Who really owns your Car?

[VonVulcan]

You paid for it, got the title from the state, but wait, is that the end of the story? This may be old news to some but I just found this information and and thought I'd share...

http://www.geocities.com/tthor.geo/vehiclecertorig.html

And I'm discovering a whole lot more nastiness happenin here in the good ol' USA...

[Duper]

the url is dead Vulcan. Can ya get us another link?

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[Skyalmian]

Who really owns your Car?

The government -- not you. Hence, drivers licenses and license plates because the government is licensing its car (not yours) to you for you to use under a hell of a lot of conditions / requirements.

The \"Manufacturer's Certificate of Origin or Manufacturer's Statement of Origin (MCO/MSO)\" is the real title they don't tell you about. \"Grand Theft Auto\"

[VonVulcan]

Works for me Duper, try it again.

[CUDA]

the Gov does NOT own your car. its a usage tax. just like EVERYTHING you own or buy. from the soda at the nearest 7-11 to the cable TV you watch you pay taxes on them, your Drivers license and registration are the same thing.

[Will Robinson]

Big semantic argument with no conclusion. They determine that a \"Certificate of Title\" is not the real title but a certificate that says you have ownership of the title and therefore own the car.

Yes, in literal terms, the state has the actual paper that is the document the certificate is representative of but no where in all that paranoid expose does the author show the state can take possession of your car and declare them selves as the rightful owner! If they tried to and you show up in court with the certificate of title assuming it isn't a forgery, the judge would tell the state to go piss up a rope and return your car to you!

I have a certificate of stock in North West Savings Bank the real shares are held in some brokerage firms clearing house or bank of some kind...big deal...if they try to keep my share of the stock and cash it in I'll be in court proving I own the stock and they stole it from me by way of fraud.

Big nothing, don't worry about it.

[TIGERassault]

What Will said.
And this debate pops up a lot. Usually ending in a \"it's whatever way you look at it\".

[Testiculese]

Usage tax? That's what road taxes are for. A usage tax on a car is rent, because it is most definitely not your car.

Take off the license plate. Your car, right? If it was your car, and you had allodial title, then you wouldn't be required to have a license plate, or a license. What purpose does either serve? (Here's a hint; nothing).

If it's your car, why do people pay sales tax again, and again, and again...every time it's transferred? Why would you have to involve the government at all? Your car, right?

Do you think you own that house and property you're staying in? You think? Then you can stop paying property taxes, I guess...

[Spidey]

All that crap with the title means is the original is in storage in the hall of records. And most of the legalize has to do with liability & stuff, having to do with the fact that driving a car on the public/state roads is a privilege, and not a right. You can’t do anything you want with a car on the road, such as take off the pollution controls. But to prove you actually do own your car, simply take it off the public roads, and drive it on a private racetrack, there you can do whatever you want with it, including chopping it into little pieces, or hanging it from a tree. (which is illegal on the public roads)

BTW your license has only to do with driving on public/state roads.

[Nightshade]

I think what's really ignored here is the true nature of real estate. Think you own your own home? (Paid off, no mortgage, etc?) Nope. The government owns it. You pay a perpetual rent in the form of property tax. Don't pay your tax? Guess who kicks you out?

Of course, this is nothing compared to eminent domain/land seizure/etc. Any land within the borders of the USA is not yours to own in perpetuity.

[Spidey]

I thought the topic here was “who owns your car” not your house, which is a different story.

[Nightshade]

I think it could be distilled down to:

\"How much do you really own? Is your life really yours when you think about it?\"

[VonVulcan]

Yes, Are we really free?

[Testiculese]

Note: If you hate your car and set it on fire...your car...you are arrested for destruction of property. Hmm... (If you are still paying for the car, doubly so, as it's still an asset of the dealer.)

If you have insurance on your car or house, the insurance industry also owns more of your car/house than you do, as they have a vested interest. Cars aren't as regulated, yet, it's pretty much just the house. Where do you think all the building regulations come from? You can't even run a new outlet without a permit from the state. Why? Because the insurance companies lobbied for laws that require licensed persons to perform that work. (It's usually a good idea to do so anyway, but for it to be law?) If I need to replace the drywall in a room I have to pay the state? If I want to run a new line for an AC unit, I have to pay the state? If I want to replace the old siding, I have to pay the state? Yes, yes, yes because your house is not yours! Fee simple, not allodial.




You don't even own your body. Think you do? Fail at committing suicide. You are arrested. Attempted destruction of property. Smoke a joint in your own house. Arrested. Was a crime committed in either case? No.

[Will Robinson]

Testi, you are going off the semantic deep end. Yes you could argue that since you aren't free to do anything you want with your house or car then it proves you don't have complete ownership but if the only things you can't do with them are those things that affect your fellow citizens in a negative way ie; burning your house down by not wiring the appliance according to code which then endangers your neighbors house and the lives of occupants of the neighbors house as well as bystanders and firemen..then really what you are proving is we have decided as a group to regulate ourselves in these ways and so we voluntarily give up the right to some uses of our property, not really giving up ownership.

The acid test to ownership is can you sell the item and keep the money to use anyway you want without someone else being able to prove in court they owned it? If the answer is yes then you own it.

[Hostile]

If it's your car, why do people pay sales tax again, and again, and again...every time it's transferred? Why would you have to involve the government at all? Your car, right?

As a side note, under the FairTax system, only new items would be taxed. The second time a car or house (or anything for that matter) is purchased, there would be no federal tax of any kind. That is not to say that your state would not tax the transaction..... Check out the FAQ.

[Foil]

Note: If you hate your car and set it on fire...your car...you are arrested for destruction of property.

Only if there is still a lein on the car, or the fire endangers someone else's property (firefighters don't look kindly on car fires in suburban neighborhoods, for example).

You don't even own your body. Think you do? Fail at committing suicide. You are arrested. Attempted destruction of property.

People aren't arrested for 'attempted destruction of property' because of a failed suicide attempt. Ask any police officer who has seen those cases; they're taken in because they need help and/or they could be a danger to someone else.

Smoke a joint in your own house. Arrested. Was a crime committed...?

Yes. It's technically a crime, even if you don't personally consider the laws against marijuana usage reasonable.

[Testiculese]

When you are dealing with government, semantics are extremely important. Slave ownership was made lawful by a comma three words to the left in the redrafted Mississippi constitution (I think is was them). For 30 years, actually, until the comma was moved three words to the right, again outlawing slave ownership. One comma. The whole basis of the income tax fraud is the definition of a single word. It's definition under law is 100% different from it's definition in Websters. The IRS presents the Websters definition in it's documentation to the public, which is dead wrong, and the IRS knows it.

\"It might happen\" is not a constitutional reason to pass a law. If I burn my house and my neighbor's house, then I should be responsible for it. Lawsuits, jailtime. These preventative laws do nothing except restrict the freedoms of people. Can't use a cellphone in your car? Why not? I've never crashed a car on the phone. Never even came close. There's no reason it should be illegal. However the punishment for being on the phone and causing an accident should be more severe than just causing an accident. Instead, accidents are caused because the people are now on the phone and searching for cops instead of on the phone and watching the road. What has the law prevented? Not a thing. You cannot prevent an occurrence with a law, you can only react to it.

The real acid test (yours fails because some of that money is stolen from you, and money can't be a test because it's not a universal factor.) is if you can do whatever you want with said property without affecting the rights of others. Want to burn your house to the ground? Go for it. Want to drive your car off a cliff? Go for it. (Do that and then claim the insurance money? Jail, of course.)

edit:: Foil, technically it is not a crime. No victim. \"Crimes\" require victims.

[Foil]

The real acid test... is if you can do whatever you want with said property without affecting the rights of others. Want to burn your house to the ground? Go for it.

If you own the house, you can. Owners tear down / destroy / implode their buildings all the time.

An example in my own family: land with a house sold to a new owner, who decided they didn't want the house. So they bulldozed it.

It was on a huge acreage, they could have burnt it down just as easily (as long as the fire was within county regulations, of course).

Want to drive your car off a cliff? Go for it. (Do that and then claim the insurance money? Jail, of course.)

Again, if you're the owner, you can do that. You can do whatever you want to it, as long as you're not breaking laws in the way you destroy it. Want to put it in a legal "car bash"? Do it! Want to take it out on your own land and drive it until the tires fall off and the engine dies? Fine.

Where it would become a crime is claiming the insurance money (lying that it wasn't intentional, otherwise you wouldn't have a claim because intentional losses are not covered). At that point, it's insurance fraud.

[Will Robinson]

The real acid test (yours fails because some of that money is stolen from you, and money can't be a test because it's not a universal factor.) is if you can do whatever you want with said property without affecting the rights of others...

For this discussion money, or value (you could trade it), is universal, were talking about ownership of property in America by citizens of America..right?

I sold a motorcycle for $5000, no one stole any of the money from me. I then used it to buy a guitar and pay some bills and buy food, entertainment etc....
I had no obligation to the government regarding the sale, I didn't have to report the money as income, I merely signed the certificate of title over to the new owner and turned in my license plate. I gave him a bill of sale which is another document that the government acknowledges as proof of change of ownership...

I'm sure that the motorcycle was 100% mine until I took the money and gave him possession of it along with the bill of sale and I'd like to see anyone try to prove otherwise in a courtroom. The same government you say really owns the motorcycle would back me up in that court! I would use laws they have written that specifically state what constitutes ownership and describe how one owner can sell or otherwise transfer ownership between two parties!!

You are talking about ownership in the state of anarchism and America isn't anarchist.

[Testiculese]

Will, I'm talking about allodial title ownership. Nothing to do with anarchism, but everything to do with how this country was originally founded (as far as personal property). You're discussing fee simple, where you have assumed ownership of property, but the government retains absolute ownership. That useless license plate on your car is the first indication of that. You are right, the title can be transferred to whomever you choose to sell the car. You do have obligations to the government. You had to tell them who you were selling it to, for how much, what the mileage is, etc.. Then the other guy had to pay a fee to have the title transferred, pay tax (on something already taxed) and give the government all of his information. None of that would be required if you owned the car. Also, under the current income tax fraud, you DO have to report that money as income if you sell it for more than you bought it. (Fat chance of anyone doing that, of course)

aside: I meant tax from the buyer, not you, as stolen money in my last post. Sorry, I'm posting at work during breaks, without preview.


Foil, tear down your house without telling the state, build a new one, (even using licensed contractors, fully to code) without telling the state. See what happens. Cars, yes, you can just destroy. I shouldn't have used that as an example...I just read that a guy torched his own car, and was arrested for arson. I think he must have not paid it off yet, so that's a valid charge.

[Spidey]

oops