Juan Garofalo wrote:

> A tax is something you are FORCED to pay. A price is the outcome of
> a VOLUNTARY agreement.  Unless we stick to english, (not newspeak and
> doublethink!), this discussion makes no sense.

Ok.

> Fallacy : Straw man attack. I only despise individuals willing to use
> force to impose their religious beliefs. In case it's not clear what I'm
> talking about, so called 'enviromentalism' is a revelead religion. It
> has nothing to do with science and/or reason.

Just because you don't understand the reasons behind what you call my
environmentalism doesn't imply there is none. And in the end, of course
everything we say stands on our opinions (there's no fact besides our
subjective observations) -- so if you call that 'religion', your arguments
are just as 'religious'. 

> And, you are seeing my argument wrongly. I'm willing to negotiate a price
> with you. That is, as long as no government is involved. Translated : as
> long as no violence is used and we keep the deal to ourselves. 

Ok.

> It's not clear at all that the water under your property is yours. 

Ok. I thought you were discussing from a point of "no common property"; ie.
everything is private property. But, as you stated later, to get to common
terms we need to get to a common concept of what is private property and
what is common property -- and how to deal with common property.

> At any rate, if you want to hoard it so that the price goes up and more
> people suffer, you are indeed free to do it. 

That was not my proposition. I don't know how you live. Where I grew up, it
is essential for people to store things (not 'hoard' them) so that they can
survive the winter. Fathers have planted trees for their grandchildren do
harvest. This has been so for millennia and is still the case. Keeping
resources around for the future (both months and centuries) is not
necessarily 'hoarding'.

Not using is not the same as hoarding.

[See, if you want to have a serious discussion, you should make a little
bit of an effort to keep it free of gratuitous attacks.]

> The sarcasm is pointless. We should agree what property exactly is...and
> if we can't, then there's secesion. 

Ok... this is all your turf, you started this. Explain what you mean with
'property', so that I can see whether I agree with that, or tell you with
what of it I don't agree.

>>> The oil in 'your' commons is only sitting there. It's useless unless
>>> it's extracted and refined. 
>> 
>> So you get to define what is useless for me, when I have a right to
>> consider something useful for me and when not. Sounds... hm.... :)
> 
> Sounds like you are putting words in my mouth.

No, definitely not. You said that in your definition, the oil is useless
for me, even though I said that I don't think it's useless for me. Keeping
it for later is not useless -- for me. You may disagree, but then we have a
problem and need to decide who gets to decide about what to do with it.
Which goes back to questions about whose property it is (see above), and
what to do if someone uses it contrary to any property rules.

> I do agree with you...up to the point that  we should carefully refine
> the concept of property. That's the key point of the system...Let me add
> that, it seems to me (but may I be wrong) that your concept of property
> is a bit confused :)

Well, I tried to extract what you implied without explicitly defining it,
to be able to make sense of your statements. The apparent confusion may be
because you didn't make explicit what the basis is of your position. 

As we agreed upon, one basis of what you suggest seems to be private
property. It has to be very clearly defined what is private property.
Another basis seems to be that there are no common decisions to be taken
that then needs to be adhered to by everybody. It has to be defined how to
deal with everything that is not private property. Another basis seems to
be absence of violence. It has to be defined which of the effects your life
may have on mine are considered violence. 

Gerhard

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