Originally Posted by NW Ponderer
Let me ask these questions: How did you gain title to that land? Or is it merely possession? If you assert that land ownership means "that right to manage your own property according to your own will" why does that not apply to my land? I have an ownership interest in the Malheur Wildlife Refuge ... Why, pray tell, are your interests superior to mine?

Bundy was stealing from me, by stealing from the government that protects my interests. Should he not be punished for that? The Bundy boys (and friends) invaded my land and took possession of it by force.

I know, 'swede you'd like to change the facts to pursue your preferred outcome, but that's not how it works. I suppose I could put it this way: Why are you on my property? You assert that you own land: How are you going to prove it? If I simply came into your house and asserted I owned it, can I kick you out? (Yes, it really is that basic) What gives you the right to exclude me? Just answer that one question. I'll wait.
There are many perspectives bundled in those questions! Forgive if I can't see or remember to answer them all.
The debate on how to view and assert property rights is an old one. Urukagina of Lagash in the Middle East 24th century BC was the first to record property rights in writing, on clay tablets. How those rights were obtained is unclear.
John Locke put forth the idea that labour was the foremost way of asserting property right. When you work your land, farm it or mine it, you establish ownership.
In many ways that was the way the founding fathers claimed their ownership. An ownership from which they allowed the federal government to exercise some limited power for the better good of all.
Later on the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon proclaimed that "property is theft". On the opposite side a Ludwig von Mises or Ayn Rand would probably declare that refusing to recognize property rights, that would be theft!
Adding to that there is the world wide problem of how to deal with the rights of indigenous people's right to their land. In just about all cases I can think of, their land was taken, stolen, when the usurpers were either Sovereign monarchs or subjects to such monarchs. In other words, no one was free or had the right to complain about the treatment they got. How to correct this today, as many demand or hope for, is a very tricky question answer. There doesn't seem to be any fair way to do it.

Earlier in this thread we discussed Cliven Bundy and the events with his ranching practices. Now you bring his sons actions at Malheur pertaining to the Ammond farming situation to the debate. That is truly skewing the perspectives. The Ammond have been harassed by the the agencies for years. They have been sentenced to jail and served their time according to the sentencing.
Then the agencies require they serve a second time, because they weren't sentenced as long as the minimum time. The double jeopardy clause should have come in play here. If anyone should be punished for this lapse in the system, it should have been the court. The judge, attorney and all of the officials involved. But no! The Ammonds are sentenced again with no legal questions asked. No wonder their colleagues react!

Let's just for the easy conclusion of your questions say that we have solved all those problems of discerning how to obtain the first legal title to property and there is an unbroken chain of legal ownerships. In that case I fully support your right to guard your land. That includes a commonly owned property. But this also requires you to help guard the justice system against injustices against other landowners.
See, how simple it is to defend property rights?

Personally I have a long time advocated rules that make legal only for physical persons to own land, not companies. Government, states and communities can own only what they need for development and government activities. If they fail to get started with such activity, the land should be auctioned off. To private persons, of course!
Why? Because humans dies. We all die at some point in time and we can not bring anything from this world to the next. All the properties gathered by one individual has to be divided between the survivors. But companies does not necessarily need to die. Therefore ownership by humans only, prohibits the accumulation of private empires.


Cowardly men always plot to label Freedom as anarchy!