On Thu, 12 May 2016 09:12:22 AM David Zuccaro via luv-main wrote:

a sense "own" it. As an aside the whole concept of "ownership" in my view is being eroded by the high tax regime here, speaking as a libertarian. By that the I mean to ask do you really "own" a house if you need to continually pay land rates, water rates, and council rates or if you house if subject to arbitrary entry by government agents as is the case currently in Australia?

Do you own a house if banks can destroy your neighborhood by robo-signing forclosure documents that the residents can't afford to legally oppose? Do you own a house if corporations own the roads, water, and electricity supplies and can cut off your entire neighborhood if it's not profitable or if there are mostly non-white people living there (IE Flint)? Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates If you look at the comparison of countries by tax rates Australia doesn't seem that high. With a couple of exceptions it seems that the countries with higher tax rates than Australia are places you probably wouldn't mind living (Belgium, Finland, Sweden are all good places to live). The countries with the lowest tax rates include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE - places where I don't even want to change flights. The middle-eastern countries with low tax are also fairly positive towards slavery, no-one who likes liberty wants anything to do with that. Libertarianism is all about liberty for the super-rich and serfdom for people like us. Libertarianism is about helping the powerful subjugate the weak. That's why mistreatment of children is so important to influential libertarians such as Rothbard and Rewart. I believe that society should protect the weak. We need a legal system to protect children from sexual abuse etc, a welfare system to prevent them from starving etc. The Libertarian approach of legalising child porn, ceasing welfare, and essentially forcing children into sex work is unacceptable to me. Liberty is not about people being forced into sex work so that they don't starve. The greatest liberty for the general population involves using a small portion of tax money to provide everyone with food to reduce the incidence of survival sex. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On 12/05/16 11:54, Russell Coker wrote:

Do you own a house if banks can destroy your neighborhood by robo-signing forclosure documents that the residents can't afford to legally oppose?

Libertarianism opposes fraudulent practices. Hopefully down the track AI will make legal procedures a lot cheaper.

Do you own a house if corporations own the roads, water, and electricity supplies and can cut off your entire neighborhood if it's not profitable or if there are mostly non-white people living there (IE Flint)? The Flint water crisis was actually caused by corrupt *government* officials. I doubt private company subject to the rigors of the free market would have engaged in such dubious practices. Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there? It's true that the environment is the Achilles heel of libertarianism. I've come up with a possible solution the air pollution that does sound far fetched I agree but may go some way to addressing this problem. So basically the atmosphere is treated as an asset and all people living on the earth are given an equal share in the atmosphere as an asset. Industries that pollute must basically pay compensation to the shareholders. This is very much like a carbon tax except that it is more market based and would ensure polluting is dis-incentivised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

If you look at the comparison of countries by tax rates Australia doesn't seem that high. With a couple of exceptions it seems that the countries with higher tax rates than Australia are places you probably wouldn't mind living (Belgium, Finland, Sweden are all good places to live). The countries with the lowest tax rates include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE - places where I don't even want to change flights. The middle-eastern countries with low tax are also fairly positive towards slavery, no-one who likes liberty wants anything to do with that. I have an old school friend that lives in Kuwait -- he seems to live the life of Riley regularly flying to Europe for the weekend due the the middle east's centralised location. Libertarianism is all about liberty for the super-rich and serfdom for people like us. I'd rather be poor and free than rich and overburdened by regulations. Additionally regulations seem to be being used by corporations to entrench their position in the market rather than to give the consumer benefits. Of course this stifles economic mobility. Libertarianism is about helping the powerful subjugate the weak. That's why mistreatment of children is so important to influential libertarians such as Rothbard and Rewart.

I believe that society should protect the weak. We need a legal system to protect children from sexual abuse etc, a welfare system to prevent them from starving etc. The Libertarian approach of legalising child porn, ceasing welfare, and essentially forcing children into sex work is unacceptable to me. This is a ridiculous strawman.

Quoting Ben McGinnes (ben@adversary.org):

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:54:41AM +1000, Russell Coker via luv-main wrote:

...

Libertarianism is all about liberty for the super-rich and serfdom for people like us.

For instance my lot, Pirate Party Australia...

Yay, Pirate Party! My wife and I were just at lecture at Institute for the Future in Palo Alto given by Smári McCarth, co-founder of Iceland's Pirate Party, entitled 'From the Panama Papers to the Pirate Party'. http://www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/smari-mccarthy-from-the-panama... Anyway, in hopes of making this thread useful, I'll post links to recommended resources about open source applications on Android: http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2016-May/008449.html http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2016-May/008450.html http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2016-May/008454.html P.S.: LUV member Mark Trickett, in particular, will also wish to see http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Debian/openrc-conversion.html . You're welcome.

Erik Christiansen via luv-main writes:

On 12.05.16 11:54, Russell Coker via luv-main wrote:

...

Do you own a house if banks can destroy your neighborhood by robo-signing forclosure documents that the residents can't afford to legally oppose?

Do you own a house if corporations own the roads, water, and electricity supplies and can cut off your entire neighborhood if it's not profitable or if there are mostly non-white people living there (IE Flint)?

Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there?

It is difficult to gain FOSS-type freedom for our residences, but utility independence is possible. I'm in the last throes of design of my tree-change strawbale solar-powered off-grid tank-water home. As no utilities are provided at the site, there are no related charges¹. OK, there's still rates, but four down (electricity, water, gas², telephone) is a good start.

Admittedly, I'm quietly praying to Odin, Thor, Freja, and Sif, that the wireless internet out there will improve from basically adequate to good.

The biggest freedom, though, is no-one else on my 3 sq. km. - just kangas, wombats, and possums. The kangas stop and hang about if you talk to them right.

Erik

¹ Haven't been for the last 52 years, anyway. ² No service/supply charges, but there is bottle rental and a higher gas price for the little that is used for cooking when on-site firewood supplies provide all imaginable heating needs.

Now this is off topic and also nothing to do with Linux, but...... There's no such thing as "free lunch", as with any remote locations there is the constant need to look after all these systems. From quite along experience of this type of dwelling, the plumbing, power and toilet system will all require significant amount of long term maintenence. A hint, when putting in the water system make _______SURE________ (excuse the shouting) that there is plenty of slack poly pipe in the trenches, if the poly pipe is run tight, the fittings will end up pulling out in droughts when the ground dries out, and this type of problem can be VERY difficult to find. Note: I have lived in this type place for most of my life, from my experience a good number of people doing "tree changes" do not apreciate the the scale of the maintence effort to keep ones "services" running. Lindsay I wonder if this message will get through, I have not been able to post a message to luv for quite a while, this though is being posted a different way.