Socialist liberty in Swiss village

Just when you thought Switzerland was an island of sanity, this comes through via the Mises blog:

“Swiss village: pay your dog tax or Fido gets it.”

GENEVA – A Swiss village has found a drastic way to compel dog holders to pay their pet’s annual tax: cough up, or the dog gets it.

Reconvilier — population 2,245 humans, 280 dogs — plans to put Fido on notice if its owner doesn’t pay the annual $50 tax.

Local official Pierre-Alain Nemitz says the move is part of an effort to reclaim hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes.

He says a law from 1904 allows the village to kill dogs if its owner does not pay the canine charge.

Nemitz told the AP on Monday that authorities have received death threats since news of the plan got out.

“This isn’t about a mass execution of dogs,” Nemitz said. “It’s meant to put pressure on people who don’t cooperate.”

If you are owed money by someone and that person refuses to pay, does this give you the right to kill that person’s pet?  What is the legal recourse to such damage of your private property?

Why the double standard for government officials to just harm and confiscate private property as they please, justifying it with arbitrary laws?

As Kel Kelly puts it on the Mises blog:

Freedom Swiss style: Pay a per head tax on your pet or the state will kill it.

So much for private property—one’s pet—being one’s own. If pet owners don’t pay the state money, most of which goes into someone else’s pocket, it will come after them. A local Swiss politician described it for what it is:

“It’s meant to put pressure on people who don’t cooperate.”

That’s what’s called “liberty” by socialists.