Libertarians believe that property is an essential human right. Because of this, they maintain that taxation is an unjust and unnatural violation of their rights. Property, after all, is a natural extension of the idea of self-ownership.



Here's the problem, though. You control your body so completely that even assuming Cartesian dualism, it may as well be YOU. The same is not true of, say, a gold mine, your house, or your car. Property doesn't exist without the same sort of coercion inherent in taxation.



The natural state of things is for there to be no ownership. Nobody can lay claim to a patch of virgin forest until someone picks up a weapon and kills anyone who challenges that claim, or convinces someone else to help them do this, like the government or a group of hired thugs. Until that happens, it's free. Anyone can cross it, anyone can have their sheep graze, anyone can mine the ground under it, etc. Yes, property is ultimately needed to prevent chaos, but practical necessities are completely separate from moral rights, and even the necessity of property is ultimately theoretical.



Property (and the market) is a convenience, nothing more. When you fail to see this, you descend into totem worship and lose the argument.



Incidentally, I may have figured out why conservatives hate nature. Nothing they believe in exists in nature. Not God, not the State, not property, not the military, not even race.