Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Kevmo

Trespassing is a common law derived from English Common law, in effect long before the US Constitution was written.

Trespassing was illegal before the Constitution was written. There are cases of trespass in colonial times and medieval England. The law has undergone changes from the earliest days, but the concept of ownership and possessorary rights include the right to prohibit others the use of a thing that is owned. If I prohibit the use of my land to you because you are armed or ugly, you are still armed and ugly (hence your right to be armed or ugly is not infringed) you just do not have the right to enter my property.

The rights listed in the first 10 amendments are not an end all list nor are they the most important to many people. Rather our founding fathers included them because they were rights most often infringed upon by the crown.

Do you believe a company must allow an employee to distribute flyers or papers on company property? If not, why not? If, as you believe, a company can not prohibit certain speech at its work place how could it prohibit certain literature? What if the literature was advertisement for its competitor or highly guarded trade secrets?

Your position that a property owner cannot control who enters their property and on what conditions does not stand up to even rudimentary scrutiny.


173 posted on 10/13/2007 11:40:37 AM PDT by dpa5923 (Small minds talk about people, normal minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 170 | View Replies ]


To: dpa5923; tpaine

As Tpaine pointed out, (and no one responded)

“— Ownership in land — the most tangible, and in the early days of the Republic, the most important form of property — had never meant absolute control over that property or an unfettered right to use it in any way the owner wanted.
Traditions going back to English common law have always placed restrictions on property.
The common law doctrine of nuisance, for example, prevented owners from using their land in a way that interfered unreasonably with the rights of their neighbors.
Custom often allowed hunting on private, unenclosed land, or required that an owner allow access to rivers and lakes.

Property in the form of businesses also had regulations on them; taverns, ferries and coach lines, for example, were often heavily regulated in both England and the North American colonies. —”

Rights of the People: Individual Freedom and the Bill of Rights
Address:http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/property.htm

And also, as I posted in #142:

Our Constitutional Rights don’t apply to demands a private citizen makes of visitors to his private property.
***Here’s where the right to private property came from: the constitution. Here’s where the right to 1st & 2nd amendments came from: the constitution. Well, okay, they “came from” the Creator and the constitution outlines certain rights that it chooses to protect for us citizens. It is the same constitution that allows you to buy a piece of property — the same constitution that outlines my rights to freedom of religion. If you want to put up a sign at the front of your business that says, “you no longer have constitutional rights when you cross this line”, your business will be shut down pretty fast. For instance, I don’t give up my rights to freedom, to not be a slave, just because I cross that line. When you put up a business, you are not allowed under the constitution to declare slavery for anyone who comes into your place of business — that’s the 14th amendment. The 1st & 2nd amendments are also still in place. The question of enforcement of those rights is fun and interesting, but that does not mean we do not have those rights.


175 posted on 10/13/2007 1:22:39 PM PDT by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq— via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 173 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson