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Private Property-Who Does It Belong to Anyway?

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Collectivist

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Private Property-Who Does It Belong To Anyway?
 
If you recognize that a person has the right to live their own life then you must out of necessity recognize the right of a person to hold, give away, remove, regulate or sell private property as an owner sees fit. These two principles (the right to life and property) are inseparable. They have been the preeminent trait of American ideals since the founders of the nation signed the document of independence which separated us from the innumerable morose philosophies of the rest of the world. To deny these two principles of rights renders such persons as a meer stewards of the state. You may have bought you home, car, furniture etc. with your own money but the state may dispose of these possessions whenever or wherever it desires (without warning or permission) as is the case of millions of people living under rights denying totalitarian regimes. Let me provide a small example from a fictitious little town located somewhere USA. This town has a project going to replace worn, corroded and leaky sewer pipes within city limits. In order to lay new pipes the town must dig 6~10 to the right a main road intruding on private property. However most of the public would agree that the town has the right of egress to repair, prevent and eliminate public hazards with these limits. What the public would not agree is while performing this project, the city destroys homeowners driveways, expensive fixtures, garden beds and other private outways without a promise to repair any damage performed by the project.The damage stands for months with the public involved asking for but not getting any relief. The most they receive are vague promises that the town administration will deal with the damage caused at a later date...so on and so forth. Here is the problem: does the town own the right to your private property to ignore your requests for relief? If so does the town consider you just a steward in the way of “their” property without said rights? Are your taxes you pay on your property just a way to invade your wallet without care or responsibility? If so then the charter of rights Americans are said to have is just a sham, a trick and a “slight of hand” you.” This is what is called “creeping statism”, the kind when you wake up some time in the near future wondering what happened to you your family your property and your country! If private property turns out to, as it seems today, be but an annex to the state then the whole institution of Americanism falls by the wayside! Somehow we have lost our way and now serve a new principle that we, the people are servants of the government and not the other way around. Is this the kind of America that we and our children have to look forward too! I sincerely hope not, for me, for you, for our small fictitious town and for America!
Edited by Collectivist
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Many people like to believe that America is a free country that respects individual rights. Those who are a bit more knowledgeable realize that this isn't true but believe that it once was. But neither view can survive an examination of the facts. We always have been subjects, not citizens, and no amount of rhetoric -- or willful blindness -- can change that fact. See slavery. Disenfranchised people, especially women. Taxes, Eminent domain. The contingent and limited nature of rights, as interpreted by the Supreme Court -- in contrast to the absolute nature of government powers, as interpreted by that same court. I could go on for a long time, just listing subjects, never mind elaborating on them. Indians. The internment of the Japanese -- ratified by that court. The near nullification of habeas corpus. Oh never mind.... Lying local governments is the least of our problems.....

In any case, to answer the topic: No, you don't own your property, the government does in every way that matters. See the Kelo decision.....

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1 hour ago, Invictus2017 said:

See the Kelo decision.....

Supreme Court of Connecticut decision affirmed. Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development.

As if the desire for more cows justifies cattle rustling.

The arrival of Atlantis presupposes a context in which the consent for the transfer of a domain is acquiesced by its particular eminent.

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9 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

As if the desire for more cows justifies cattle rustling.

As if cattle rustling will create cows.  Udder nonsense, of course.

9 hours ago, Collectivist said:

You guys are amazing!

The Kelo decision was headline news.  It took no special expertise to see its relevance.

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That sounds about right.

In any case, the essential point of the case is that, so long as the government claims that taking your property benefits the public, it can do it. So much for property rights -- if the government can so easily take your property, it is meaningless to call it your property.

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  • 6 months later...
On 11/21/2017 at 10:19 AM, Invictus2017 said:

it is meaningless to call it your property.


I agree that the existence of eminent domain is contradictory. "The government claims that taking your property benefits the public" even though one can prove that the greatest benefit to the public is the respect of individual property rights (not take any property).

"If the government can so easily take your property, it is meaningless to call it your property".
I wonder about different types of properties.

Is a rental, a type of property? (you own it for a while?)
Is a license to use, or a license a type of property (something that you own)?
Is an easement, a right to travel through someone's land a type of property?
Is a contractual obligation that is promised to you, a type of property, something that you own? Owning someone's time?
Also, I believe that some states have 99-year leases rather than ownership of land. Is that property ownership?

If so, then "property right" is not "meaningless". It is just limited.
The question becomes if the limitation is justified or not.
 

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13 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:


I agree that the existence of eminent domain is contradictory. "The government claims that taking your property benefits the public" even though one can prove that the greatest benefit to the public is the respect of individual property rights (not take any property).

"If the government can so easily take your property, it is meaningless to call it your property".
I wonder about different types of properties.

Is a rental, a type of property? (you own it for a while?)
Is a license to use, or a license a type of property (something that you own)?
Is an easement, a right to travel through someone's land a type of property?
Is a contractual obligation that is promised to you, a type of property, something that you own? Owning someone's time?
Also, I believe that some states have 99-year leases rather than ownership of land. Is that property ownership?

If so, then "property right" is not "meaningless". It is just limited.
The question becomes if the limitation is justified or not.
 

Far from meaningless, Property Rights are absolute and inalienable. They are objective and cannot be limited or repealed by Goverment as they are not in fact granted by the Government as if by favor of a king.  Government ought to sanction and protect rights and ought not violate them.  Of course history is full of rights violating regimes... but the violations did not negate the rights themselves.

When it IS your property, far from meaningless to call it so, it is of paramount importance and eminently moral that you recognize it as such.

 

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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11 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

I agree with you, but I request that you preface your argument by indicating that it is prescriptive and not descriptive.

For someone looking at what you said and thinking you are describing the way things are, they would flip out.

An ethical principle:

"IF you want to live, you ought not drink poison"

relies upon and includes by implication the fact poison is inimical to a person's life.  An objective rational ethics, in that sense, has facts of reality baked into its principles and conclusions... and moreover, it is an observation of a truth:

"IF you want A, do B, BECAUSE x, y, z are facts of man and of reality." 

This is not a command, duty, or obligation, and to call such things "prescriptions" smacks a bit of a ten commandment or western philosophic intrinsic imperative, duty, or edict.  The objective ethical principles are fact based observations, in the form of a truth statement, and contain mostly descriptive substance.  Rights are as fact based as ethics and its principles are just as objective.

 

Rand's discovery of what objective ethics and politics are, ARE so fundamentally different from anything before it, to characterize rights as only "prescriptive" and "not descriptive" will cause more confusion than illumination... it leads a person on the cusp of understanding fact based objective ethics and politics back into the realm of ignorance filled with supernatural or intrinsic commandments imperatives and duties... and I really am not concerned who might "flip out".

 

Cheers!

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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17 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Government ought to sanction and protect rights and ought not violate them.

You actually did make a prescriptive statement, sorry I did not catch that.

I am not disputing the fact, it's more a communication style that I am focused on.

17 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Property Rights are absolute and inalienable.

When I initially saw that statement, I thought, I'd get beat up in a philosophy discussion group if I started off that way and they heard me say "The way things are: Property Rights are absolute and inalienable." Even though eminent domain exists

My motivation is "the more of them understand, the better world it will be".
 
This is a problem that I constantly get into within discussion with mostly leftists but also fascists are their axiomatic understanding that "ethics is based on norms", that it is based on historical data/facts.
  
I have noticed if I make a prescriptive statement and they take it as a descriptive statement, there is a loud groan from them and it takes me forever to explain that I was not describing what exist or existed.

6 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

An objective rational ethics, in that sense, has facts of reality baked into its principles and conclusions... and moreover, it is an observation of a truth:

"IF you want A, do B, BECAUSE x, y, z are facts of man and of reality." 

Now that is very helpful and to the point. I have a group coming up where the topic is "Is Morality Objective?"

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4 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Now that is very helpful and to the point. I have a group coming up where the topic is "Is Morality Objective?"

Well others have said it better... and what I said although necessary is not sufficient.   What one wants needs to be objective in order to ground the principle objectively.  A subjective want does not do the trick.  Objective morality really requires Rand's analysis of life and the objective theory of value... i.e. the choice to live.

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