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This is fabulous to see.

Property taxes evolved from the feud - the deal between the vassals and their estate lords. You defend us, we give you one third of the crops.

Or more.

This whole protection racket had an unspoken threat: don't pay the tax, and you'll need protection from the protector.

So it's just a perpetuation of feudalism, and the reign of the thugs over the productive.

Which brings up another point: property taxes were never meant to be a tax on principle residence. They were supposed to be a tax on production - and since pretty much everyone made their living off the land up till about 100 years ago, the only way you got income was from your property.

Most states have a homestead deduction on their property tax bill. This is a remnant of that concept: property tax didn't apply to the farmhouse, but rather the production of the farm.

The idea of losing your house to the tax man was anathema to free people. Thus the deduction.

So end the property tax. We have excise taxes and income taxes. We should end the latter of those too, but it's at least only exacted when you make money, not simply because you have a place to sleep.

You make an excellent point on the relationship of the vassals and the lords. The name we have for our homes and land, real estate, has the word royal (real) in it, again recognizing the approach that says everything belongs to the sovreign with the vassals/serfs being granted a small portion as long as they pay a tribute/tax (shades of the Hunger Games!!) to the sovreign.

Correct. And, I'll add that 1/18th of the land in every survey township was set up to provide for the education of the citizens therein in perpetuity.

Traditionally, sections 16 and 36 of each 36 square mile township were designated to support education.

The township was to either rent out this land and use the income generated to support education or sell the land and put the proceeds in trust to generate income to do the same.

In addition, the educational dollars were stretched as one or more landowners would typically donate land for a school and often a building as well. This ensured not only that their kids would have a short walk, but that the increased traffic would give their land priority for road improvements.

Generations of American kids were educated in such schools and few were dysfunctional. You can Google a typical graduation exam for eighth graders in Kansas, circa 1900, and you would be lucky to get 20% of modern American high school kids to pass the test.