While some of my best friends are libertarians ... they tend to oversimplify very complex dynamics that aren't really understood by anybody -- not Bernanke, Mar

While some of my best friends are libertarians ... they tend to oversimplify very complex dynamics that aren't really understood by anybody -- not Bernanke, Marx, Milton, or Keynes, much less Ayn Rand. Flip comments aside: "ownership" of anything -- a ball, a company, a piece of property -- should be seen as a bundle of rights and responsibilities, and as a (overall) benign socially sanctioned fiction like streetlights. Then you can see that it is only in the trivial cases, like a ball that nobody cares about, that ownership is straightforward and implies "It's mine I can do anything with it I like". So, duh, you pay taxes and have to conform to zoning codes. Get over it. EDIT: Also, "government entities" aren't some weird uncontrollable force like the weather or an invading army -- you live in a democracy, so get involved.