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We stepped onto the slippery slope of anti-property rights long ago. It is only exciting now that we have gained speed and the scenery is racing by so fast that it begins to blur.

The new toast of the millenium should be:
May all your puddles be wetlands, may all your frogs have red legs, and do enjoy the little pixies of fairy shrimp dancing in the sparkling firelight of the nearest forest fire engendered by the watermelon crowd. We are the Brave New World.

The Lockean natural-rights concept of property was assassinated a long time ago, and replaced under cover of darkness by the utilitarian concepts of Alfred Marshall and Wesley Newman Hohfield. Since the late Nineteenth Century, the dominant voices in property theory have all bowed, more or less explicitly, toward the God of Social Engineering.

Natural rights as such no longer receive any respect in law or in the parlance of the dominant social theorists. To suggest that a right differs from a State-granted permission by its absoluteness, or in any other way, is a red flag that invites ridicule and ostracism. The giveaway is that rights are always being "measured" against "compelling government interests," and when they clash, rights are always abridged.

Speaking of which, there's another cancer on the land: Where does the government get away with claiming interests? Government is a hired hand, not a principal; that's the foundation of constitutionalism, inherent in the delegation of powers from the citizenry. Only principals can have interests, because only principals can have rights -- but there's that nasty word again. Fifteen lashes with a wet noodle!

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

Of all the issues ever discusssed on FR this is the central one.

If we could own our land in Fee Simple, and dispose of it only upon our desire to harvest cash from it, rather than being kicked off the land by the taxing authority if we do not continue land rent payments (real estate taxes), then our society would resolve itself into a truely noble work.

Our lands would ebb and flow according to the fortunes of the people based upon their characters. People would not be forced onto the treadmill by the requirement to pay for their place in the sun, and would find their own best employment rather than being forced into the "system" to work in what amounts today to "indentured servitude" to the state. So long as the money from a paycheck flows first to the state before reaching the hand of the worker, there remains a state of slavery in our country. We are no longer "at choice" with respect to paying tax. It is "extracted" by force and or the threat of force.

As it stands now, we are all of us under the thumb. It all changed in the early 1900's when the people had finally become too stupid and too lazy to defend their birthright. The situation was compounded by outright treason among our Government representatives. We persist in that same condition of ignorance and loss today.

Property reform is an issue which has caused the bullets to fly in the past. It is not likely to be "up" until the people are hurting so bad that ANYTHING is better. We are a very long way from that point now.