Suppose that your city has tax-supported capital goods, like buildings, snow plows, swimming pools, parks, libraries, etc. Do you have a right to take these for yourself? Is it stealing if you take them? Of course it’s theft, and it’s silly (and dangerous) to reach any other conclusion.

Clearly, you have no such right. Any theory, libertarian or otherwise, that says you have a right to take government property is either wrong or being misinterpreted so as to arrive at a wrong conclusion.

You have no right because your city government is legitimate in the sense that it’s accepted by the citizens of your locality. If you take city property, you are taking what belongs to them. The city is their agent and yours. The citizens financed the purchases of its capital goods. The city property is protected by the same kinds of laws that protect your property; and if you take it or vandalize it, you are supposed to be held accountable for your crimes.

This system of government is almost universally seen as defective, but that too does not give any individual or group of individuals a right to steal or vandalize city property. There are right ways to modify governments, and theft of government property is not one of those ways.

People always complain about what governments do, and they always complain about taxes. Some even argue that taxes are theft and governments illegitimate. But unless people en masse can be persuaded to modify their governments or their leaders, unless people can be persuaded that they are tax-slaves or in tax-bondage, so that they decide as a group to alter their government, that government remains and it remains legitimate — imperfect, stained, inefficient — but still legitimate. It remains in power, and taking its property is still theft. As long as it is in power, taxes are its property too; and if you or a group unilaterally create a tax revolt, you can expect to be treated as committing a crime.

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