Category Archives: Private Property

Global Warming: An Unfalsifiable Theory

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Private Property, Pseudoscience, Regulation

The theory of global warming is unfalsifiable, in other words, the theory cannot be falsified or tested and is, therefore, irrefutable. Evidence that contradicts the global warming theory, climate Chicken Littles enlist as evidence for the correctness of their theory; every permutation in weather patterns—warm or cold—is said to be a consequence of that warming or proof of it. Thus, “Snow In May In Chicago” will naturally be taken as evidence for the theory of catastrophic, man-made climate change.

As Karl Popper reminded us, “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is,” of course, “non-scientific.”

This is not to say that man is not destructive to the environment, or that we should not cherish and take care of nature. We certainly should by understanding that government is not a panacea for the problem. (I don’t know about the wild fires in San Diego this year, but “the cause of a wildfire that burned nearly 150 buildings last summer in San Diego County” was a jeep ignited by the federal Bureau of Land Management):

The root of environmental despoliation is the tragedy of the commons, i.e., the absence of property rights in the resource. One of my favorite running routes wends along miles of lakeside property, all privately owned, and ever so pristine. Where visitors dirty the trail that cleaves to the majestic homes; fastidious owners are quick to pick up after them.

In the absence of private ownership in the means of production, government-controlled resources go to seed. There is simply no one with strong enough a stake in the landmass or waterway to police it before disaster strikes.

Entrusted with the management and regulation of assets you don’t own, have no stake in; on behalf of millions of people you don’t know, only pretend to care about, are unaccountable to, and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement—how long before your performance plummets?

… Private property rights in waterways, or riparian rights in water that abuts private property—these are the best protectors of the ocean and of other state-controlled expanses of water [and land].

The Feds Are Not Through Tormenting Poor Amerindians

America, History, Justice, Law, Private Property, Regulation

Before Cliven Bundy there were the Dunns, whose ordeal with the “BLM Brownshirts” began decades back, and should break even a heart made of flint, such is the destruction to the lives, land and livestock of this family of Amerindians.

As wonderful William N. Grigg tells it, “the Dann family spent two decades fighting in federal courts to defend their property against the depredations of the federal government. As members of the Western Shoshone nation, the Dann family had inherited land that was protected by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley and the U.S. Constitution – parchment barricades against aggression that were quickly reduced to ashes by the flame of elite ambitions.”

Below is the culmination of one of the Bureau of Land Grabs’ roundups:

A previous roundup nearly resulted in tragedy when a member of the family doused himself in gasoline and threatened to set himself on fire. The 59-year-old man, who had no previous criminal record, was tackled, beaten by law enforcement officers, arrested, and prosecuted on terrorism-related charges.
After spending several years in prison, that supposed terrorist, Clifford Dann, was allowed to return to the tiny, ramshackle homestead he shares with his 82-year-old sister, Carrie, who is the same age their elder sister Mary was when she died in an accident while repairing a fence in 2005. …

… In 1974, the US Government sued the Dann family, claiming that they had committed “trespassing” by grazing their horses and cattle on land that legally belonged to them. Successive rulings by federal judges upheld the Government’s claims.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the Dann family’s appeal, insisting that the matter was closed when the federal government paid itself $26 million to consummate the theft of the Shoshone lands. The Feds would eventually claim that the impoverished Indian family owed nearly $5 million in grazing fees and interest.
The BLM staged its first cattle rustling raid against the Danns in April 1992. At about 4:30 in the morning, the ranch lands were invaded by a column of vehicles that decanted a platoon of BLM Brownshirts. Not intimidated by the bullying display, Carrie plowed through the picket line and cast herself into a cattle chute to prevent hireling cowboys from loading her stolen cattle onto a truck.
“My land has never been for sale,” Carrie told Eureka County Sheriff Ken Jones, who rather than defending his constituent’s rights was aligned with the invaders. “It’s not for sale now, it’s not for sale tomorrow, either. And that’s the way it is, Mr. Jones.” …

MORE.

Why The Land Belongs To Bundy

Justice, libertarianism, Natural Law, Private Property, States' Rights, Taxation, The State

The current column, now on WND, applies the doctrine of natural law and Lockean homesteading to explain “Why The Land Belongs To Bundy.” (Cliven Bundy is the farmer from Nevada who is “in mutiny against the federal government”) The essay exposes “both political factions” for “siding with the state and against natural law,” and explains why, ethically and logically, there is no such things as “government grass.”

Here’s a short excerpt from the (middle of) the essay:

NO SUCH THING AS ‘GOVERNMENT GRASS’

Unlike the positive law, which is state-created; natural law in not enacted. Rather, it is a higher law—a system of ethics—knowable through reason, revelation and experience. “By natural law,” propounded McClellan in “Liberty, Order, And Justice,” “we mean those principles which are inherent in man’s nature as a rational, moral, and social being, and which cannot be casually ignored.”

Tamara Holder, another Democrat, grasps the natural law not at all. “Can I go into your house and steal stuff; can I trespass onto your land?” she hollered at Sean Hannity. Holder, of course, was implying that the disputed land belonged to the state and was as good as the government’s house.

In siding with the heroic homesteader against the BLM, Mr. Hannity’s heart is in the right place. He and Fox News colleague Greta Van Susteren probably staved off a Waco-style massacre, in Bunkerville. When the militarized BLM, SAWT teams and all, trained sights on the Bundy family and their supporters; the two turned the cameras on the aggressors, who then retreated.

In the course of butting against buttheads like Holder, however, Mr. Hannity has refused to engage his head. (The anchor, moreover, is performing no public service when he gives this and other prototypical TV tarts a platform from which to spread ignorance.) Ms. Holder: the government doesn’t have a house. There is no such thing as “government grass”! Not in natural law. Government cannot morally claim to own “public property,” explain Linda and Morris Tannehill, in “The Market For Liberty.” “Government doesn’t produce anything. Whatever it has, it has as a result of expropriation. It is no more correct to call the expropriated wealth in government’s possession property than it is to say that a thief rightfully owns the loot he has stolen.”

Then there is the matter of logic. “The public” is an abstraction. In logic, an abstraction cannot possess property. To borrow from libertarian political philosopher Murray Rothbard, “There is no existing entity called ‘society’—there are only interacting individuals.” To say that “society” should own property in common is essentially to say that “government bureaucrats” should own property, in our case, at the expense of the dispossessed homesteader. …

… Read the complete essay. “Why The Land Belongs To Bundy” is now on WND.

UPDATE II: OMG! Outrage Of The Week (Cry Me A Rivers)

Media, Political Correctness, Private Property, Racism, Reason, Taxation

The post titled “Every Day An Outrage” alerted readers to the cable-news custom of harping on “items meant to heighten emotions and send hissing viewers to social media to create a buzz.” Heightened emotions are also meant to distract the easily distracted from reason and argument.

I just knew that MSNBC, which has hardly reported on the “conflict that has roiled the country”—Cliven Bundy’s “mutiny against the federal government”—would rectify the failure when Bundy said something racist.

Boy, was I right! Check out the article titled “Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy Doesn’t Apologize, Repeats Racist Remarks.” It constitutes a sudden turnaround in MSNBC’s previous editorial choice to hardly cover the Cliven-Bundy story. “Bundy’s Blunder,” blares another headline.

MSNBC: These are not newsmen, but truly despicable operatives who are incapable of impartially addressing the issues .

Whatever impolitic and politically unpopular things Mr. Bundy says—nothing changes the natural-law truths propounded upon in the essay, “Why The Land Belongs To Bundy.”

Whatever happened to the the old adage about “sticks and stones” and all that stuff?

UPDATED I (4/25): HAVE RACE WILL TRAVEL. Miraculously, CNN has also “discovered” Cliven Bundy, after reporting not at all about the farmer from Nevada, who is in “mutiny against the federal government.”

The little worm Paul Begala was entertained by Brook Baldwin, for a CNN segment aimed not at reporting about land seizures across the country, but in order to strategically deploy Bundy’s racism against the GOP. In fairness to Bimbo Brook, she’s not working with much. She likely knows no better.

As for the Worm Begala: He calls the man, Bundy, “a deadbeat welfare queen.” If he is serious, he should not be taken seriously.

Bundy is a man who works the land and wishes to keep what is his—for that is what taxes are: private property appropriated at the point of a gun.

Tax withheld is stolen property reclaimed.

UPDATE II: CRY ME A RIVERS. Her humor has become way too PC for me to enjoy as I used to. But at least Joan Rivers is refusing to apologize for a joke she made. I hope she doesn’t buckle.

“I’m a comedienne,” she told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I know what those girls went through. It was a little, stupid joke. There is nothing to apologize for. I made a joke. That’s what I do. Calm down. Calm [expletive] down. I’m a comedienne. They’re free, so let’s move on.”

What did Joan say?

she made a comparison between her daughter’s guest room and the basement in which Cleveland kidnapping victims Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry were bound, raped and tortured for years before their escape.
“Those women in the basement in Cleveland had more room,” quipped Rivers. …