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Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

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121–130 of 222 posts

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#121
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to…

There's also no-one now alive who voted for women's suffrage, or the banning of the international slave trade, or the right to bear arms.

Non-aggression and property rights are the only laws that truly matter. Natural rights stem from these principals.

> women's suffrage

If a government doesn't have a monopoly of force, nobody needs to vote or even acknowledge the government.

> banning of the international slave trade

Your body is your possession. Slavery violates that and the non-aggression principle.

> the right to bear arms

Who grants this right? The government doesn't have the right to take any property. It does so via aggression and violates natural rights.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#122
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leftover laws are weird things. Fun fact: just like this old tax that the Italian residents are unhappy with, every single person that was old enough to vote for their representatives who then voted to ratify the income tax amendment in the USA is now dead. There is no one alive in the USA that was in any way represented in the vote for income tax; conversely everyone that is alive in the US today and is subject to…

Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.

I do not believe this true. War over the past 20 years has been overwhelmingly unpopular. Have we in the US been able to stop that?

What then also of the minority that lives under these laws? I never once consented to them, and yet must submit to the majority.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#123
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back I find this to be a crippling problem of how politics works in modern democracies. Taxes are a great example, because almost every country will increase it, but never decrease it. They’ll think of a 100 new ways to extract taxes, but never remove outdated ones.

Very true: my personal solution is to shop for better countries. There's no way to meaningfully influence the government's overreach. Hopefully this will become a trend and the cheapest countries will attract better talent.

UN, WHO, WEF, WTO, and more... Where will you shop to as these unelected organizations gradually ascend?

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#124
post #5

In the UK, during the purchase of our house we had to take a "chancel liability insurance", because our freehold once belonced to a rectory, so to protect ourselves from repair liability towards a chapel that has been here for centuries, we had to pay a one-off insurance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability Leftover laws are weird things. EDIT: PS: sadly, the legendary, obligatory archery practice…

Not if you brought the land since 2013: If the church hasn't registered the chancel repair liability in the land's title register, there's no liability. And very few churches registered, judging it a pretty big middle finger to your congregation. Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you £50 for insurance against an impossibility...

> Of course, there are plenty of scammers happy to charge you £50 for insurance against an impossibility...

Charging money for insurance against an event that is impossible is, i believe, a criminal offence in the UK.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not “blaming” anyone, these are just facts on the ground from nearly 500 years ago. I was introduced to this stuff as a teenager working for an old farm - their family was one of a few that had a land grant. The original taxes were 10 pigs and some wheat! The Dutch colonial system, continued in some form for a period of time. I’m afraid I’m ignorant of the details and complexity of land policy as the English, the…

I haven't got the facts either. Yet a lot has happened in those 500 years, and it would be a shame not to mention that. After mid-1600 the Dutch have had very little to say in New York (or should I say New Amsterdam, still such a shame they changed the name..), when the British decided New York should be theirs, despite being at peace with the Dutch. I wonder if the Dutch heritage still be taught in schools in the US…

US students are certainly taught about Dutch colonial history in the continental US, at least where I grew up.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#126
post #117

Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law. In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to reconcile them. Many properties are said to be…

Sounds a lot like what's been going on in Israel / Palestine.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#128
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite piece-of-land word is "gore," which is either a triangular parcel formed where roads intersect at an acute angle, or a narrow strip of land (usually also an acute triangle) of uncertain ownership resulting from inaccurate surveying. It's derived from the Old English word for spear, which also came to mean stab, and a stab wound, and eventually blood-n-guts in general.

Yep. Old English word for spear was "gar". One vegetable was related to the leek, but they described the clove as spear-shaped: the gar-leek. https://www.etymonline.com/word/garlic

People in this thread might be interested in the History of English Podcast. I highly recommend it if you're interested in etymology and/or history: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume taxes are a payment for services? In most cases there is no written contract with rights and obligations of each party and there is no implied right or obligation of any sort.

No, not at all. But being a Baron over somebody may have obligations? If they were not rendered (it was all neglected for 60 years) perhaps something could be negotiated based on that. E.g. the baron provides protection - that certainly wasn't happening. And I do note that there's obligation to the Baron's lord. Doing an appeal there is another route.

Presumably the family would be on the hook for raising a militia and commanding it when a neighboring city invaded.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#130
post #117

Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law. In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to reconcile them. Many properties are said to be…

Add to that the Hungarian inheritance rules - properties were divided evenly between the heirs, so I can now own a 13/6240 of an agricultural field. The farm still pays me a small yearly dividend and offers to buy my share, but that's really everything what can be done with it.
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