How to Discombobulate Your Libertarian Friends

I don't see an inherent contradiction between, "I evade the law." and "I evade the law using legalistic loopholes." I don't see how anyone could see one.

And even if there HAD BEEN one, it's not what you originally accused him of, which was that he would deny proof of something.

Neither do I. However, Storm didn't stick to legal loopholes in his last post. Read it again and you'll see; and that's not a slip nor an exception, but the general pattern.

True, but both are instances or arguing by A<>A, and that's the general terms you chose.

I'm confused. I still don't see what is strictly illegal about what he is proposing, nor do I see anything that contradicts anything that I've quoted him as saying.

It's shady, if he goes through with it. But illegal?

Again, I'm confused. Where does he argue A<>A in (essentially) saying that he uses whatever loopholes he can and later saying "here is one such loophole."?

One man's "shady" is another man's "aggressive use of available resources" IMHO!

Having a poker buddy fake an appraisal is legal where you come from?

I said no such thing and I resent the insinuation. Not that you're insulting me so much as my appraiser friend.

I said this:

Which means I'm going to squeeze every penny out I can using the widest possible valuations and definitions.

No one said a word about fake appraisals or fraud.

You goddamn well better apologize to my friend, you ambisexual tit.

And with that, I rest my case.

Go wipe your ass while you're at it.

Yeah, I have to say I definitely didn't see him as saying that he'd lie or have his friend lie about the value of his land.

My understanding was that he'd just get top dollar for it.

Again, it's not fair to read a contradiction into what Storm said and claim victory.

Given that he supposedly does this saying A<>A all the time, you could easily have taken a fraction of the time for this back-and-forth and found one unambiguous, clear-cut example of it and put this whole debate to rest.

But you haven't. And somehow I don't think you will.

If you don't consider getting a better appraisal from a friend than you would from a neutral appraiser a lie, then I don't think I will convince you with another example either. But that's exactly the shifting of categories and self-indulgency I was pointing out, and it doesn't just accompany Storm's beliefs, but makes them work for him in the first place.

Raoul.

If people were computers or vulcan you might have the beginning of a point.

Same here...I just figured he meant a friend would be a little more motivated in ensuring he got top dollar than just another client...we are human beings after all.

It may be unethical, but it's not illegal. There is no law that says that you can't hire a friend to appraise your property, and there's no law that says an appraiser can't give you a top-dollar, median dollar or low-dollar amount.

Every easement is different, but they can allow agricultural use and all the development needed to support it. What you might donate is your right to commercially or residentially develop. Or your subsurface mineral rights. Or timbering. Depends on what you have.

Here's the kicker -- as a bona fide operator deriving your primary income from farming, you qualify to have a 100 percent deduction with a 15 year carry forward.

As Storm and I have gone around the topic repeatedly over the years, this is my only problem with his version of Libertopia.

Of course, as I get older and wiser I realize that this already happens...

I'm not sure if this is what Packard's driving at, but note the bolded words. Is not a legalistic loophole a contradiction with evading the law? To my thinking, "I evade the law" should be taken literally to mean, "I break the law," so when storm comes back with "I use loopholes," he is now saying "I follow the law." How is that not a contradiction?

I break the law pretty regularly, I don't take any pride in it, but there ya go.

As far as I'm concerned we all do, since only a few of us actually know enough about the legality of our actions to know if we're indeed doing something illegal or not, or when something you do can be construed by the state as illegal even if there's no intent.

That's why I tend to side with Libertarians; give me a code of Law that was available to the common man and didn't require professionals to administer and I'd be pretty happy.

Based on whether you play poker with the owner? Really?

I won't pretend that I can recite American law; I can't. But I will say that IF American law really is as ludicrous as you're just making it sound (and I doubt it is), then that problem does not arise and is not connected to involuntary taxation of property or income as such, as many countries that have such taxes do still have sane laws.

Why would one black guy live in a town with 999 racists?

If that is what Packard is ultimately saying, I could now understand it.

But it again goes to Packard's perception of what Storm said and not what he actually said. It's not Storm's fault that you think that when he says, "I evade the law" it should be taken literally to mean "I break the law." Moreover, even if he HAD originally said/meant "I break the law," there's no inherent contradiction to say "I also use legal loopholes to get around the law."

He never said, "I always break the law without using legal loopholes" or "I evade the law in only one way." Toward the end he specified (IMO) that he only meant the legalistic-loophole approach all along.

The only thing he specified about loopholes, was that he was looking into using one. That doesn't mean it is his SOP IMO.

AFAIK, there's no law that prevents an ordinary citizen from hiring a friend to do work for him, all other things being equal.

In the case of property valuation, obviously there's a range of what the property might come in at. Presumably a friend will give you top dollar.

The laws here are (presumably) against giving false valuations, not against giving the highest reasonable ones.

What if it was 5 wheelchair users in a town of 200 able-bodied people? I don't think he meant for his example to be taken literally.

The point is how much is a society are we willing to allow the rights of the minority to be trampled upon by the majority?

And in the case of disability, each and every one of us can go from the majority group (able-bodied) to the minority group (people with disabilities) at any time.

You had me at 100%. Let me get this straight, I take an easement, and I get an annual deduction of 100% of the appraised value of my land?

No way.

What's my level of bureaucratic involvement?

He said that it was:

Now he might be lying when he says this, having meant all along that he breaks the law rather than circumvents it.

I'm taking him at his word, and there's nothing in the previous posts to indicate that people didn't simply read more into his original statement than was there.

I for one am glad no one here has ever smoked pot or taken a painkiller without prescription or gone faster than the speed limit or paid a Mexican laborer under the table or driven after a few beers or downloaded movies/music anything so awful.

The law tells us what's moral.

See, now that's another tactic we've been seeing a lot of lately, and I truly believe the people who use it have picked it up from the Bush government and nowhere else.

It works like this: "We never said that! You just assume we meant that because you think we were making some kind of sense!"

You are correct that Storm didn't directly say "I break the law" when he spoke about evading the law. However, he did compare this evasion to "not following drug laws" and "not following traffic laws", and I dare anyone here to come up with a credible and typical set of legalistic loopholes for "evading" those laws without breaking them. Having a freind appraise your jaywalking?

More importantly, Storm's posts don't make the least bit of sense in the context of the original argument if we take them merely as a reference towards an abundance of loopholes; remove the loopholes, you're still left with involuntary taxation of property and/or income. People arguing for income tax would not consider loopholes "their" law. And so forth.

So you CAN defend his posts on this basis, if you are prepared not only to accept a fraudulent appraisal as legal because we're all just human, nudge blink, but also assume that Storm wasn't joining the argument, wasn't trying to make any kind of point, and wasn't speaking to any other posters in this thread when he used the word "you".

I agree, but in this case a single business owner is the minority, and the five people in the wheelchair getting the government to force him to put in handicap parking are the majority. So would you rather the minority's right be trampled by the majority?

Your tongue forks just like mine does