Poaching, Wildlife, Fishing rights, Commons

[Dismuke]

However, there is no such thing as a "right to the existence of unclaimed deer", which is what your idea of a "right to potentially acquire" presumes in a sideways fashion.

I assume presume no such thing. My postings have been about the implications of the very easily verifiable fact of reality that deer do exist - and they do exist in the specific contexts that the postings describe.

You can't have a right to potentially acquire deer any more than you have a right to potentially acquire a flying car; does the failure of this flying car to exist constitute a violation of your rights?

Flying cars are a fantasy of science fiction. If a deer steps on to my property, that is not fantasy of science fiction but a fact of reality. And, since the deer happens to step on to my property - well, that fact happens to have certain implications on what specific rights I thereby possess with regard to the range of potential actions I can take with regard to that deer.

This would be precisely the same kind of "violation" that you would incur if deer fail to exist, even if they fail to exist because of the action of other human beings.

I am afraid that the "action of other human beings" is potentially very relevant in such situations.

If some sort of disease came along and wiped out the entire population of deer - well, that would be a metaphysical disaster and would be no more of a violation of my rights than if an earthquake came along and destroyed all of my property.

If the deer failed to exist because of the actions of other human beings - well, that would be a man-made situation, and, as such, there may or may not be a potential violation of my rights.

Even if it happens to turn out that the elimination of the deer in a specific context is not a violation of my rights - since its elimination does have specific consequences on the use and potential value of my property, it is, at the very least, understandable why I might be concerned about it and regard it as a point of contention between myself and the other human beings who were responsible for it. Since such a situation is very likely to become a point of contention between the various parties impacted and since it is the function of the legal system to arbitrate disputes, it is, to that degree, necessary for the government to become involved in order to define and delineate the rights of the various parties involved. None of this is at all controversial to Objectivism.

If someone were to patent a flying car and then refuse to manufacture it (perhaps because they foresaw no profit from it), could you claim your right to potentially acquire a flying car as damages against this individual? No.

I am afraid I have no idea at all what this has to do with any of my previous postings in this thread. You are essentially talking about intellectual property that someone has created. This thread has been about natural resources which are a metaphysically given and existed long before human beings came on the scene and which currently does not exist as property. This thread has been about the very specific subject of exactly what are the rights of the various parties involved when multiple individuals all seek to acquire a limited supply of currently unowned natural resources. What this has to do with man-made intellectual property and flying cars is totally beyond me.

The fact that deer (or fish) existed prior to human intervention does not mean that you have a right to demand their continued existence, regardless of whether deer are self-renewing or not, regardless of whether deer are hunted to extinction by men, wolves, disease, or unusually cold weather.

The above is a floating assertion that completely disregards the various specific contexts which have been clearly defined and discussed in this thread.

If the deer happen to roam on my private property - then, from a potential rights perspective, it DOES matter a GREAT DEAL whether they disappear by man made or natural causes. Certainly, if they are hunted to extinction while they are on my property, it becomes a HUGE deal because it is happening on MY property. And, in the highly unlikely event that my terrorist neighbors decide to destroy all deer by introducing a manufactured deadly deer virus to the deer roaming on their property and the disease spreads to and kills the deer roaming on my property - well, I think there exists a very real potential for my rights to have been somehow violated. If my next door neighbor who owns a plot of land that all of the deer in the surrounding area pass across while they are en route to a river or some other supply of water systematically poisons or shoots 100% of the deer as they cross his property - well, at the very least, it is a very valid question and point of understandable dispute as to whether the owner of that small plot of land acquires a 100% property right in 100% of the deer in the region as they temporarily cross over from the property of the landowners on one side of his plot to property of the landowners on the other side of his plot. And because such a situation involves multiple parties who claim a certain right to the exact same resource, it IS the proper role for government to step in and delineate the rights of all persons involved.

The same is true with regard to a limited supply of a certain kind of fish in the ocean. People don't have a right to the metaphysical existence of such fish. But since the fish DO exist and since the fish do not exist as private property, people have a right to go out and try to catch the fish. And when you have a LOT of people out there trying to catch the same limited supply of fish and they all possess an equally valid right to do so - well, disputes among those people about various things related to the capture of those fish are bound to arise and it is the role of government to step in to identify and define the rights of the various parties involved. And when the government attempts to identify and define such rights, it is proper that it take full cognizance of the facts of reality by keeping in mind the specific relevant context, including the nature of the fish and the conditions required for the continued existence and ongoing viability of the population.

In all cases where someone names a right of this kind, I say: cry your demand to the universe and see what happens. Oh, it didn't provide you with a deerskin and a venison supper? Then it's not a right.

This is simply bizarre. I defy you to find a single example of anything I have ever written in this Forum or any other forum where I have expressed such a mindset.

As for the fish problem and the "sufficiently large" area to enclose a fish population; you could solve this problem rapidly and easily by establishing the right, not to fish in an area, but to fish a specific type of fish.

That might very well be a possibility. The difficulty comes down to figuring out who should acquire such a right - and why that person or group of persons gets the right as opposed to those who do not get it.

How would you establish this system? Bidding and negotiation, with government as arbiter, not terms-setter. A simple system I can think of off the top of my head would be: the primary license goes to the highest bidder, and everyone else that wants a license to that type of fish has to buy a license from the primary.

Perhaps something like that would work. I have no idea. How to implement such things is field of specialized study that I don't know a great deal about - so whatever opinions I might come up with in that area, even I won't put a great deal of stock in them.

I, for one, try my best to avoid falling into the all too common temptation of believing that my understanding of philosophical principles somehow makes me an authority in a field of specialized study that I really don't know too much about. Unfortunately, one sees such things quite often - especially in online discussions in the realm of such things as science and psychology. Falling into that trap is essentially a form of rationalism.

The only point I am willing to make on how such a system is implemented is that the most desirable outcome is to find a way for ocean fish populations to become private property in the ocean when they are alive and their populations can be managed as necessary. What you propose is certainly an attempt in that correct direction. But if it is not possible to devise something along those lines - well, the only alternative is to have a system where property rights are acquired upon a fish's capture.

The difficulty with any of this is the current fact of reality that there is NO governmental authority on the high seas and what legality does exist is merely a matter of international treaties. This might not be a problem in a world where all governments exist for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights. But that is not the world we live in. With certain governments, treaties are not worth the paper they are written on.

Unfortunately, in the current world context, to the degree that governments of semi-free countries are willing to actually enforce treaties by one means or another, such treaties are probably the only current means by which any viable attempt to identify and protect property rights in oceanic resources can be undertaken. Like it or not, this is a fact of reality. GRANTED, such treaties are NOT the ideal and it is a highly flawed way to go about such things. But CONTEXT is EVERYTHING - and the context in which we must act is the way things ARE, not how we would LIKE for them to be. This, I suspect, was the point that Vladimir Berkov was trying to make on the subject.

Edited August 4, 2006 by Dismuke

[Maarten]

Is such a distinction really so very difficult for you to grasp?

With a resource that does not renew, once the resource has been used, it is GONE - which means there will be no more. Ever.

With a resource that does renew, so long as one allows a sufficient amount to remain in existence, you will get MORE. If not, NOT.

If you have twelve cubic yards of a precious mineral on your property, once you have gathered up and disposed of those 12 cubic yards of minerals, you property will be out of minerals. They will GONE - forever. Your only choice is to use them up now, use them up later or just leave them there. Once they are gone, you have no choice - they are GONE.

If you alone happen to have sole ownership to a sub species of corn which is vastly superior in every respect to all other varieties of corn in existence, so long as you set aside and save a certain portion of your harvest as seed for subsquent years, you will have MORE corn - lots more corn - year after year. If, on the other hand, however, you turn the entirety of your harvest into cornbread - well, you are screwed because the resource will be gone and there will be no more.

What I meant with not seeing the distinction was that at the moment both resources run out they are gone. It is not as if the renewable resource is suddenly more gone than the non-renewable resource.

I think you do have a good point in that if the nature of the two resources is different, they should be treated differently. However I am not convinced at the moment that they differ in essential ways; I'll need to consider that some more. To add to that, I have to consider whether renewability of a resource is an essential in this particular discussion, and if it warrants different treatment in these situations.

OF COURSE it is a problem. With regard to oil, it is only a question of when oil runs out and there is no more left to discover and drill. (and, if the oil exists as property, that "when" will be postponed by the free market to whatever degree it makes sense). To assert it is not a big deal to forever run out of a highly valuable species of fish when it is renewable - well, I am afraid that is simply bizarre and completely at odds with reality.

Because it is necessary for one's assumptions to be based on the facts of reality - NOT on one's desire to make reality conform to one's preexisting worldviews, opinions and principles. If one is gong to assert that technology and new knowledge will solve a problem, one must be able to point to SPECIFIC FACTS to suggest that such technology and knowledge will be forthcoming - not might be forthcoming.

Oh, so you can see into the future? I'll bet you could make a killing on Wall Street.

How do you know that there will be different ways to produce a specific drug? What specific FACTS can you point to to suggest that someone WILL be able to find additional ways to produce a specific drug? The fact that it is possible that people might discover different ways and that people in the past have discovered alternative ways of making things does not constitute proof that people WILL make such a discovery in any given future specific instance. To make such an assertion, one has to provide evidence - i.e. specific relevant facts of reality. Merely making reference to other ideas, theories and opinions which happen to be floating around in one's skull does not cut it.

I can make these statements because I know certain things in these fields. There are many drugs already being produced outside of their native environment, so to speak, and advances are so rapid in this area that it is really not far-fetched to assume that drugs that may not be possible to produce at this moment (or that have not yet been discovered) could also be produced. If the drug in question shares the essential characteristics with already known drugs that can be produced in multiple ways, I can use the knowledge gained about one drug to say things about the new one.

Many drugs are either proteins (or peptides, which are like smaller proteins) or they are substances that mimic existing proteins; that's how they work on living organisms (there is also a class of small molecules that has therapeutic effects by working on receptors somewhere in the body). If an organism can produce the protein naturally, theoretically all you need to do is extract the information from that organism and put it in a bacterium, and the bacterium can also produce it.

Granted, it is more difficult than this, but because many drugs share the essential characteristics (in structure and type of molecule) with one another it means that if you can produce part of this group, you should also be able to produce the other drugs in this group.

Edited August 4, 2006 by Maarten

[JMeganSnow]

With a resource that does renew, so long as one allows a sufficient amount to remain in existence, you will get MORE. If not, NOT.

There is no such thing as a resource that automatically and infalliably renews like this, not fish, not deer, not trees, grass, or air. Period. THAT is the premise that we're questioning, as well as the reason why "renewable" and "nonrenewable" resources are not fundamentally different. It is possible to estimate that if you leave X amount of deer free-roaming in X amount of territory, you will probably have X+Y amount of deer the following year, but this is not a certainty under any circumstances. It is a metaphysical fact that deer may go out of existence due to wide variety of circumstances and would-be deer hunters or fishers must take this fact into account. If you wish to preserve commercially valuable game for your own use, then you must do so.

Simply owning land on which there is suspected to be, occasionally, some deer doesn't count as taking steps to secure the deer for yourself. No one has infringed your rights if you go out into your woods, sit for hours, and see no deer; no one has infringed your rights if deer never wander onto your property, for any reason.

Likewise, if you're an environut and you want to protect the deer while your neighbors see them as dinner, you have no say in what they do on their own property. You could always capture some to raise in captivity: no one is stopping you.

It's a metaphysical fact that there are no guarantees in life, whether of potential or actual or illusory deer or anything else, for that matter.

[Maarten]

Okay, I've thought it over for a while and I will try to explain my reasoning as it is now. If I misstate anyone's viewpoints please say so and I will take a look at the relevant part.

From what I can gather the situation we are discussing is different from normal resource allocation problems (that can be fixed with normal property rights) because the resources in question are renewable. I shall leave aside the fact that fossil fuels (like oil) also slowly renew themselves, as the rate at which this happens is far less than their rate of consumption and therefore it would be a correct approximation to say that they are non-renewable.

If one person were to own all the fish in the world (our renewable resource in question) and he decided to kill them all, we could not call that a violation of anyone's rights. It would be his own property and no matter how irrational his action, there is no grounds for intervention in that case. The same would hold for any number of owners in the event that they would decide to kill all their fish. It would be stupid of them, and perhaps even immoral, but it would (and should) not be illegal because no one else's rights would be violated.

I still do not see the renewability itself as being relevant, at all. In essence any argument based on that comes down to allowing the government to intervene on the grounds of inefficient usage of resources. This is not the government's function, however.

If it is indeed impossible to treat these fish as private property, then it would be proper for the government to hold the stewardship over this resource. That is, until the day comes where it would be possible to properly divide this resource. However, before that day comes the government would be justified in enacting certain rules to make sure the resource they are governing is kept intact.

The implementation of property rights here could be done in a way similar as to what Jenni described; the government could arbitrate the auctioning and then make sure the people who bought it actually expended effort to do something with the rights they had acquired (whether they were to the ocean itself, with the problems that entails as raised before, or whether they were rights to fish).

In essence there is nothing different about auctioning off the rights to fish a certain fish, when compared to auctioning off the right to mine copper somewhere. When the property rights are being created rather than passed on it is not really possible to have earned them at that point; that is why I think it would be proper to attach conditions of use to it, that require the owner to expend a certain amount of effort in order to make the resource truly his (in a similar way as the homesteading worked).

[JMeganSnow]

Flying cars are a fantasy of science fiction. If a deer steps on to my property, that is not fantasy of science fiction but a fact of reality. And, since the deer happens to step on to my property - well, that fact happens to have certain implications on what specific rights I thereby possess with regard to the range of potential actions I can take with regard to that deer.

While it IS on your property: you don't retain rights to it while it's on someone ELSE'S property, nor do you gain rights because it might someday have stepped on your property. The right in question is simply to do what you want with your own property; it does not change because things that are on your property may relocate. You don't, for instance, have the right to chase a criminal onto your neighbor's property and shoot him there, then declare he was tresspassing. Once he's over the edge of your property, you have to rely on the police.

- since its elimination does have specific consequences on the use and potential value of my property, it is, at the very least, understandable why I might be concerned about it and regard it as a point of contention between myself and the other human beings who were responsible for it.

You can be as concerned and contentious as you like, but this still doesn't entitle you to automatically have a potential value actualized by other human beings. It's a potential value to ME to live in a quiet neighborhood, and it affects the value of my property, however this doesn't mean that I have the RIGHT to force people that live here to keep their kids indoors.

intellectual propertythat someone has created. This thread has been about natural resources which are a metaphysically given and existed long before human beings came on the scene and which currently does not exist as property. This thread has been about the very specific subject of exactly what are the rights of the various parties involved when multiple individuals all seek to acquire a limited supply of currently unowned natural resources. What this has to do with man-made intellectual property and flying cars is totally beyond me.

Then maybe you should pay more attention to what you are saying. You have established an entirely new class of rights: rights to potential value, which means that they should apply across the board to all kinds of potential values. Logically, the application is the same; if people don't have the right to deprive me of potential deer, then they don't have the right to deprive me of a potential car, house, job, computer, patent, or what-have-you.

All claimants or potential claimants do not have equal right to unowned potential property. Their right begins when they acquire it, not when they foment an intention to maybe acquire it some time down the road, if circumstances permit.

If deer happen to roam on my private property - then, from a potential rights perspective, it DOES matter a GREAT DEAL whether they disappear by man made or natural causes. Certainly, if they are hunted to extinction while they are on my property, it becomes a HUGE deal because it is happening on MY property. And, in the highly unlikely event that my terrorist neighbors decide to destroy all deer by introducing a manufactured deadly deer virus to the deer roaming on their property and the disease spreads to and kills the deer roaming on my property - well, I think there exists a very real potential for my rights to have been somehow violated.

You've introduced BOTH of these situations, NEITHER of which were under contention, specifically to blur the matter under discussion. BOTH of the situations quite OBVIOUSLY affect you because they involve deer that are on your property, not ones that merely might be on your property at some future time.

If my next door neighbor who owns a plot of land that all of the deer in the surrounding area pass across while they are en route to a river or some other supply of water systematically poisons or shoots 100% of the deer as they cross his property - well, at the very least, it is a very valid question and point of understandable dispute as to whether the owner of that small plot of land acquires a 100% property right in 100% of the deer in the region as they temporarily cross over from the property of the landowners on one side of his plot to property of the landowners on the other side of his plot. And because such a situation involves multiple parties who claim a certain right to the exe resource, it IS the proper role for got to step in and delineate the rights of all persons involved.

It IS the proper role of the government to step in and say to the contentious and whiny other property owners: you have the right to shoot any deer that enter your property, correct? Your right to shoot any deer means that you have, by extension, the right to shoot all the deer that enter your property, correct? Then so does he. End of discussion. It is NOT the role of the government to say to the single property owner that wants to turn his hard-earned portion of the woods into a rose garden and considers deer to be vermin: you're noed the same rights as your neighbors because they've complained.

Should something like this come up, you're certainly entitled to try and buy your neighbor out or encourage your other neighbors to build fences that keep the deer off this man's property. However, you must obtain the voluntary consent of all parties involved. This is pretty ary stuff, here, and can be expressed in a very simple tion: THE CHEESE MOVES.

Perhaps something like that would work. I have no idea. How to implement such things is field of specialized study that I dt know a great deal about - so whatever opinions I might come up with in that area, even I won't put a great deal ofin them.

Did I say g about implementing it? That's a lot of work. No, I just came up with a general methodological theory for a way to apply property rights in the case of fish: a functional way that clearly refutes the idea that it's impossible for anyone to do so. Heck, if I can do it in five minutes, imagine what an actual professional could come up with. I'm as qualified to do this as Ayn Rand is to propose a method for voluntary financing of government functions. Anyone that can divide a pie can follow this reasoning.

Your number of cop-outs per post is increasing, and your number timate points is just as rapidecreasing.

[softwareNerd]

Does anyone know the traditional approach to river "water rights", in (say) Britain and U.S. of the 1800's? Did farmers have a right to draw a certain amount of water from the river that passed by their property?

[Inspector]

You are making a HUGE deal out of three words "freedom of action" that I merely used in passing in response to a question you asked.

Obviously there is a misunderstanding here somewhere. I thought I had made it clear what my objection was to your point with the bold, but I think now that maybe I didn't.

I had asked you before what right was being violated when someone depletes a self-renewing resource; i.e. what justification was it that government had to intervene. I was saying that nobody had title to that resource, and so no right was being violated.

Your reply was that there was another kind of right involved; and this one was not a right of title. The right being violated by the depleter was the "right to potentially acquire" the wildlife; a right held by the other hunters or fisherman... and that this right was a freedom of action. That was your argument, and all of it is in the quote I gave... especially the words in bold.

But the freedom of action can create no such right. A right, which is violated when a renewing resource is depleted, cannot be derived from freedom of action because freedom of action does not guarantee the existence of material values. But that is precisely what you had asserted.

Yet you keep treating that quote as if you had said "freedom of action" in pursuit of a totally unrelated point. This is why I keep making a big deal out of those three words.

Basically, there are two unique types of rights under discussion here.

The first involves the right of title which one has to one's property. That right is derived from whatever means one rightfully acquired the property - be it purchase, homesteading or gift...

There is no title to transient wildlife - it is merely something which exists.

The right to potentially acquire such transient wildlife is not a right of title but rather a freedom of action - much in the same way that you have a right to speak your mind or to move from one area of the country to another. The moral basis of this is the fact that you have a political right to do anything you like so long as it does not in some way violate the rights of another...

[ggdwill]

In attempting to establish that wildlife is not by nature private property, and thus deserving of government oversight limiting their use, it has to be assumed that wildlife cannot become private property. Despite an amazing amount of language to the contrary, the fact remains there does exist an actual, guaranteed way to make wildlife one's property: to kill it. Yet apparently, through an excrutiating distinction between renewable and non-renewable resources, this is precisely what prevents an animal from becoming one's property.

Apparently,what makes the killing of "too many" animals a threat to property rights is not the actual killing of too many animals, but the killing of "too many" animals by one person. If these people were only allowed to kill a certain number of animals, then everyone would be able to kill enough animals so that everyone could enjoy killing what is no one's property as well as every individual's at the same time. But of course, if too many people kill their share of their property, there won't be any left over for those who didn't kill any animals. Since "no one" must not be derived of it's share of it's property as well, the only logical thing to do would be to prevent "everyone" from killing too many animals. Remember, all of this is acceptable as long as you keep in mind that it is being done for the sake of your rights as an individual to do what you want with what is, sort of, your property!

I am amazed at the level of unnecessary complexity this debate has achieved. A reassesment of the facts and the priciples involved in this discussion needs to be done.

Basically, what is being debated is not if unowned (aka: government owned) resources exist, but should they exist. Assuming that no one interjects the absurd notion that certain things can never be entirely privately owned, we should be able to proceed to the question of how those things should be privately owned. The crudest way would be to simply kill all of the wildlife that people can get their hands on until all of it is claimed. A more civilized, yet extremely impractical, way would be to cordon off the entire surface of the Earth either through constant patrolling or physical barriers. Still, an even more civilized and even more practical way of dealing with this is what exists today: a wide-spread recognition that most wildlife possesses a certain direct and indirect value to human existence and that, given our abilities, future supplies of that value is best maintained by allowing it to live wild.

Grant

[Inspector]

Flying cars are a fantasy of science fiction. If a deer steps on to my property, that is not fantasy of science fiction but a fact of reality. And, since the deer happens to step on to my property - well, that fact happens to have certain implications on what specific rights I thereby possess with regard to the range of potential actions I can take with regard to that deer.

What you're failing to understand is that, while you may have a right to hunt the deer when it steps on your property, your freedom of action, and therefore your "right to potentially acquire" the deer ends on the very instant that the deer steps off of your property. If you don't wish that right to end, then you must do something to claim that deer or keep it contained on your property. The instant that deer leaves your property, you have no claim on it whatsoever; no matter how many times it may have wandered onto your property before.

Yet this is precisely the opposite of what you said, and what you continue to say. What you continue to say is that, since at one time your freedom of action gave you the potential to acquire that deer, that you somehow have a permanent right to potentially acquire that deer, even after it leaves your property.

I have sharply illustrated in my last post how you had said that.

Still, an even more civilized and even more practical way of dealing with this is what exists today: a wide-spread recognition that most wildlife possesses a certain direct and indirect value to human existence and that, given our abilities, future supplies of that value is best maintained by allowing it to live wild.

What?

[JMeganSnow]

What?

I'm with you on that one. Deer especially have two states: nuisance, or lunch. If they're not spreading lyme disease by carrying deer ticks or trashing your car by jumping out in front of it, they're eating up your entire garden in one night. My mom said it best: if she were in charge, the deer would eat the slugs, thus taking care of two nuisances at once.

Sadly, the "natural" means of controlling the deer population, wolves, are even worse than the deer.The only nature I like is the kind that's reasonably manacured and contains a minimum of mud pits, bugs, snakes, and suspicious leaves that are possibly poisonous. Everyone that never wants to encounter a patch of poison ivy again for the rest of their lives, say "aye". Naturists are forever forgetting that most of wild "nature" does NOT consist of majestic trees and, what was it, "charismatic macrofauna". I swear, upwards of 80% of it is probably weeds. The sooner the entire earth is domesticated, the better.

[ggdwill]

I'm with you two on the whole "nature sucks" thing (although I don't know if that's your position Inspector, sorry if I'm assuming).

A key part of the sentence you quoted me on was "given our abilities". Dismuke is right about one thing in all of this; we simply don't posses the means yet of domesticating the entire globe. What I meant was instead of simply laying waste to all of the undomesticated parts of the globe, we allow them to remain as they are because the costs outweigh the benefits of doing so.

JMeganSnow has done a pretty good job of enumerating the drawbacks of having wilderness in existence, but says nothing about it's benefit. Despite being really hypothetical and really specific, Dismuke did a decent job of exemplifying the enormous undiscovered potential nature hold with his "prontofish" earlier. It has been demonstrated time and time again the myriad of benefits, in nearly all fields, that nature holds. I think that this is worth putting up with some nuisances that most people, if they weren't so schizophrenically obsessed with suburban life, and just accepted a human, urban existence, wouldn't have to deal with it. In fact, even in the suburbs, the impact that wildlife has on everyday human life is minimal.

Now, here are the costs of erradicating those threats simply for the sake of erradicating them. Granted, most of it would be opportunity cost, but it's still something to consider. Also, it would be ridiculously expensive to burn everything down, pave over it, and call it a day - especially given that humans have yet to develop a way to convert CO2 into O2 on a massive enough scale.

Alright, that's enough. I'm going to stop thinking about this. I appreciate you guys bringing up a related, yet irrelevant point, when there are more pressing issues at hand (ie: the topic of the thread). I guess it's become necessary to disagree with something someone says in the immediately previous post in order to post on this forum.

Grant

[JMeganSnow]

Does anyone know the traditional approach to river "water rights", in (say) Britain and U.S. of the 1800's? Did farmers have a right to draw a certain amount of water from the river that passed by their property?

Do you mean, for irrigation, or for cattle, or what? I know that water rights are often in dispute in the Southwest, but I think this situation is the result of the fact that the river is assumed to be common property, treated much like Rearden Metal under the "Fair Share Law"; everyone has the right to some water, shares to be decided by the government. Result? Lawsuits galore.

The operant principle here is, I think: possession of land through which transient unclaimed resources move (water, deer, fish, you name it) does not and should not constitute ownership, real or implied, of those unclaimed resources. Sure, you can make use of them while they're there, but you can't depend upon their existence without somehow claiming them as property. (And let's not forget that claiming something as property means, basically, investing work into it.)

Could not a system of bidding for water shares be instituted? Or a river-owners' pool, where you pay into the pool for every gallon you use, and the pool is divided among all the property owners along the river? I'm sure someone could come up with an equitable way to manage the water if you don't imagine that land purchase = water any more than land purchase = deer.

It's fairly easy to get yourself into the psychological position of saying "the *insert name of resource here* has always been here, so I should be able to depend upon it". Malarky. The Cheese Moves. It is up to you to make yourself aware of the fact that someone upstream is planning on building a dam, or that one of your neighbors is systematically exterminating deer on his property, or that your next-door neighbors have sold their property to an interstate roadway.

[JMeganSnow]

Alright, that's enough. I'm going to stop thinking about this. I appreciate you guys bringing up a related, yet irrelevant point, when there are more pressing issues at hand (ie: the topic of the thread). I guess it's become necessary to disagree with something someone says in the immediately previous post in order to post on this forum.

Pressing? Did you have an appointment or something? I thought the point of this all was just a sort of thinking-out-loud. Any good discussion tends to spawn numerous side-issues because everything is connected. I'd rather err on the side of trying to include too much information rather than leave out something important.

Anyway, there's no point in doing anything whatsoever with unclaimed property as some kind of preemptive measure (unless you want to claim it, that is); all I've been saying is that no one has a right to demand that there continue to exist unclaimed property of any kind for their future use, and it doesn't matter whether there's 50 acres or 50 billion, one deer or ten thousand deer.

[Inspector]

Sadly, the "natural" means of controlling the deer population, wolves, are even worse than the deer.The only nature I like is the kind that's reasonably manacured and contains a minimum of mud pits, bugs, snakes, and suspicious leaves that are possibly poisonous. Everyone that never wants to encounter a patch of poison ivy again for the rest of their lives, say "aye". Naturists are forever forgetting that most of wild "nature" does NOT consist of majestic trees and, what was it, "charismatic macrofauna". I swear, upwards of 80% of it is probably weeds. The sooner the entire earth is domesticated, the better.

Can I get a hell yeah?

HELL YEAH!!!

[Inspector]

I think that this is worth putting up with some nuisances that most people, if they weren't so schizophrenically obsessed with suburban life, and just accepted a human, urban existence, wouldn't have to deal with it. In fact, even in the suburbs, the impact that wildlife has on everyday human life is minimal.

Don't know what you mean by that. I must warn you, though, that I love the sprawl.

What I meant was instead of simply laying waste to all of the undomesticated parts of the globe, we allow them to remain as they are because the costs outweigh the benefits of doing so.

Again, what? There are only two reasons that we have vast undeveloped regions:

1) There simply aren't enough people that we need to develop them

2) Environmentalists have used government force to prevent their development, going all the way back to T. Roosevelt. This isn't an objective recognition of nature's value and some sort of agreement to leave it alone. It is nutjobs imposing their will on us by force. Thus, my statement, what the hell are you talking about?

Anyway, there's no point in doing anything whatsoever with unclaimed property as some kind of preemptive measure (unless you want to claim it, that is); all I've been saying is that no one has a right to demand that there continue to exist unclaimed property of any kind for their future use, and it doesn't matter whether there's 50 acres or 50 billion, one deer or ten thousand deer.

Exactly. Bin-go. If someone wants to prevent the depletion of a self-renewing population, then let him do something to claim it that population as a whole. The government has no justification to pre-emptively become the "steward" of resources. And nobody has a right to expect unclaimed property to continue to exist without putting in some sort of effort, any more than someone could expect, by right, a flying car.

[Dismuke]

There is no such thing as a resource that automatically and infalliably renews like this, not fish, not deer, not trees, grass, or air. Period. THAT is the premise that we're questioning,

WHAT premise???? And exactly who gave voice to such a premise in this thread? Nobody that I am aware of - and certainly not me.

as well as the reason why "renewable" and "nonrenewable" resources are not fundamentally different. It is possible to estimate that if you leave X amount of deer free-roaming in X amount of territory, you will probably have X+Y amount of deer the following year, but this is not a certainty under any circumstances. It is a metaphysical fact that deer may go out of existence due to wide variety of circumstances and would-be deer hunters or fishers must take this fact into account. If you wish to preserve commercially valuable game for your own use, then you must do so.

Megan - what on earth??? What the HECK are you talking about? I have NEVER suggested that the renewability of certain resources is intrinsically automatic and will replenish themselves regardless of context such as disease, weather, viability of the species, etc. So why you are attempting to challenge me on something that I DID NOT SAY - well, your motives for doing so are at this point utterly beyond my comprehension and any attempt on my part to figure it out would be arbitrary speculation. But whatever your reasons.... well, it is YOUR credibility at stake, not mine. If you wish to challenge a point that I make - well, that's what forums such as this are for. But you need to make sure what you are challenging is something I actually said.

My postings regarding renewable resources have dealt entirely with very clearly defined context of 1) resources which have some sort of useful value to human beings and 2) the potential depletion of the resources is being caused by man made and NOT metaphysical causes. And in my response to your previous posting in this thread, I very explicitly denied that there existed a metaphysical right to the existence of a species. Here is what I wrote:

If some sort of disease came along and wiped out the entire population of deer - well, that would be a metaphysical disaster and would be no more of a violation of my rights than if an earthquake came along and destroyed all of my property

Bottom line is your above remarks have zero connection to anything I have ever written, here or elsewhere, and are utterly bizarre and totally uncalled for.

Simply owning land on which there is suspected to be, occasionally, some deer doesn't count as taking steps to secure the deer for yourself. No one has infringed your rights if you go out into your woods, sit for hours, and see no deer; no one has infringed your rights if deer never wander onto your property, for any reason.

And the "for any reason" in the above includes man-made reasons - and since the man-made reason in such a situation has an adverse material impact on another person's property, there exists the potential for a rights violation to have taken place. Does the specific instance of one's neighbor hunting all deer in the region constitute an infringement of rights? I have absolutely no bloody idea as I am not a lawyer. Unlike some, I don't go around pretending that my knowledge of philosophical principles somehow makes me an authority in the application of those principles in specialized sciences and fields of study in which I am not especially well educated or knowledgeable. My only point is that it is a legal question, not a philosophical question and that it IS appropriate for the government to step in and define the rights of all parties involved. And since we are talking about a phenomenon which, by its metaphysical nature has a material impact on private property of multiple individuals, the fact that the actions of some human beings have resulted in a change in that material impact opens up grounds for potential disputes that the legal system does need to address. Maybe the situation constitutes a rights violation. Maybe it doesn't.

Not all actions which have a material impact on another person's property result in rights violation. And an action which may not be a rights violation in one context may indeed be a rights violation in another context.

If you live out in the country miles away from any neighbors, if you blast out blaring loud rock music in your back yard - well, that's your businesss. You harm nobody and no rights violations exists. If you move next door to me in my residential neighborhood and try such a thing, I will call the cops on you with full moral and legal justification - I shouldn't be forced to listen to such stuff while I am on my own property. On the other hand, if you have operated some sort of bar with a patio out back where you have been blasting out rock music for customers for many years and I build a house on the empty lot next door - well, that would basically be my problem if I couldn't stand the noise, wouldn't it?

Context is everything - and for that reason, one cannot throw out philosophical principles in the form of "thou shall not play music loud enough so that your neighbors can hear it."

In the case of deer - well the same is true. Context is everything. My neighbor killing all deer in the region may or may not constitute a rights violation. But what will determine that one way or anther is a legal and not a philosophical principle. And even if my neighbor's excessive hunting is determined NOT to be a rights violation, his purposeful introduction of a deadly deer virus into the deer on his property and, therefore, to the deer on surrounding properties most likely WOULD constitute a rights violation. And even if my neighbors excessive hunting IS determined to be a rights violation in a rural context, it most likely will NOT be determined to be a rights violation if the deer end up disappearing because the various neighbors have converted their property into residential subdivisions. Indeed, after a passage of time and after all the the property in the region besides mine has been converted to urban uses, it might eventually be determined that the large quantities of certain wildlife which I have always encouraged to multiply on my property could constitute a potential rights violation to my neighbors. Rights are contextual. And to assert that rights are contextual does NOT mean that one is advocating "new rights." It simply means that different contexts require that one apply the relevant principles accordingly.

The point that I have been making is that potential rights implications with regard to wildlife are different to rights implications with regard to domesticated animals on enclosed private property and that rights implications of wildlife which resides exclusively on one's own property may be different that that of wildlife which is transient and impacts a multitude of property owners. The point I have been making is that, because these different contexts are facts of reality, it is essential that the legal system (i.e., the government) take those facts into consideration and not simply ignore them because the context is not already addressed by previously identified principles that are inappropriately held in a dogmatic fashion.

It's a metaphysical fact that there are no guarantees in life, whether of potential or actual or illusory deer or anything else, for that matter.

And I have never suggested otherwise - and I defy you to find where I have in anything I have ever posted to this forum or any other.

Then maybe you should pay more attention to what you are saying. You have established an entirely new class of rights: rights to potential value, which means that they should apply across the board to all kinds of potential values.

I am very much aware of what I say - and I have NOT attempted to establish any new class of rights. To state that the specific application of rights to any given concrete set of circumstances can and MUST change according to context does not constitute "establishing an entirely new class of rights." The fact of the matter is maybe you should pay more attention to what you are reading.

[Dismuke]

Your reply was that there was another kind of right involved; and this one was not a right of title. The right being violated by the depleter was the "right to potentially acquire" the wildlife; a right held by the other hunters or fisherman... and that this right was a freedom of action. That was your argument, and all of it is in the quote I gave... especially the words in bold.

But the freedom of action can create no such right. A right, which is violated when a renewing resource is depleted, cannot be derived from freedom of action because freedom of action does not guarantee the existence of material values. But that is precisely what you had asserted.

Yet you keep treating that quote as if you had said "freedom of action" in pursuit of a totally unrelated point. This is why I keep making a big deal out of those three words.

Inspector - with all due respect to many intelligent postings I have seen you have put up on this forum, the only new right that has been "created" is the one in your imagination as a result of your misunderstanding of what I wrote.

Let's try it again:

When I said "freedom of action" I was trying, in response to a specific question of yours, to draw a CONTRAST between a highly delimited and legally defined right of title (which, unless one happens to be the original homesteader, is acquired contractually) with the broader concept of individual rights - i.e. the right to act according to your own independent judgment - or, to put it another way, one's "freedom of action."

ALL rights involve a "freedom of action."

If by using the phrase "freedom of action" I ended up creating some other new sort of right - well, then I am afraid that none other than Ayn Rand herself was guilty of the exact same thing. I quote from her essay "Man's Rights"

A "right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's

freedom of action

in a social context."

(Bold emphasis mine)

Is it proper for man to make use of natural resources, including wildlife, and subordinate it to his own ends? According to Objectivisim, the answer is a resounding "Yes!"

If something is currently unowned, does a person have a right to take and/or make use of it for his own ends? The answer is "Yes!" - so long as his doing so does not involve violating the rights of others. THAT is the specific instance of "freedom of action" that I referred to when I used that phrase.

Does the person attempting to take and/or make use of that resource for his own ends have a guarantee that he will be successful - i.e. if he is trying to catch a feeling wild animal, does he have a right to succeed in catching it? Of course not. He merely has a right to try - and this right to try is what I meant by "potentially acquire" because not all such attempts at acquisition are successful.

That is ALL I said with regard to "freedom of action" and "right to potentially acquire." And the ONLY reason "freedom of action" came up was in response to your question and I used "potentially acquire" only because I wanted to make it very explicit I did not claim that one had any sort of metaphysical right to a natural resource (not that my effort to make it explicit did me any good as someone nevertheless falsely asserted that I do somehow claim such a metaphysical right). None of this, by the way, is at all central to the arguments that I have been making - both matters are so utterly non-controversial to Objectivism that I more or less just assumed that the audience here is already more or less on the same page. So once again, I say, you are making a much bigger deal and reading far more into the phrase "freedom of action" than was intended by it.

[Inspector]

When I said "freedom of action" I was trying, in response to a specific question of yours, to draw a CONTRAST between a highly delimited and legally defined right of title (which, unless one happens to be the original homesteader, is acquired contractually) with the broader concept of individual rights - i.e. the right to act according to your own independent judgment - or, to put it another way, one's "freedom of action."

So your passage, which I quoted, was in no way intended to define what right was being violated by the depleter of the wildlife?

In other words, this statement is not at all accurate:

The right being violated by the depleter was the "right to potentially acquire" the wildlife; a right held by the other hunters or fisherman... and that this right was a freedom of action.

If so, please say so.

Edited August 5, 2006 by Inspector

[Dismuke]

I can make these statements because I know certain things in these fields. There are many drugs already being produced outside of their native environment, so to speak, and advances are so rapid in this area that it is really not far-fetched to assume that drugs that may not be possible to produce at this moment (or that have not yet been discovered) could also be produced.

The key word here is "assume" - and no matter how valid one's assumption may be, is is only that, an assumption.

I certainly don't question your knowledge in these fields. Nor do I deny what you say about the positive prospects for new drugs. I also agree that there are times when it can be very valuable to make projections as to what might happen in the future.

But an assumption and a projection are not facts They are not reality - they are merely mental constructs of what you either have reason to think is reality or what you think reality will be. And in any endeavor which involves other people, assumptions and especially projections can be very tricky and it is not uncommon for them to blow up in your face due to the fact that human beings have volition.

Projections and assumptions about other people can only be based on past experience and current trends. But people have the ability to change and persons or groups of persons you think you know very well can and sometimes do change in very significant ways.

My point is that, when you are dealing with a real world problem in the here and now, your solution has to also be real world and exist in the here and now. You have to consult facts and reality - not what you think reality might be like some time in the future, no matter how valid your basis for thinking it might be.

Above all, we should all take care not deny the full reality of the situation simply because it does not seem to square with our ideology or because, on the surface, the facts involved might give credibility to the claims of our ideological enemies. Maybe those facts will be seized by our ideological enemies - but they still are facts.

To take a different example: let's say that a new and very deadly and highly contagious disease has appeared in a relatively isolated region of the country. The death rate from the disease is VERY high and no cure is known to exist. Scientists studying the situation determine that the ONLY way to save millions of lives is for the governor of the state where the outbreak occurred to declare martial law and impose a very strictly enforced total quarantine of a 100 mile circle from where the disease broke out.

Now let's assume that you happen to know that governor and he asks you for your advice. Let's say that you find the very notion of imposing martial law in a free country to be VERY disturbing. Let's say that you feel very strongly that people have a right to move as they please throughout the country and the notion of the government telling people otherwise is something you find to be repugnant to individual rights and liberty. In your view, only a totalitarian would advocate such restrictions on movement - and you correctly recall that, in places such as the USSR, such restrictions existed. You voice these opinions to the governor who responds and says: "Yes - I value an individual's right to move as he pleases too - but in this case, it will mean that millions of people will die. What else can I do?"

In such a situation, here are examples of what would NOT be an appropriate approach:

It would NOT be appropriate to say: "Well, you know, doctors are making great advances in medicine and will probably come up with an effective vaccination. I would rather have everyone who is concerned about catching this disease be able to voluntarily go in and take a vaccination than to use force to prevent those who have it from traveling elsewhere. " Such would be utterly irrelevant because it would ignore the very important FACT that such a vaccination, even if it was indeed on the horizon, would not be available in time to prevent a widespread epidemic.

It would NOT be appropriate to say: "Well, is this situation really such a big deal? I mean, the world has had epidemics since the dawn of time. This is just one of many that have come along." It IS a big deal because millions of precious human lives will DIE.

It would NOT be appropriate to say: "Well, there's no problem here - there is no inherent right to remain disease free. Diseases are metaphysical facts of nature. If people wish don't wish to get sick from a particular disease, the burden is upon them to isolate themselves in such a way that they don't catch it - not on the people who already have the disease to avoid spreading it to others. " Such a notion would be NUTS and fly in the face of the REALITY that it would be impossible for every person on earth to isolate himself from all other people for any length of time.

To come up with such nonsense on grounds that one otherwise might have to buy into a premise or policy advocated by totalitarians - well, that is an example of rationalism, i.e. of making one's loyalty to the facts of reality subordinate to one's loyalty to principle.

The appropriate response to such a situation would be to recognize that one is dealing with a unique context - an context in which there exists a very extreme emergency and that the principles which apply to normal day-to-day existence may not be appropriate or applicable in this new and very different context.

Unfortunately, in this thread, we have seen assertions which have been similarly bizarre - such as statements suggesting that if a valuable species goes out of existence, it is not a big deal. OF COURSE it is a big deal.

Forget this thread for a moment. Simply ask yourself this: if a new animal or plant species is discovered that has the ability to cure a horrible disease, is that a good thing? OF COURSE it is a good thing because that which is beneficial to human well being is a good thing.

Likewise, if such a species goes out of existence, it is a BAD thing - because something which was beneficial to human life and happiness is no longer available to human beings.

To acknowledge these FACTS does NOT open the door to environmentalism - at least it doesn't to those who are secure in the validity of their beliefs. If one holds one's beliefs as floating abstractions, however, well, it is understandable why one might consider it to be such a threat.

If a natural cause such as a storm or a disease causes a valuable animal or plant population to become extinct, that is a BAD thing because that population was valuable. If it becomes extinct because of man-made reasons - that, too, is not only a bad thing, it is downright tragic because the outcome could have been otherwise.

With regard to wild plants and animals, generally they go out of existence due to man-made causes because they either have no value or are a disvalue to human beings. Generally speaking, if a resource is a value to human beings, it becomes private property and is thus taken care of. When a valuable plant or animal resource goes out of existence or is at risk of going out of existence due to man-made causes, the most likely cause is a lack of property rights. Such a lack of property rights DOES exist in the open ocean. The lack of any specific governmental authority in such waters makes the implementation of property rights very difficult. Because there are no property rights, it is very difficult for populations of valuable living resources to be properly managed as they are in an agricultural context - and this IS a problem because the continued existence of such resources IS beneficial to human beings. To recognize that this is a problem is to recognize a FACT - and acknowledging this fact does NOT open the door to environmentalism. Nor does it in any way invalidate a proper legal and philosophical perspective on individual rights and private property - it just presents a rare and highly unique context that must be taken into consideration.

Not far from where I live is a man-made lake called Lake Benbrook. Every time there is a major drought and the water level gets low, a bunch of religious people start digging in the lake bottom trying to prove that the Garden of Eden once existed there. And I am sure everyone is already familiar with people who try to deny the significance of and explain away the existence of such things as fossils because such facts contradict their world view. It is extremely important that those who seek to advocate a philosophy of reason not fall into the same trap of subordinating one's loyalty to facts to one's loyalty to principle.

[Dismuke]

In other words, this statement is not at all accurate:

If so, please say so.

It would be accurate to the degree that it is applied to the correct context.

First off - any right implies some sort of freedom of action. So that part is correct.

As for the first part - well, it is accurate in the hunting scenario I presented ASSUMING a context where 1) one DOES have a valid right to acquire the wildlife and 2) that other people have a similarly valid right to acquire the same wildlife, 3) it is determined that all of one's rights with regard to the wildlife do not immediately end once the wildlife leaves one's parcel of land and 4) the other people are over hunting the wildlife so that its continued viability is threatened.

If all of the above assumptions are correct, then yes, that statement is accurate.

The problem here is that is not the point I was trying to make. My point is that rights are contextual and so is their application to any given concrete situation.

Assumption number 3 deals with the transient nature of wildlife. I mentioned that transient nature as an example of a unique context which needs to be taken into consideration. It is an example of an understandable and valid dispute that can arise between neighboring property owners when the actions of one property owner have a material impact on the property of his neighbors.

If I make my living by leasing my land out each hunting season for hunters and my next door neighbor gets pissed off at something I write here in this Forum and decides to "get even" with me by putting out poison to kill all the deer in the area which, over the course of time, eventually will cross portions of his property just so he can kill off my ability to generate that income - well, I think it would be VERY reasonable for me to be ticked off at him to a VERY huge degree. Wouldn't YOU be ticked off if someone did something like that to you? Would such behavior constitute a violation of my rights? I have no idea - that is for the legal system, not a philosopher, to determine. If I was in that position, I would definitely go to a lawyer and see if there was any merit for a case against this person for the financial damages that I have suffered as a result. I don't think my desire to visit the lawyer to find out would be unreasonable - and, on that basis, it would be a perfectly reasonable subject for legal debate, and in such a debate, the fact that my neighbor's actions had a material impact on my property would be a valid fact that would need to be taken into consideration.

Unfortunately, I am starting to repeat myself.

With regard to fish - in the ocean there currently are NO rights from a legal perspective. You basically have anarchy - and that is a HUGE problem. In order for property rights to exist on a legal basis, they must be specific and definable. My point is that what is necessary is for government to come in and define what such rights are and to implement a process by which people may legally acquire such resources.

Go back to homesteading. Would you say the Louisiana Purchase was wrong because "government should not own or control land"? That would be bizarre. With certain exceptions, the government, for the most part, did what was necessary by defining a process by which that land could be converted to private property. Because there were more people interested in acquiring the land than there was land, such a process was necessary - and ONLY the government could define such a process. For example, it was NOT considered acceptable for some strong man to come out and claim the boundaries of what is now the state of Kansas simply because he had a private army that was large enough and well armed enough to control its perimeter. It was proper for the government to determine a specific size of claim that people could file and the conditions that must be met in order to acquire full title.

My point with the ocean and fish is that such a process is desperately needed with regard to valuable oceanic resources - and that any such process MUST take into consideration the metaphysical nature of such resources.

The examples of deer hunting and the acquisition of fish I have presented are merely that - they are EXAMPLES, not the point of my postings. My point is the need to take CONTEXT into consideration. That people wish to twist it into something else - well that is just bizarre and responding to it is becoming very tedious as I am constantly having to repeat myself.

[Inspector]

Dismuke,

First, I think this would be a lot less tiring if you would respond simply, instead of over-responding. I'm trying to figure out exactly what your position is and it's difficult when you respond with three paragraphs of "it depends." And then proceed to defend against the idea that you are opening the door to environmentalism - which nobody has asserted.

Now, my response:

First, I do not agree that this question is one for the lawyers. Philosophy is what defines what right you have to the deer in the deer scenario. I think that the instant they step off of your property, you have no claim on them whatsoever. If you had wished to have a claim on them, you should have built a fence, or signed a contract with your neighbors. Is you neighbor being a jerk? Yes. Do you have a right to be mad at him? Sure! Has he violated your rights? No. It was your failure to claim the deer.

Now, on the fish: I think you're attacking a straw man. Nobody is saying that no value is lost if the fish go out of existence. But, and this is important: a larger value; that of property rights, will be lost if the government fails to address this issue from that perspective. And I believe that it can address this issue from that perspective and still preserve the fish.

Now, I have more questions about your position, but I have to go at the moment.

Until then.

[Dismuke]

First, I think this would be a lot less tiring if you would respond simply, instead of over-responding. I'm trying to figure out exactly what your position is and it's difficult when you respond with three paragraphs of "it depends."

"It depends" is appropriate because I am discussing issues which are CONTEXTUAL. And when you are dealing with issues of context, well, it does depend.

And if I am over responding - perhaps it is because I feel the need to over explain due to an established history in this thread of people attempting to turn my comments into things that I did not say.

And then proceed to defend against the idea that you are opening the door to environmentalism - which nobody has asserted.

That is true - nobody has asserted that I was opening the door to environmentalism. Nor was I "defending" myself from such charges. That is yet another assertion of my having done or said something which I, in fact, have not.

I mentioned environmentalism in a discussion about the fallacy of rationalism which, I am afraid, has been a problem in this thread. I wanted to come up with an example of an honest and understandable reason why a well-meaning person might be tempted to engage in such thinking and be reluctant to acknowledge certain facts. I also gave the example of not wanting to open the door to totalitarianism as another example. It is understandable why a person might be reluctant to acknowledge a fact if he feels that doing so is going to give ammunition to his intellectual enemies - I have engaged in such behavior myself on more than one occasion. But such behavior is inappropriate and fallacious.

First, I do not agree that this question is one for the lawyers. Philosophy is what defines what right you have to the deer in the deer scenario.

I am afraid that you are totally incorrect on this. Philosophy merely tells you that you do have rights and why. Philosophy tells you that you have the right to keep the fruit of your creativity and labor and to trade it with other people. Philosophy tells you that you do not have the right to initiate force against the rights of others nor do they have the right to initiate force against you. But the implications of those rights in any given context, how they apply in any given context (and the range of such different contexts is virtually endless in scope) and what the ramifications are when various contexts collide resulting in disputes - well, that is why there is an entire field of specialized study called law.

I think that the instant they step off of your property, you have no claim on them whatsoever. If you had wished to have a claim on them, you should have built a fence, or signed a contract with your neighbors. Is you neighbor being a jerk? Yes. Do you have a right to be mad at him? Sure! Has he violated your rights? No. It was your failure to claim the deer.

Well, that is your opinion. If you wish to defend it and do so in a manner which will have credibility, you will need to do so on legal grounds. Of course, law does require a proper philosophical foundation and a great many laws today lack such a base. But even given a proper philosophical base all the way around, you would still need to make your case in legal terms. Personally, I have no strong opinion on the matter of the deer one way or another as it is not a subject I am especially knowledgeable about and advocating a specific viewpoint on it was NEVER the point of my discussion.

Now, on the fish: I think you're attacking a straw man. Nobody is saying that no value is lost if the fish go out of existence.

Actually, if you go back and read through the thread, someone did suggest exactly that.

But, and this is important: a larger value; that of property rights, will be lost if the government fails to address this issue from that perspective. And I believe that it can address this issue from that perspective and still preserve the fish.

Actually, in the scenarios which have been discussed here, property rights would be the ONLY viable way to preserve the fish.

Now, I have more questions about your position, but I have to go at the moment.

Until then.

Well, maybe not. This discussion is going nowhere - obviously my points are not sinking in and I have spent what has ended up being quite a bit of time making some of them over and over again. You are one of the people on this forum I have developed a positive opinion of - and I don't wish to jeopardize that on a non-productive conversation which only seems to produce frustration. I have more or less stated everything I have wanted to in this thread - and some points more so than once. If you don't understand or if you do understand and disagree, well the world will keep spinning. So I will catch you in a different thread - and will respond to other people's postings in this thread on a highly selective basis, if at all.

[Inspector]

Okay. If you want to pick this up later, just post up.

[softwareNerd]

The Economist has an article about fishing rights where two economists compared fishing in areas that used some system of transferable fishing rights against areas that did not. They come out in favor of a transferable rights with certain features.

The Alaskan halibut and king crab fisheries illustrate how ITQs can change behaviour. Fishing in these waters had turned into a race so intense that the season had shrunk to just two to three frantic days. Overfishing was common. And when the catch was landed, prices plummeted because the market was flooded. Serious injury and death became so frequent in the king crab fishery that it turned into one of America’s most dangerous professions (and spawned its own television series, “The Deadliest Catch”). After a decade of using ITQs in the halibut fishery, the average fishing season now lasts for eight months. The number of search-and-rescue missions that are launched is down by more than 70% and deaths by 15%. And fish can be sold at the most lucrative time of year—and fresh, so that they fetch a better price.