitly legal (see the civil forfeiture cases). My main point so far has been to urge the utmost caution in these laws. It is certainly not something to enact simply because we want to make Mr Gates less wealthy. That is a bad reason to open the flood gates.

No, the 'odd quirk' was that it explicitly required that the tax money from each state be earmarked, held in a separate fund, and only spent in the same state that the tax was originally collected from. FWIW you could buy stuff in each state and send it to DC, but you couldn't use the money to pay salaries in DC. Partly it was intended to prevent a donor state / receiver state situation - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-s...

> government is one of the few agencies well known to overstep any and all power given to it.

It seems that pretty much all agencies (and most individuals) overstep any and all power granted.

Luckily we don't grant individuals the right to take property or liberty or life without criminal consequences

> Pay your membership fees

The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay roughly 37 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent pay roughly 30 percent. Do you consider that an equitable “membership fee”?

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