Microsoft Hatred FAQ berkeleyunix 5162
No, I wasn't. The statements I made are true: the government charges you taxes on your property, and in most places restricts the changes you can make to it and the things you can do in it. I used the words "rent" and "ownership" in an unconventional way to emphasize the point.
The conventional usage of "ownwership" ignores these kinds of facts. So you can talk about "your" house even if you're renting it, or if the bank still owns most of the house. There are political groups that are unhappy with these facts, and like to point out the
Incidentally, the perfectly good rationale for this universal existence of limitations to "doing whatever you want...
David claimed that everyone had a right to do whatever they wanted with their property. This is simply false throughout most of the civilized world - zoning laws control what kinds of business you can run on your property, various laws designed to control the looks of the town dictate what you can do to the exterior or lawn, flood and earthquake laws state what kinds of structural changes you can make, and so on. I took the view of a political extremist to point out that he was wrong. David predictably used that to tar me as an extremist from the other end of the spectrum.
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