Sometimes I amaze myself

I am giving myself a pat on the back. I posted about the fire department in Tennessee this morning. Uncle posts about an attack on Libertarianism at this site here. In this site, the blogger posts:

This fire is a the result of libertarian land. In libertarian land, collective action is forbidden so taxes cannot pay for fire departments. Without taxes, you must rely on the voluntary subscription to services (or after the fact fees, but for something like firefighting that requires a large and constant maintenance cost, after the fact fees aren’t going to be enough to keep a fire department active). If you must rely on a voluntary subscription service, then you must discourage free loaders. If you must discourage free loaders, then you must let the homes of the poor, or unlucky or plan stupid burn to the ground.

 To which, I posted this reply:

Of course, you have the alternative: You turn the $75 fee into a property tax, and anyone who doesn’t pay has his house foreclosed on and taken away by the taxing authority to pay the taxes.


This taxing authority also needs staffing, and so hires personnel to handle the taxes. With this new overhead, the previously voluntary $75 fee is now a mandatory $150 tax.

If you do not pay, they take your house. When they send the sheriff to your house to evict you, if you resist, he activates the SWAT team, and they gun you down. Then they raise the tax to $250 so they can cover the expenses of the SWAT team.

Isn’t that much better?

Yes, the Libertarian way is heartless and cruel, and the collectivist way at least insured that the house didn't burn down. The owners are dead or homeless, but at least the house didn't burn down.

Edited to add: This is an email response to this post:

No. The police in Europe will never kill you, in Europe we don`t do that any more, you Americans probably do. You Americans just don`t get it do you; You can`t run a whole country the same way as a McDonalds restaurant!

Ok, I guess Americans know best, you have the best systems and don`t need to be lectured by anyone about anything. You are simply the best, right? 

 This guy doesn't understand that there are only two ways to conduct any sort of business: By force, or by voluntary cooperation. If I refuse to pay my taxes, how else can the government force me to pay, except through force? If I resist their force with force of my own, do you think the cops are going to give up, or will they increase the force they employ until I submit?