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You're still giving the "it's property" framing waaay more credit than it's due. Remember, granting someone exclusivity to a contested resource means preventing other people who would like to use the resource from using the resource. It's entirely reasonable for those people, represented in aggregate by the government, to ask for compensation in return, even if the government provided the landowner no additional services beyond the exclusivity.
The entire concept of "owning" land is just a hustle to argue against paying taxes on it.