[pvn]

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1) Government cannot legitimately own property.

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But a collective can?

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Yes. The differentiation is, as you pointed out, voluntary vs. involuntary transactions. If involuntary transactions can confer legitimate property rights, then we're immediately in a might makes right scenario. Agree?

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The fact that a "rightful" owner can't be found doesn't give government license to scoop up vast tracts by decree.

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But you do get to decree what is yours?

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Decree isn't sufficient for obtaining property rights. If it were, governments could indeed own property, since decree is something governments are very good at.

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2) Government isn't claiming ownership of the land I am currently occupying. They just levy taxes on it. So even ignoring #1, government doesn't get to "keep" my property since it doesn't "have" it now.

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I was thinking more of public roads, parks, lakes, etc.

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As I've said before, if we want to look at things like speed limits, bans on smoking in courthouses, etc, these things by themselves are not particularly objectionable, as the "owner" (or, to use more neutral language, the "controller") of the property is simply setting rules for its use. Now, when smoking bans are extended to private property, to property NOT controlled by the group making the ban, we have obvious objections. Further, we can always go back to the ownership question and see that governments cannot legitimately "own" roads, parks, etc.

There could be some one-off corner cases, e.g. some wealthy benefactor donates a huge piece of land to a city government for use as a park. The government could theoretically "own" this property, but its ownership would be tainted by its inability to *maintain* that ownership legitimately (i.e. without taxation).