Property Rights and the Government

["Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>]

Dale, et. al.

If you can sell your home and make a profit on it, which many Americans do 
on a regular basis as a way of generating huge profit, and the government 
allows you to do this for your own personal gain, how can you say that you 
have no real "ownership" of said property in any sense of this term, just 
because of taxes and building codes and other regulations?  The government 
allows individuals to personally benefit
from Capitalist manipulations of private property in ways that provide 
tremendous financial benefits to the individual.  Does this not in turn mean 
that the government should regulate said private property to enforce 
responsible and lawful use of private property?

Not only is the government reasonable in sometimes asserting its right to 
regulate private property, so that if private property is being used to 
commit a crime, the property rights of the owner can be voided, we recognize 
that our own bodies and person are sometimes subject to draconian regulation 
for the "public good," a far more potentially dangerous form of government 
power.  Prostitutes can be jailed for engaging in a free un-coerced exchange 
with another adult of "access" to their bodies for money, and people who 
have contagious diseases can be kept in confinement against their will.  Do 
I really "own" my own body when the government can jail me for simply 
displaying that body in public, or tell me that I can be jailed for a free 
exchange of certain sexual acts with another adult, even when no money is 
exchanged?  Personal drug use is another example of the government person's 
body.

If a private property owner is polluting his neighbors water or air, doesn't 
this one example alone demonstrate the need for a third party, the State, to 
mediate between the parties and restrict the unbridled freedom of a property 
owners to do as they wish.  Of course many government laws and regulations 
are unreasonable, but what system of organizing society is perfect?

If the government needs to use your property for the "pubic good," like when 
a dam is built, flooding your land, or a military project needs the land, 
you can be forced to sell it, but you will be paid, the government often 
does not just seize the land with no compensation, though I know there are 
cases where in effect this has happened, especially to Native American 
tribal land.

And if you break the tax laws and the government seizes your house, well, 
perhaps this is an egregious abuse of government power, if you are not 
compensated properly, like the seizures of property and assets that have 
been ongoing in recent years for people charged with certain drug crimes, 
EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE NOT BEEN CONVICTED IN A COURT OF ANY CRIME.  But our 
laws do allow the government to take away people's rights, or property, when 
they commit crimes, like breaking tax laws, whether rightly or not.

To return to my first point, how can your ownership of a home be in "name 
only" when you can make a killing financially off buying a house, improving 
it, waiting for the value to go up, then selling said house at a huge 
profit, that you personally can walk away with to travel the world, if you 
wish?  If the government really is the true "owner" of the property, 
wouldn't the profit from the sale of a house then go to the government?

The best claim I think you can make with your argument is to assert that 
property is subject to "co-ownership" between the government and the deed 
holder, subject to a complex set of rules governing how each party can 
assert it's claims over said property, or profit from the use or sale of 
said property.

Ted


>From: "Dale Courtney" <dmcourtn@moscow.com>
>To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: Re: Moscow Civic Association
>Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 06:40:57 -0800
>
>Melynda,
>
>You wrote that government is the "effective regulator" of commerce and 
>industry. But civil government is incapable of even regulating the making 
>of a pencil (see the irenic article I Pencil: 
>http://www.self-gov.org/freeman/9605read.html).
>
>Also, I would argue that if the government is the regulator, then ownership 
>is in name only.
>
>Tell me, who really owns my house (when I own it outright)? If I were not 
>to pay my property taxes, what then? The state comes and confiscates it and 
>sells it. At that point, my ownership is in actuality just renting from the 
>state.
>
>And finally, do I really own my house when I am told what I can and cannot 
>do with it? I cannot even put a deck on my house without getting 
>governmental approval to do so. I cannot setup a grey-water system without 
>jumping thru all of the regulatory hoops that add $10,000 to the cost of 
>the system!
>
>My point in my above rant (a raw nerve for this economic libertarian) is 
>that when governments are the "effective regulator", they are not effective 
>(see Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations); and they in reality do own it (even 
>though they let us pretend that we do).
>
>Pax,
>Dale
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Melynda Huskey
>   To: Dale Courtney ; vision2020@moscow.com
>   Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 10:39 PM
>   Subject: Re: Moscow Civic Association
>
>
>   Dear Dale,
>
>   Progressivism promotes government as an effective regulator of commerce 
>and industry, but does not call for the public or collective ownership of 
>the means of production.
>
>   Best,
>
>   Melynda
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From: Dale Courtney
>     Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 10:29 AM
>     To: vision2020@moscow.com
>     Subject: RE: Moscow Civic Association
>
>     Melynda Huskey wrote:
>     > The progressive movement was/is "a reform movement (beginning
>     > in the first
>     > decades of the 20th century)  principally focused on the role of the
>     > government (local, state, and national) in alleviating the
>     > economic and
>     > social disarray brought about by the rapid urbanization and
>     > industrialization of America."
>
>     Can you please tell me the difference between this definition and that
>     of socialism?
>
>     Dale Courtney
>     Moscow, Idaho
>     Free to be me, free to be you (as long as you agree with Tom 
>Hansen...)
>
>
>
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