Money vs Property

[neptop]

tl;dr: If money is never yours, how can it be stolen?

A few thoughts on money, taxes and how you are not stolen.

Many libertarians call taxes a way of stealing money (or wealth) from people who have it.

I don't think that can be considered true, because money is never yours in first place. So if you invest all your work and effort into getting something that never is yours anyway then complaining about it being taken away seems kinda foolish, doesn't it?

Look at your dollar bill. It says it isn't your property. So how can it be stolen.

Another thing is that stuff that you own and is your property is usually something you can do with whatever you want. However, you aren't allowed to do so. You aren't even allowed to destroy it, for example burn it (hey, it's winter! Brrr..). It's even worse: Doing so is considered a sign of mental illness.

Maybe that's also a question to lawyers. If something I have is basically not mine, or even worse debt, then how can it be considered a crime?

The whole thing also sounds kinda authoritarian. I mean the thing everyone cares about and the thing that wealth is measured in can never be yours.

All of this doesn't really make sense to me. Maybe someone here can explain how all of this is wrong and hey, maybe someone can even compare it to Bitcoin. Isn't it way more fun? Also does that mean that you [as a libertarian] should be against the kind of money we have right now in first place? Is that a reason why you all are here?

[Lethn]

http://www.gocurrency.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ten_pound_note.jpg

I'm using pounds because I'm British but if you notice it says even on current notes "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of" bankers stole our real money centuries ago and have it stored away claiming it is a commodity and not a currency, they've tricked everyone into thinking that the notes we carry now is 'real' cash while neglecting to mention that it has been printed over and over until it no longer reflects the amount it was originally meant to represent.

Governments and Bankers didn't steal our money through taxation, they stole it through debt and inflation and continue to do so even now.

[Rassah]

I remember when I used to live in USSR, the general legal understanding was that the government owns everything. Your apartment, your money, your posessions; everything was technically still owned by the government, even if it was in your possession. Private ownership was essentially illegal. It was a strange feeling, though. We basically felt that everything we worked for, bought, and owned, was ours, but had to remind ourselves, against our "natural" inclinations, that the government still owns everything. Dreaming about America, and finally moving out of USSR, the idea of personal ownership, that what we have is actually ours and can't be taken away, was like something out of a sci-fi or a fantasy movie. Right up there with the idea that USA is full of wonderful futuristic malls with talking machines everywhere, and that everyone lived in a "modern architecture" style beach house with cameras at the front door that opened the doors automatically.