Month: August 2018

While I support the idea of having a park in the proposed area on the northeast corner of route 41 and Corkscrew Road, and I am willing to help pay for it, I do not support the Village of Estero buying and developing the site.

The Village of Estero was sold to the taxpayers of Estero as “government light”. This socialist proposal increases the role and responsibilities of the Village of Estero government. If the plan is truly supported by the public it should not require taxes to buy and operate it.

I understand in today’s world most people act as if the purpose of government is to make other people pay for the things we want. That is a stretch from the idea that government exists to protect individual rights.

The Village of Estero should support the establishment of a non-profit organization to buy and develop this land. An organization that would only accept voluntary donations can do everything that the Village government could do. The Village could establish zoning rules, to make sure that the land was used for the intended purpose.

Owning an additional 62 acres of land is not just an asset. It also adds additional responsibilities. It is not something that will take care of itself. It will take staff and operating expenses, and expose the taxpayers of Estero to liabilities if people get hurt in the park.

Will the Village of Estero only allow residents of Estero to use the park? If not, why have just Estero taxpayers pay for it? A non-profit organization could get regional support, perhaps from people from neighboring cities.

Don’t force your neighbors to support something they may not want. There are more than 23,000 registered voters in Estero. It would only take 13,000 of them to pledge on average less than $2,000 to fund the project. With people from Bonita Springs, and San Carlos invited to participate, the pool of supporters could be more than just the voters of Estero.

True democracy involves people stepping up and voluntarily paying for what they want, not getting the government to force others to pay for things that would be nice.

 

In a region without coercive taxation* it is unlikely that the government would provide or run schools.

Those of us who recognize the immorality of taxation, see the need to limit the scope of what governments try to provide if taxes are to be eliminated so government spending can be reduced.

Since taxpayer funded education is so ingrained in the United States culture, some would say that those who want to reduce government spending should look to other functions of government as better opportunities to garner support for cutbacks.

Former Governor, Bill Weld, recently mentioned that education is a priority for most Americans, and Millennials are burdened with excessive student loans. He proposes legislation that would treat student loans like all other debts. Current US law  treats student loans as non-dischargeable debt.

He also supported a plan to have free tuition for the first two years of college.

 

 

 

 

 

* some would say that taxation implies coercion, thus the phase coercive taxation is redundant – that non-coercive taxation would not be taxation. For the rest of this article, when I mention taxes – I am assuming that such money is obtained by governments using the threat of force if not directly using force to collect the money.

 

On  8/6/2018 Stephanie Slade as Reason Magazine editor published in a Jesuit magazine

“A Libertarian Case for the Common Good”

Excerpt:

One of the widespread misconceptions about libertarianism is that it denies the importance of community—assuming, in the words of the Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen, that “the individual lives, or could live, in splendid isolation” from others. Another is that it preaches a selfish unconcern for the plight of one’s fellow humans, especially the least among us. If these portrayals were correct, the libertarian philosophy would indisputably not be compatible with the Catholic Church’s social doctrine—in particular with its teaching on the common good. But sneaking a peek into that Students for Liberty conference (or, for that matter, reading Reason, the magazine of “free minds and free markets” that I help edit) should make clear that, in fact, neither of those positions is integral to the libertarian worldview.

Click here for full article