Category Archives: Private Property

UPDATED (10/12): Everyone Has Property Rights, Whether They Know it or Not

America, Classical Liberalism, Critique, History, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Natural Law, Objectivism, Private Property

A NEW ESSAY, “Everyone Has Property Rights, Whether They Know it or Not,” is on Mises Wire.

The Indian tribesman’s claim to his ancient stomping grounds can’t be reduced to a title search at the deeds office. That’s the stuff of the positive law. And this was the point I took away from a conversation, circa 2000, with Mr. Property Rights himself, Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Dr. Hoppe argued unassailably—does he argue any other way?—that if Amerindians had repeatedly traversed, for their livelihood, the same hunting, fishing and foraging grounds, they would have, in effect, homesteaded these, making them their own. Another apodictic profundity deduced from that conversation: The strict Lockean stipulation, whereby to make property one’s own, one must transform it to Western standards, is not convincing.

In an article marking Columbus Day—the day Conservatism Inc. beats up on what remains of America’s First People—Ryan McMaken debunked Ayn Rand’s specious claim that aboriginal Americans “did not have the concept of property or property rights.” This was Rand’s ruse for justifying Europeans’ disregard for the homesteading rights of the First Nations. “[T]he Indian tribes had no right to the land they lived on because” they were primitive and nomadic.

Hoppean Homesteading

Cultural supremacy is no argument for the dispossession of a Lesser Other. To libertarians, Lockean—or, rather Hoppean—homesteading is sacrosanct. He who believes he has a right to another man’s property ought to produce proof that he is its rightful owner. “As the old legal adage goes, ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law,’ as it is the best evidence of legitimate title. The burden of proof rests squarely with the person attempting to relieve another of present property titles.” (Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, p. 276.)

However, even if we allow that “the tribes and individual Indians had no concept of property,” which McMaken nicely refutes—it doesn’t follow that dispossessing them of their land would have been justified. From the fact that a man or a community of men lacks the intellectual wherewithal or cultural and philosophical framework to conceive of these rights—it doesn’t follow that he has no such rights, or that he has forfeited them. Not if one adheres to the ancient doctrine of natural rights. If American Indians had no attachment to the land, they would not have died defending their territories.

Neither does the fact the First Nations formed communal living arrangements invalidate land ownership claims, as McMaken elucidates. Think of the Kibbutz. Kibbutzim in Israel instantiate the principles of voluntary socialism. As such, they are perfectly fine living arrangements, where leadership is empowered as custodian of the resource and from which members can freely secede. You can’t rob the commune of its assets just because members elect to live communally. …

… READ THE REST. “Everyone Has Property Rights, Whether They Know it or Not” is on Mises Wire.

UPDATE (10/12):  Facebook Thread.

Those who are unfamiliar with the methods of praxeology and deductive reasoning will twist into pretzels to find fault with this essay. Maybe read the ancients (not the neocons) on natural rights.critiquing neocons on natural rights is a straw man.

UPDATED (12/6): Trump Tax Plan Neither Fair Nor Flat, But Based On Faction & Class Warfare

Business, Debt, Donald Trump, Economy, libertarianism, Private Property, Taxation

Whatever happened to the promise of “reducing tax rates on individuals,” Mr. President? Whatever happened to “lowering tax rates, simplifying the tax system” and overhauling the nation’s tax code? You know, to benefit ALL Americans?

President Donald Trump said Wednesday the emerging Republican tax proposal won’t cut taxes for the wealthy, and they may go up, an assurance that appeared to contradict the plan that his administration and GOP leaders are drafting.

… “The wealthy will be pretty much where they are,” Mr. Trump, a Republican, said. “If we can do that, we’d like it. If they have to go higher, they’ll go higher, frankly.”

Who are the wealthy? Two income families bringing in 100K?

Naturally, “Trump wants to lower the 35% corporate tax rate to 15%, though most analysts think that is nearly impossible.”

Gotta keep the Familia prosperous.

MORE at:

“GOP to Release Tax Overhaul as Trump Says Rich Won’t Benefit; Republicans prepare for legislative sprint on a plan they expect would cut taxes for the wealthy.”

“House, Senate Tax Proposals Likely to Diverge“:

The document will include a specific corporate tax rate and details on the deductibility of corporate interest, Mr. Mnuchin said at a separate appearance at the same event. He said news reports suggesting the six negotiators are far apart are untrue.

Corporations above all.

SEE FACEBOOK THREAD.

UPDATE (12/6):  Hands off Our Loopholes. Alas, It’s too late.

UPDATED (9/12): Looting: Who Are You Going To Believe, TV’s Talkers Or Your Own Lyin’ Eyes?

Crime, Cultural Marxism, Private Property, Race, Republicans, The West

Looting is unrelated to race, insist Tucker Carlson and Dan Bongino. All these well-dressed looters in post-Irma Florida just happen to be black. It could have been you and me out there.

That’s typical Republican sophistry: they point out the looting to sound truthful and gritty. They even go as far as to spell-out the salient feature of the looting. Then Republicans deny that what they said has any significance at all.

Republican self-serving denial about the reality of crime is not as bad as the Left’s Cultural Marxism—BBC News conflated looting post-storm with desperation, disparity and … slavery. Still, Republican bafflegab about race and crime is dishonest obfuscation.

UPDATE (9/12): DON’T MENTION THE COLOR OF LOOTING. Or the Color of The Help. To describe reality is racist:

Via the Daily Mail: “Terrified tourists on the Dutch-French island of St. Martin have described cowering in their hotel rooms amid reports up to 600 looters are running riot.”

French police give chase on St. Martin after the Hurricane.“British troops delivering fresh water during disaster relief in Tortola on the British Virgin Islands, where soldiers were deployed to restore order.” (Visuals.)

The color of The Help. “Troops are being called in to stop looters armed with guns and machetes on hurricane-ravaged St Martin with food, water and medicine running low, it has emerged. Soldiers from the Netherlands are pictured patrolling the streets on the Dutch side of the island.” (Daily Mail visuals.)

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‘No Such Thing As A Deserving DREAMer’

IMMIGRATION, Private Property, Welfare

True, there is “no such deserving DREAMer,” but mainly because people have no natural right to live at the expense of others. And everything DREAMERS expect and tell us they deserve comes at the expense of other working stiffs. If not for a third-party shakedown agency—government—which takes from some by force to give to others, its politically privileged groups like DREAMERS; DREAMERS would have nothing.

The fact that DREAMers seem to cuss out the givers makes there lot all the more undeserving of consideration. Arrogant, entitled, in aggregate unproductive, and constantly carping or agitating for more: What are the benefits of such a population?

Michelle Malkin:

Over and over again, from the mouths of politicians in both parties, identity politics purveyors and cheap labor lobbyists, we hear the same refrains about President Obama’s 800,000 amnestied illegal-alien youths:

“They don’t deserve to be punished.”

“They deserve protection.”

“They deserve the American dream.”

Deserve, deserve, deserve.

Over and over again, in countless cookie-cutter op-ed pieces published over the past month, so-called DREAMers have vociferously lamented President Donald Trump’s push to eventually undo their unconstitutional five-year reprieves from deportation plus coveted work permits: