Why must we pay to live on our own planet?

The question may seem childish to some, but I want you all to really think about this. Why must we pay to live on our own planet?

Why did we make an economic system that is completely decoupled from the laws of nature, when we know that we live on a finite planet?

Why do we work for money that we then have to use to get access to resources we need, when the resources are already here?

And why do some people inherit land and claim it their private property, making other people pay or work for having access to their property, even when everybody is born on the same planet and there is more than enough room for everybody?

Again, why must we pay to live on our own planet?

TED Conversation- Mats Kaarbo ~ Bergen, Norway

We have over 18,000,000 homes vacant from foreclosures alone. Enough for each homeless American to have approximately six residences.

- The system we live under is fucked up. It's stupid.


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We just don't seem to be evolved enough to get along in a sensible fashion. The older hunter/gatherer cultures seemed to have had a more equitable relationship with the earth and each other than do we. I would hardly call a tribe with a few hundred homeless and a few more hundred uninhabited homes functional.

...we've evolved enough.

As long as men with guns fight for the 1% against the 99%, this will never change. It hasn't so far. They keep fighting for the 1% assholes.

We can change it ALL with a thought. Thought X 7,000,000,000.

[center]Global Consciousness Project (GCP)[/center]

And are they REALLY vacant due to foreclosure?

I did a quick search for a source for this statistic. I found a site that claimed 14 million, and cited the Census Bureau:

Although the site is about "foreclosures", note the weasel words "for some reason or another".

If you go to the Census Bureau source cited you find this:



There is no specific mention of "foreclosures" in the census report and the vast majority of the vacancies seem to be rental inventory that has become available and not yet leased.

I don't know if the 2% homeowner inventory that is vacant for sale includes "foreclosures" - it probably does - but it is evident that the total number of vacant foreclosures could not approach 18 million.

I wonder where the 18 million figure came from?

http://crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/35-million-homeless-and-185-million-va

And as far as I'm concerned the numbers of vacant units is not the relevant point. Even one vacant home available per homeless person is way outta line. The whole system is perverted and we just don't know it because it is all we know.

We came with nothing, we leave with nothing -- that's the way it has always worked. And no one is allowed to ''hold a few things'' for others and then pass it along to their family members, post mortem.

It makes no sense to charge people to have something that is already theirs in-common with every other living being on this planet.

- Period.

18.5 vacant homes, not foreclosed. Given that the article was written in 2011, that seems roughly consistent with the 2013 number. Of course, most of those homes would be up for rent, and would thus shortly provide some family or another with a home.

And thanks for sharing your somewhat unique philosophy - although I can't agree with it entirely. We should all be required to contribute to the welfare of others in return for what we receive from them - charging each other for a share of what we collectively create is one way to ensure this holds.

Resource-based Economy.

TED Conversation- Mats Kaarbo ~ Bergen, Norway

...that this point of view is not exactly "mainstream". I've heard a certain amount of skepticism expressed about the resource based economy and the Venus project. But there isn't anything wrong with speculating, brainstorming and proposing new ideas.

and armed folks show up to defy Court orders ....

involved in Kelo vs New London had gone Bundy. You might lose in court. But they need for you to cooperate to keep their power. Make them pay for every home they steal.

to Bundy for 20+ years. Bundy told him to go piss up a rope.

Are these the group who live off welfare? I saw a show a while ago about a Mormon family with several kids. They all piled into a bus and went grocery shopping with food stamps. The father does not seem to have a job, nor has ever worked. If they are so "godly" why do they rip off taxpayers to fund their lifestyle?When Jeffs was caught he had lots of cash with him, so where did that come from I wonder, since he did not work either. Sounds like this is nothing but another religious scam.

Within conservative Mormon Corridor culture*, there is a strong distrust of and distaste for most government higher than the community level. Part of this is inherited -- the LDS conflicts with state and local governments from the time of foundation until the 1890s left deep scars in the community, and those stories are within the oral culture (and in some cases amongst the splinter groups, in living memory.) For the most part, Mormon Corridor culture deals with this inherited antipathy by advocating a form of communitarian-libertarian separatism -- they want to cooperate and deeply invest in community within their own, local groups, but want very little or nothing to do with anyone outside their group. (This right here is why exile, de jure or self-imposed, is always a bad idea.) Politically, it usually manifests as libertarianism, and many align with the Constitution or Libertarian party (with lesser of two evil voting patterns going Republican.)

However, there is a subset of that culture who believe that the only way to express their antipathy is to destroy government from the inside out, and that's where bleeding the beast comes from. They apply for and receive any benefits possible as a means of revenge and destruction; many try to remain outside of documented income streams (to avoid paying taxes) or, as in the Cliven Bundy case, will go to court to avoid paying any fee for as long as possible, then make some sort of final stand-off. They see destroying state and federal governments as the means for bringing about the new Jerusalem, which will be a dominionist theocracy with (of course) themselves as the most privileged members of the upper caste. The establishment of this theocracy will bring about the second coming and return Jesus to earth. (They're not pre-millenarian dispensationalists -- they don't believe in a Rapture.)

Is it a scam? Yes, and no. Of course there's greed at the bottom, but there's also faith and a vengeful hate that stems from the 19th century. The biggest issue is that many of these people do not feel that they are American, or at least, not primarily, or not part of the same America as the rest of us. Some feel that their ancestors purposely left America because America persecuted them**, and their de facto American citizenship was imposed upon them unwillingly. Others feel that their spiritual citizenship trumps any material citizenship, and because they never agreed to any social contract, they need not be bound by one. And then at the top of the hierarchies, there is legitimate scamming going on -- because indeed, wealth and power are powerful drugs.



* a distinct culture most often found in Idaho, Utah and Arizona, whose members are often descendants of the original LDS immigrants, but need not be practicing LDS themselves. Mormon corridor culture often strongly correlates with membership in the LDS church, but membership in one does not automatically mean membership in the other. There are many Mormons who aren't part of corridor culture, and many who live in the corridor who are not practicing Mormons but share other cultural markers.

** I don't deny that the governments of Missouri and Illinois handled Mormons very badly. On the other hand, the Mormons were counterfeiting and scamming their non-Mormon neighbors and building a private army, so this is a rare case of both sides were guilty. And the territory the Mormons went to in 1848 was not US -- it was still part of Mexico (though not for long; it was ceded to the US at the end of 1848 by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.)

fees like taxes, presumably, pay for PUBLIC SERVICES, like roads, water, schools, and such.

I think at some level of government, the ball was dropped. It should have never gotten to the point where people owe millions.