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julian_1 | 8 years ago

Why do laws that appropriate private citizens wealth need to be justified?

Well, the alternative is wonderful stuff like civil forfeiture law. Whereby a policeman without evidence or proof of criminal wrongdoing can take that $2000 in your glovebox in the name of a defacto beneficiary (the state), because on a balance of probabilities he thinks he has a better claim than you do.

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crdoconnor|8 years ago

>Why do laws that appropriate private citizens wealth need to be justified?

What moral authority does a private citizen have to own land in Manhattan created 3 billion years ago and made valuable by the infrastructure he didn't build and community he charges rent to?

julian_1|8 years ago

I would argue that indigenous inhabits as private citizens have the better claim by virtue of tradition and generational succession, than the 'state' as defacto beneficiary and law-maker everytime. The dispossession of native peoples by colonial governments is just another example.

Government confiscation of private wealth in the name of perceived inequality, should be examined very carefully when modern economies are structurally indebted, and budget for foreign policy objectives over domestic improvement.