Property Tax Revolt?

[EZPass]

Your username says a lot about your expectations.

So I guess you're a tokens guy....

[AlanM]

I didn't force you to have a fire in your house that will be put out with the assistance of community resources.  OK to say your responsibility?  Let it burn?

Most communities in this country have volunteer firefighters. I would DONATE to a local volunteer fire dept. Or it could be privatized. Pay or it burns.

BTW, where does this selfish attitude of "I've got mine and to hell with everyone else" come from?  I would suspect most of these people don't volunteer in their community, were fortunate enough to have perfect kids, could care less about others, and are fairly well off.

You would suspect wrong. I have volunteered in community organizations for decades. There is no such thing as a perfect kid, and I am not well off financially. I earn my way and expect others to do the same.

And, I've seen several posts referring to guns at people's heads.  Far too much imagery of guns at heads.  Is this a Timothy McVae cheerleading site?

You are the one who wants to put a gun at my head to pay for YOUR projects, so I guess you are the McVeigh type.

I suspect you would be the first one down at town hall demanding that the supermarket that decided to build a store adjacent to your house stop construction because of a land ordinance that's been violated.  You hate everything about the government until such time as you decide you need it.  How convenient.

You are doing a lot of false suspecting. Never have asked the town government for anything.

I believe government should be small and efficient and not waste money.  We should be free from oppressive regimes that don't allow me(us) to decide our own fate.

So do I. I mean it though. 

However I'm not an anarchist that wants to retreat to the dark ages when we lived in forts to fight the savages who wanted to steal our women and food.

I want what our Revolutionary Forefathers had. Freedom.

[SteveA]

I did not force you to have the child, but you want to force me to pay its way. Sorry. Your responsibility, not mine. If you were to ask me for some help I would most likely give you assistance, but do not use a gun at my head to FORCE me to pay.

I didn't force you to have a fire in your house that will be put out with the assistance of community resources.  OK to say your responsibility?  Let it burn?

There are plenty of other examples as well where 'society' has taken upon itself a role to intervene, whether or not someone wants that intervention.  Of course few people would complain about having a fire put out at their home, and likely they would even be willing to pay for the costs of this, even as a private non-government service, if such an event occured but that doesn't justify forcing someone to accept this service whether or not they desired it (unless maybe there are threats to other homes from this fire).  So though it's not likely likely anyone would deny having a fire put out at their home, and I personally think it's fine seeing community funded fire services, the principle that this should still be done with regard to the desires of the owner is the same.  It not hard to imagine the owner finding some alternative method of dealing with such fire hazards and not wanting to additionally pay for a seperate fire service they view as redundant or inefficient.

As another example, there are many laws that regard health risks as well, and these tend to attempt to limit health risks for inidividuals (at least we assume that's the intent), but many times a person may not desire to limit their health risks for various reasons (do we make rock-climbing illegal because our chariable nature would require us to help if that person were injured, and we feel the expenses would be too large?), though because society has also taken upon itself the duty to impose health services despite individual desires, the freedom to make individual decisions for ones health is limited as well.

In China, government has assumed a massive role in protecting and providing for the populace.  Ever citizen is a potential public liability under this framework and the Chinese government must determine the whos and hows of sustaining the populace.  The responsibility has been taken out of the hands of individuals and placed into the realm of society.  Now, guess who determines whether or not there are enough public resources to allow someone to have a child or nor in China?  Correct, the government/society.  In the attempt to provide for everyone, by removing this responsibility, the freedom to control this is lost as well.

The cost of Individual freedom is individual responsibility and control.  The more responsibility given to society to assure our well being, the less freedom we each have in determining this for ourselves.  You can take any government function and see that this applies, from healthcare to education, even to military defense.  Some things might be considered more critical that others for government to provide (though I agree with many people that these are actually a lot fewer than most people typically have come to believe).

And, I've seen several posts referring to guns at people's heads.  Far too much imagery of guns at heads.  Is this a Timothy McVae cheerleading site?

What he's referring to is the fact that the primary difference between private and government institutions is the threat of force.  Instead of trading value for value, the currency is lack of harm (people are motivated not by benefit as much as pain avoidance when interacting with government).  When you go to McDonalds, they can't use a police officer or S.W.A.T. team to influence whether or not, or what you buy.  They are limited to friendly smiles, the apparent desirability of their product and (possibly misleading) advertising whereas, for example, the DMV doesn't really need to provide much value to "costumers" because you have little choice in the matter if you need to use a vehicle.  Me and you can't pass a law saying people must use our services on penalty of a fine or potentially a prison sentence (or I guess even pain of death if someone were to actually resist), whereas "The People" (as represented by a few individuals) can do this.  We say they are accountable in that we don't have to vote for them next election cycle but most people have got to admit the difficulties in actually reforming things in reality.  Between media and lack of an informed citizenry, most elections come down to whether or not someone is relected or the media favorite is swapped in.

I don't really have a problem with democracy and elected representatives but, at least personally, it appears that with the continued erosion of individual rights, more and more of minorities (I'm primarily thinking of ideological minorities, as opposed to the typical stereotyped view of minorities) are getting trampled on, and as politics continue to become more centralized in Washington, D.C. there's less and less space to support diversity in the U.S. and you can see the conflict in a lot of the conflicts in current politics.  Sure, maybe most people like Social Security, but of course some people feel it's a waste of their resources and provides little certainty of seeing any real returns on the investment.  Ok, let's ignore those people because we can convince ourselves we're helping them even though they may not realize it.  But now, add education.  Sure, some people will feel their children are being ingrained in a system that doesn't support their beliefs, but they're a minority and don't realize their ignorance, correct?  But now lets add in our, despite claims of it being voluntary, it's involuntary to taxpayers at a minimum, foreign military campaigns.  Some people feel as though they are being forced to support a war that's immoral in their eyes.  When we take it upon ourselves to save someone soul, or declare such attempt illegal, either way, we pile up another group of disgruntled people etc., and we can keep going and going and going ....  Freedom is gained by allowing individuals options.  Things won't get better until alternatives to some of the government monopolies are allowed.  Competition in the market place of ideas as well as economically, whether it be from allowing internal private competition to these, or whether it comes in the form external forces like the economic growth in foreign countries remains the best way to assure we don't get stuck in a dead end path socially.  Do we force everyone into centralized retirement planning via. Social Security and laws enforced "at gunpoint" or do we allow people the option to determine for themselves what their priorities are ... some people may discount the value of currencies based upon things with some measure of more tangible value but compare what happened to paper dollars (or nowadays, bits in a computer) versus gold.  If government had not forcibly denied (or stolen, depending on your view) precious metals as our main form of currency, Social Security would be much less of an issue.  There has been a strong devaluation of the dollar, since its inception, versus real goods, like property or gold etc.  Our educational system keeps falling behind other nations, why?  Because competing forms have been forcibly restricted.  You might say that anyone is free to open a private school or homeschool, but consider that our taxes, including the profits earned by a private school pay to subsidize public education, so if you send your children to a private school, you're still paying for the public school.  If private schools had that advantage, public schools would have long since disappeared.  I'm not against large institutions or businesses, but I believe these markets should be free and based upon choices made by individuals, not society.  We could all vote on an operating system for computers as well, I don't have anything against Microsoft, but there's no reason to deny people from using Linux instead, if they feel it serves them better.  We could argue that for the sake of compatibility and protection against viruses (and of course terrorist threats ), it's best to standardize everyones operating system but on the other hand, is it really anyones business, or would it just piss a lot of people off (and likely serve counterproductive to the intent anyway)?

The problem is that as "We the People" take it upon ourselves to do more and more, the implicit threat of force used against an ever growing number of minorities creates more and more conflict and it's not getting any better, and it won't until the mindset that everyone has a right, if not obligation, to get involved in the lives of others, whether or not there's any real need to do so, begins to change.

We should get government back to just keeping the peace (which of course might include defending our borders).  It used to be police officers were called peace officers.  That seems like it's not a bad direction to head.

[EZPass]

Steve:  I must say, you make some excellent points.  As I learn more about the freedom movement in NH, I see some very reasonable people on this site and others working to increase their personal freedoms.  But, I also see some threads that are disturbing/extremist that could be quite harmful/hurtful to individuals and their personal freedom.  Some of the discussions are too one-sided without intellectual rigor/arguement to vet the various thoughts and ideas.  Monolithic speak can be as danderous as the ideas being professed.  The arguements and theories and strategies can become flabby when open discussion doesn't occur or even worse is ridiculed/discouraged.  I guess that's true on most websites, tho.

Your discussion was excellent and thoughtful. 

[SteveA]

Steve:  I must say, you make some excellent points.  As I learn more about the freedom movement in NH, I see some very reasonable people on this site and others working to increase their personal freedoms.  But, I also see some threads that are disturbing/extremist that could be quite harmful/hurtful to individuals and their personal freedom.  Some of the discussions are too one-sided without intellectual rigor/arguement to vet the various thoughts and ideas.  Monolithic speak can be as danderous as the ideas being professed.  The arguements and theories and strategies can become flabby when open discussion doesn't occur or even worse is ridiculed/discouraged.  I guess that's true on most websites, tho.

Your discussion was excellent and thoughtful. 

Yes, I agree that sometimes the conversations can feel like jumping into the middle of a 6 month debate without any training   I'm guilty of getting into some rather heated debates as well.  This website is actually pretty good, in general though, about drifting off less on philosophical stuff and working on solving real issues in N.H.  That's one thing I really like about this site (congrats guys!).

Anyway, I think after following some of the threads for a bit you'll see that though some of the views sound extreme, it's oftentimes just overstating something or someone has a particular issue that they feel adamant about.  I wouldn't sweat it.  I think you'll see that mostly people are just trying to get across their philosophy and you'll find that, at least when it comes to individuals retaining or reclaiming greater freedom, the large majority of disagreements aren't over the problem but what specific solutions address it best.  I've personally come to think the best way to deal with most the disputes is to shoot for stronger private property rights and the ability for groups of people with dissenting views of the specific do what they want ... on their own property.  Basically, the "man is a king of his own castle" philosophy applied on small scales.  If it's not possible to see this on the individual level, at least move much of the areas of more centralized government control down to a more local level where individuals can have greater local control of these issues - there are a lot of advantages, including peacekeeping, to having more diverse local communities instead of continually pushing more and more legislation up to the federal level, which tends to always leave yet another minority view in the cold politically.  I think centralization keeps squeezing everyone into an ever decreasing number of options with less diversity possible and is probably one of the main sources of political conflict in the U.S. nowdays ... we've lost the social ability to live and let live by expecting everyone to conform to single standards by moving toward a single viewpoint selected by democracy and "We the People", instead of remaining focused on protecting individual rights against majority abuse (I'm talking more along the lines of ideological minorities than the typical physical minority stereotypes).  Everytime a new law is added at the state or federal level, it removes one more issue from being a local/individual option and makes everyone put chains on everyone else.  We need to get back to the basics of what government was created for and concentrate it on that, again, so it can at least do one job adequately instead of doing too many things poorly.

I tend to talk and ramble a lot but anyway, ignore me , there are a lot of good peeps here doing good things in New Hampshire.  (I'm in California ... but still plan on checking out things in New Hampshire ... though I probably sound like a broken record by now )

Anyway, have fun.

Oh, and thank you for the compliments too.  Just give it time and I'll be meandering off on some argument eventually though.

BTW, you might also want to check out the Free State Project website, if you haven't.  I don't know whether or not you live in New Hampshire but if you don't try this too:  www.freestateproject.com

[tracysaboe]

I didn't force you to have a fire in your house that will be put out with the assistance of community resources.  OK to say your responsibility?  Let it burn?

You have completely ignore the point that insurence is Volentary. People volentarily choose to have insurence, and volentarily choose to spread the risk around.  You can't compair volentary insurence with coersive government. They're two completely different things.

BTW, where does this selfish attitude of "I've got mine and to hell with everyone else" come from? 

Anyone every notice, that the ones that call other's selfish, and actually the selfish ones? It's like a little 2 year old demanding that their parent "share" with them.  i'm sorry. You're the one who thinks he's entitled to property that he did not earn, buy, or otherwise volentarily aquire.

And, I've seen several posts referring to guns at people's heads.  Far too much imagery of guns at heads.  Is this a Timothy McVae cheerleading site?

Every government law, tax and regulation, is backed by the force. If you don't pay your protection money to the local maffia, they come, barge into your home, nad eventually through you out of your own home. If you resist and try to defend your property, they might shoot you.

If you don't pay your insurence company. All they do is cancle your policy.

Tracy

[tracysaboe]

SteveA, are you you Steve from the FSP forums?

TRacy

[SteveA]

SteveA, are you you Steve from the FSP forums?

TRacy

Yeppers.  "SteveA" on the FSP board to be more precise.  I don't post here too often because I don't want to distract you guys with philosophical stuff as much.  I don't want to stand in the way of progress, as they say .

[AlanM]

SteveA, are you you Steve from the FSP forums?

TRacy

Yeppers.? "SteveA" on the FSP board to be more precise.? I don't post here too often because I don't want to distract you guys with philosophical stuff as much.? I don't want to stand in the way of progress, as they say .

No need to restrain yourself SteveA. I, for one, always enjoy your posts. 

[cathleeninnh]

Most of the posters here are "already there" regarding liberty and don't need the long version explanation. We can toss out a seemingly dangerous proposition and not ruffle a feather among the regulars. It hasn't really been designed as a site to coax along more casual visitors.

I may think taxation is theft but I might still vote for a reduction of a few percentage points in tax rate. We can be very practical without giving up our ideals. I find it very refreshing to not have to keep all comments palatable to the general public.

Cathleen

[Russell Kanning]

We can toss out a seemingly dangerous proposition and not ruffle a feather among the regulars. It hasn't really been designed as a site to coax along more casual visitors.

Property Tax Revolt

[Michael Fisher]

Kat, your checks have not been cashed yet?  Very interesting.

They're required by law to accept partial property tax payments according to RSA 80:71.

"Any person with a legal interest in real estate upon which a real estate tax lien has been executed may make partial payments in redemption to the collector of taxes who shall receive the same and give a receipt therefor."

[Michael Fisher]

If they're not accepting your partial property tax payments, you may be able to sue them.

[Russell Kanning]

... you may be able to sue them.

r u the mike fisher I know?

[president]

Kat, your checks have not been cashed yet?  Very interesting.

They're required by law to accept partial property tax payments according to RSA 80:71.

"Any person with a legal interest in real estate upon which a real estate tax lien has been executed may make partial payments in redemption to the collector of taxes who shall receive the same and give a receipt therefor."

Have they already executed a real estate tax lien?