[mindslight]

I meant for productive conversation.

Sure, a person can employ a combative communication style to get ahead in the monkeysphere. But still, the road to being a shithead president doesn't start off with being a shithead forum commenter.

[jrs235]

Fair enough.

I failed to understand your stance from your reply to cgore. I took your response to be "agreeing while pulling back a bit on cgore's position.

I am interested in your thoughts on how to address "taking money from people by force of law (gunpoint)" You pointed out the parallel between cgore's point the BI is no different than rent on land.

It appears you're against inflationary policies and pouring gas (BI) onto the situation adds to it (unless money is taken out of supply via taxes, however the symptom of inflation is still likely to appear: an overall increase in prices.). Inflation of prices is a symptom of inflation of the money supply. But an overall increase in prices does not necessarily mean there is inflation (of the money supply).

I am also interested in your thoughts on how should we pay for the civilized framework (government) that sorts out disputes?

[mindslight]

It's disagreement, but based on emphasis not axioms.

Singularly focusing on the tax aspect while ignoring the rest of the government-created conditions produces a biased conclusion. Basic Income seems to have gained appeal because of people's need to meet rent. But said rent is itself almost entirely due to government created conditions - the natural cost of building and keeping up dwellings is a small part of their budget.

Similarly while I do agree that taxes are inherently theft, applying this condemnation to any specific topic will just gain legs or not based on who stands to benefit. Condemning any new proposed program based on spending (rather than considering it in the context of rearrangement) is fallacious, and more befitting conservatism rather than libertarianism. I would be in favor of generally disbanding USG. But I'll be damned if such a push is going to result in cuts to eg NPS, NSF, NIH, EPA, NASA, and even USPS, while leaving eg NSA, FBI, ATF, DEA, and Raytheon intact.

FWIW, This is my specific critique of BI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782244

Regarding taxes and jurisdiction, there really is little point in going back and forth between wildly differing perspectives, and I've stopped asserting that I have the answer. I will say that I've come to view libertarianism heuristically (as opposed to axiomatically), and things like the federal government collecting lots of money just to dole it back out to the states with strings attached can still be pointed at as decidedly broken.