‘F–k You, I Got Mine’

Understanding a core sentiment of American life

Eliminating property taxes has become a new conservative cause. Republican lawmakers in Texas and Florida are eager to pursue this change.Ron DeSantis recently argued that property taxes indicate you don’t truly own your home in his effort to cut down on this measure. “If I go to Best Buy and buy a TV I pay sales tax but don’t keep paying taxes on it year after year,” the Florida governor declared at a press conference.

Property taxes have gotten out of hand in certain areas, so it makes sense for lawmakers to respond to the issue. But the answer is not to eliminate them entirely. Property taxes, unlike many of our other taxes, actually go to services and goods we benefit from on a daily basis. Roads, bridges, police, fire departments, schools, public parks, sanitation, and many other things are supported by these taxes. Paying property taxes is just the price to pay to live in a nice community. Without them, America’s crumbling infrastructure would further deteriorate and your local community would turn into an unlivable hellhole.

People persist in supporting this idea thanks to the common sentiment of “fuck you, I got mine.” It’s an antisocial tendency that imagines there is no assumption of public obligations or duties. Your neighbors and community can all go to hell. All that matters is the individual and his own property. The man doesn’t believe he’s a member of any community. He is an island unto himself.

This idea made more sense in antebellum America where the citizen was largely self-sufficient. The frontier homestead couldn’t count on police, a fire department, sanitation services, or even properly maintained roads. It was all up to the individual to provide for himself and his family. The few public services, such as the local militia, would be something the citizen was directly involved in. In this world of rugged individualism, it made sense to tell the world off. Everything the yeoman had was his own and he largely provided for himself. He didn’t depend on any public services.

It’s the complete opposite today. The average person, especially the boomers set to benefit the most from property taxes, are entirely dependent on the public services provided by these taxes. They aren’t going to maintain their own sewer system, act as their own police department, put out fires at their neighbors homes, or fix potholes on roads. Americans are a very passive citizenry. We expect other people to do these things for us. Many of us hardly know our own neighbors, further preventing non-government initiative to solve these problems.

But the rugged individualism of the frontier lives on, even in completely dependent retirement communities. Due to declining public participation, citizens don’t understand their own stake in these affairs. In the olden days, citizens would know that they voted for a public school to be erected and agreed to its funding at the local assembly. This was something carried out by people you knew and trusted. Now it’s all carried out by strangers. Communities are just randomly assorted people who may or may not say “hi” to one another. There’s less connection due to the nation’s hyperatomization. While hyperatomization makes people more dependent on the state, it also makes them feel less invested in what the state does. That leads to the absurdity of people refusing to pay for the public goods they directly benefit from. It’s all an impersonal matter. They don’t see the direct links to the roads leading to their home that they pay for through the property taxes on said home.

Many Americans view their house as their own self-contained castle. They fail to see the roads that lead to their house and the first responders who protect it as an obligation they need to support. All of this is just supposed to magically exist on its own regardless if you pay your property taxes.

This type of thinking is part of America’s growing anti-social tendencies. It makes sense for people to not want to pay their fair share in a nation where people go shopping in the middle of the afternoon in pajama bottoms. The fetishism over selfish nutjobs, whether in the form of Killdozer or the Unabomber, further illustrates this anti-social mindset. Many Americans fantasize about murdering their co-workers or fellow students. A few even put those fantasies into action. Americans are increasingly suspicious of others and can’t even trust their neighbors. When you view everyone outside your home as a potential enemy rather than a fellow community member, it’s easy to dismiss the benefits of property taxes. The average American wants to feel like a lone wolf while still accessing the benefits of a modern society.

Boomers think they would benefit the most from this because they think all the property taxes go to things they don’t use, like public schools. In an ideal society, even if your children were all grown up, you would still see the value in contributing to the next generation’s education. But not in modern America. Hyperindividualism makes boomers and many other Americans not care about the next generation. Everything should be about themselves, everyone else be damned. Why should they help strangers? “Fuck you, I got mine” becomes the favored response.

Of course, there are a lot of reasons to criticize public education. But defunding to further enrich boomers sends a terrible message. It would declare we’re moving in a child-free direction that cares far more about preserving even more comforts for the elderly at the expense of making new generations. Taking away public education adds yet another burden to young families while further widening the generational wealth gap.

This rugged individualism isn’t dependent on actual self-sufficiency. In fact, one of the pillars of “fuck you, I got mine” thinking is how our population adamantly opposes any entitlement reforms. Many of the same people who want their property taxes eliminated also want their social security and Medicare fully preserved and possibly expanded. They still want everyone else to pay for their benefits. They don’t care if the way we structure entitlements is bound to jeopardize America’s future. “Fuck you, I got mine.”

If we did get rid of property taxes, we would need citizenry to take it upon themselves to do what’s necessary to preserve a functioning community. They could no longer passively wait for others to do things. They would need to do it themselves. American society would need to boast a strong commitment to duties and obligations placed on the citizen.

It’s delusional to see American citizens taking up this challenge in our current era. We’re a passive citizenry that expects either the state or other people to do everything for us.

America’s current individualism is built on the expectation of benefits rather than the realization of self-sufficiency. There is no sense of obligations and duties. It’s all about individual rights and entitlements that only the state can protect and provide. This dependency further atomizes us and makes us not care about our neighbors, our community, or even our nation’s future. It’s all about getting yours, no matter the expense.

This is one of many reasons why the elimination of property taxes would be a disaster. Citizens wouldn’t pick up the slack. We’d just see even greater erosion of our public spaces and quality of life.

There are many great things about America’s folk libertarianism. It makes us prize gun rights, self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and free speech. It also makes us suspicious of liberal bureaucrats and idiotic government schemes that end up making our lives worse. But it can also lead to the extremism of “fuck you, I got mine.” This belief makes everything come down to selfish desires and obviates concerns for anyone else. There is a need to have some conception of the common good to mitigate this anti-social tendency.

There’s often a reason to be skeptical of the “common good” in the modern American context. Those who appeal to it usually do so to demand we have open borders, increase welfare, ban guns, and a whole lot of other nonsense. Common good, at its best, perfectly aligns with this nation’s traditions and social mores to make our people see themselves as part of a greater whole. It’s what made us settle the frontier, go to the Moon, build the interstate system, win several wars, and make a great nation. We didn’t obtain greatness through “fuck you, I got mine.”

Thankfully, Americans are still pragmatic. Most of our citizenry should realize that property tax elimination is a terrible idea once they’re informed of its costs. Texas let its proposal to effectively ban the taxes die in committee. Florida’s proposal is only a mere reform rather than a ban.

But it’s still a bad sign that this idea is gaining popularity. It portends to a possible future where Americans give up on any common purpose and turn even more inward. Not only would our communities crumble and public services nosedive, but we would effectively give up as a great power. If we can’t make tiny sacrifices to have sewers and roads, how do we expect anyone to die for this country?

If we everyone thinks “fuck you, I got mine,” we all get fucked.