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Dec 6th, 2017
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old hand
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old hand
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"The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them."
Lenny Bruce
"The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month."
Dostoevsky
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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. Mumbo jumbo. I cannot follow how one thought logically connects to its neighbor. I suppose having an ideology is the only hope of survival in the face of such an incoherent jumble!
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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newbie
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newbie
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I cannot follow how one thought logically connects to its neighbor. That explains a lot!
Cowardly men always plot to label Freedom as anarchy!
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Joined: Apr 2010
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Apr 2010
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I cannot follow how one thought logically connects to its neighbor. That explains a lot! It explains why you don't make any sense. Nice try, though...
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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Joined: Mar 2010
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newbie
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newbie
Joined: Mar 2010
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One more time, bigswede... what rights? The right to manage your own property according to your own will. How hard can it be to understand that? It's very simple to understand but what gives the Bundys the right to use my (Wildlife refuge) land without paying his grazing fees so my agents can preserve my land for future generations? Bundy's claim to the Nevada property has been adjudicated and he lost his bid. He has no ownership deed or title to the property involved. How does Bundy's rights outflank my rights?
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Joined: Apr 2010
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 12,004 Likes: 133 |
One more time, bigswede... what rights? The right to manage your own property according to your own will. How hard can it be to understand that? The topic is about federal land, bigswede.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 18,003 Likes: 191
Moderator Carpal Tunnel
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Moderator Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 18,003 Likes: 191 |
It was a very roundabout answer, but I think you kinda-sorta answered it when you allowed that: 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. I recognize that you didn't really want to get to the admission that "the chain of legal ownerships" derives from... the government. Property (most especially real property) ownership derives from the system of protections provided by the government. There are great theories about the creation of property, but the reality is that property rights exist solely through the creation of mechanisms of the government on behalf of "the people" as a whole - and those property rights always come with caveats. Easements, for example, are limitations on your property; property taxes are ubiquitous. In some jurisdictions, mineral and water rights have to be separately passed. So the "takings" arguments are not on the firmest of footings to begin with. They become even weaker when the theories are more novel. Not every limitation on an owner's use of property can be considered a compensable "taking." It becomes even more difficult when some of those uses become "nuisances" to neighbors (such as from pollution, runoff, damming or taking of water sources, depletion of wildlife stocks). I do appreciate the discursion on property theory and history. Some of that history, however, is questionable. For example, the claim that "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." No, not really, not at all. "Ownership," up until the revolution, was explicitly at the sufferance of the monarch. That was the "land theory" that prevailed at the time of the establishment of the Constitution, and it was carried forward in myriad ways in American legal jurisprudence. The concept of "working the land" to establish ownership succeeded that by decades, and really came into the fore in the mid-19th Century (beginning with the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 and the later, more robust, Homestead Acts). But those "land grants" came from - oh, yeah, the government.The real theory of land ownership that has prevailed throughout American history is that of grants of title - beginning with the grants from the crown for the colonies. Even the usurpation of lands from indigenous peoples was conducted under the color of an "exchange" for value. So, while I find them interesting, they are not an accurate description of how we got here. Similarly, the attempt to excuse the Bundy clan's behavior is not based on reality, but how you would prefer things to be, or have been. This thread was explicitly about the Bundys' behavior and claims, so when you assert "Now you bring his sons actions at Malheur pertaining to the Ammond farming situation to the debate. That is truly skewing the perspectives." - that is patent nonsense. That was the premise of the thread as demonstrated by the title. Here is a point upon which we have complete agreement, however: 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. (I'm not going to get into the legal morass the Ammonds got themselves into, because it is complicated, and the legal niceties of why they were re-incarcerated are a thread of their own. I have previously opined that it should not have happened, but I can as easily make the government case that not following the law would have given them "preferential treatment" - which would be accurate. The "factual background" you assert of their situation, however, is mostly wishful reinterpretation.)
A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.
Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
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Posts: 12,129 Likes: 257
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 12,129 Likes: 257 |
By the way, the double-jeopardy rule only applies to being charged again for the same crime after a jury finds you not guilty. It has nothing to do with sentencing. Sometimes they accidentally let somebody out of prison too early, and nobody claims it is double jeopardy to make them come back to finish their sentence. In effect, this is what happened with the Ammonds. And in fact they made no such claim and went back to prison voluntarily.
It actually kind of made the Bird Sanctuary Boys look like idiots.
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newbie
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newbie
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Wow! That was a long answer. Mine tend to be also, even when I try to cut them short.
You give a fair description of how pirates, sovereigns and governments have viewed, established and defended their position on property rights.
I belong to another view of the ethics of government and property. Let's begin with property or let's even go back as far as before humans! All sorts of animals establishes territory fot themselves. They have done so for probably millions of years. It is a mechanism for securing food and shelter for themselves and the next generation.
Skirmishes along the borders are frequent and serve to uphold mutual respect for boundaries. Attacks on the heartland of a territory is literally a life or death situation.
When humans set themselves apart from apes we still kept territories where we gathered, and hunted for food. Even nomadic or seasonal movers kept territories. Yet there were no governments in sight.
When farming began, it is reasonable to assume that we established boundaries and guarded territory. At first without any governments. But with settled people came a new predator, the pirate (or what ever name you prefer to call those thieves or raiders).
When they were successful over time they established themselves as rulers. From this time on we may say there have been "governments" of various sorts.
Here is an excerpt of how J.S. Mill introduces legitimacy of governments and the liberties of the ruled.
THE subject of this Essay is ... Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the stage of progress into which the more civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived ... as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest; who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying upon the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important acts of the governing power. ...
A time, however, came in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. ...
Those who admit any limit to what a government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent.
Mill and I, it would seem, subscribe to the idea that the power (the right) of government is only a temporary loan from the ruled. Thus the government is not the source of property rights. The government is merely the clerk, keeping records on our behalf on who owns what.
You, by the description you gave, seem to submit to the government that it is the original and supreme power.
On this we obviously disagree.
On the Hammond issue. Don't you think it the least strange that the original judge in the case, when sentencing, clearly stated the law mandates a minimum of two years in prison (I believe it was), but that he could not let his conscience make such a harsh sentence. That must make him the person to prosecute for letting the Ammonds off to leniently. And in my opinon it still makes the Ammonds victims of double jeopardy, since they accepted the first sentence and served it. After that it must be to late for the state, federal or otherwise, to come back and demand a second or prolonged time in prison for the same crime.
It's not worthy of a state of justice.
That they opted to take the punishment again does not alter the falsehood of the whole thing. But admittedly, it pulled the rug from under the cowboy boots of the Malheur occupants.
Something is surely rotten in the United States!
Last edited by bigswede; 05/15/16 01:32 PM.
Cowardly men always plot to label Freedom as anarchy!
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Joined: Apr 2010
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Apr 2010
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Interesting to see the depth of fantasy that you sovereign citizen junkies indulge in, bigswede. Not very logical or rational, however.
FYI, everybody - Hammond is one (two) of the arsonists, Ammon is Cliven Bundy's son.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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