3 ms·

I wonder if any of the people objecting to the sale or the possibility of paying the new owners for parking spaces describe themselves as "libertarians."

rm_-rf_ 9y ago
huh? I would not imagine any libertarians would want to overturn the sale as it would completely defy the idea of property rights. It seems like the residents of this neighborhood are old money NIMBYs and either [ex-]Democrat politicians or donate quite a bit to Democratic politicians.
- ritchiea 9y ago
  I'm suggesting that people often don't act in line with their proclaimed political beliefs when those beliefs don't benefit them in the immediate.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > I would not imagine any libertarians would want to overturn the sale as it would completely defy the idea of property rights. There are certainly libertarian arguments to be made for honoring the sale. But I think it's going a little far to claim that overturning a process in which the government assesses a tax on the ownership of your property, doesn't inform you that you owe it, and later sells that property on your behalf without notifying you, "would completely defy the idea of property rights". You're talking about a contract transferring ownership of property, to which the owner of the property is not a party. You could make a much stronger libertarian argument that the existence of a property tax in the first place "completely defies the idea of property rights".
  - quuquuquu 9y ago
    I do think most libertarians would agree that the city agents, who have sold the street's rights to someone else due to an arbitrary breech of contract, have acted completely in bad faith and have thus nullified their contract with the new buyer What the city should have done is physically approached the landowners and done a large public outreach to raise the very small public tax due... before seizing it and selling it to anyone. And now the person who has purchased it wants to seek rent, as if their action is somehow beneficial to anyone but themselves. And the city's argument is that arbitrarily selling community property despite poor serving of papers is how business should continue? Yikes.
icebraining 9y ago
They could object on the grounds that the sale would never have happened if those taxes didn't exist. "Taxation is theft" is an actual slogan in part of the Libertarian community.
randyrand 9y ago
Not all libertarians are into the idea of privatizing roads. When the road owner is the same as the person that lives on the road, e.g. a driveway, yes. But that is about the only circumstance I would endorse. Alternatively, if roads were owned by the people that live on them, I could endorse that too. Privatization of residential roads otherwise makes no sense.

rm_-rf_ 9y ago

huh? I would not imagine any libertarians would want to overturn the sale as it would completely defy the idea of property rights. It seems like the residents of this neighborhood are old money NIMBYs and either [ex-]Democrat politicians or donate quite a bit to Democratic politicians.

ritchiea 9y ago
I'm suggesting that people often don't act in line with their proclaimed political beliefs when those beliefs don't benefit them in the immediate.
thaumasiotes 9y ago
> I would not imagine any libertarians would want to overturn the sale as it would completely defy the idea of property rights. There are certainly libertarian arguments to be made for honoring the sale. But I think it's going a little far to claim that overturning a process in which the government assesses a tax on the ownership of your property, doesn't inform you that you owe it, and later sells that property on your behalf without notifying you, "would completely defy the idea of property rights". You're talking about a contract transferring ownership of property, to which the owner of the property is not a party. You could make a much stronger libertarian argument that the existence of a property tax in the first place "completely defies the idea of property rights".
- quuquuquu 9y ago
  I do think most libertarians would agree that the city agents, who have sold the street's rights to someone else due to an arbitrary breech of contract, have acted completely in bad faith and have thus nullified their contract with the new buyer What the city should have done is physically approached the landowners and done a large public outreach to raise the very small public tax due... before seizing it and selling it to anyone. And now the person who has purchased it wants to seek rent, as if their action is somehow beneficial to anyone but themselves. And the city's argument is that arbitrarily selling community property despite poor serving of papers is how business should continue? Yikes.

icebraining 9y ago

They could object on the grounds that the sale would never have happened if those taxes didn't exist. "Taxation is theft" is an actual slogan in part of the Libertarian community.

randyrand 9y ago

Not all libertarians are into the idea of privatizing roads. When the road owner is the same as the person that lives on the road, e.g. a driveway, yes. But that is about the only circumstance I would endorse. Alternatively, if roads were owned by the people that live on them, I could endorse that too. Privatization of residential roads otherwise makes no sense.