Category Archives: Private Property

UPDATED: Rick Gets Rabid; Ron Paul Endures

Economy, Elections, Political Philosophy, Politics, Private Property, Ron Paul, Taxation

The following is from my new WND.COM, “Rick Gets Rabid; Ron Paul Endures”:

“CNN must be desperate for the ratings the network receives whenever it hosts a Republican presidential debate. As moderator of the Tea Party Debate in Tampa, Florida, last month, Wolf Blitzer worked it. And not once did leftist activist-cum-anchor Anderson Cooper mention bullying in Las Vegas, Tuesday night: Viewers of the Western Republican Debate got off lightly. The excuse for a newsman known as Anderson Cooper did only one stupid thing: Demonstrate to the seven presidential contenders how to introduce themselves.

CNN was on its best behavior, which is more than one can say about Governor Rick Perry (R-TX). He sounds a lot like a slightly less stupid ‘W,’ which is still plenty stupid (and cunning to boot). The man is so much like The Decider in demeanor that it’s unsettling.

In bashing Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax-reform plan, Perry persistently called Cain ‘brother’ (‘I love you, brother, but…’). This phony, patronizing touch was plainly insulting.

For colorful metaphors that capture the tapped arteries of taxation in the Cain plan—destined to balloon with the lifeblood of the taxpayer—it’s hard to beat Grover Norquist. The president of Americans for Tax Reform likened 9-9-9 to putting ‘tapeworms in your tummy to try and maintain your weight.’ And to ‘having three needles in your arm drawing blood instead of one.'” …

Read the complete column, “Rick Gets Rabid; Ron Paul Endures,” now on WND.COM.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Barnes and Noble is always well-stocked and ships within 24 hours.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

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UPDATED: The Individual? The Family? What About Property?

Elections, Family, Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Private Property, Ron Paul

RICK SANTORUM said this during the CNN Western Republican Debate, last night: “I disagree in some respects with Congressman Paul, who says the country is founded on the individual. The basic building block of a society is not an individual. It’s the family. That’s the basic unit of society.”

[SNIP]

What came first; the unit or its constituent parts? Is not a social unit like the family comprised of individuals? And did not the sovereign states precede the union? Although it all begins with the individual, the preeminence of the individual in no way negates the vitality of the family.

CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL REPLIED: “Well, I would like to explain that rights don’t come in bunches. Rights come as individuals, they come from a God, and they come as each individual has a right to life and liberty.”

Someone please stand up for property, next time. The defense of private property rights is urgent as the Occupy Wall Street hooligans encroach.

UPDATE: Contemplationist below is right. With his “Live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as I observed, Jefferson has “bequeathed us a vagueness that has helped undermine the foundation of civilization: private property.”

UPDATED: The Quicksand of “Stand-Your-Ground” Laws

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Individual Rights, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Natural Law, Private Property

When discussing “All Burglars are Home Invaders,” readers in the sensible parts of the country were convinced that their state’s “stand-your-ground” laws would shield them in the event that they were forced to use deadly force to fend off an attack on person, property or both.

These laws removed the requirement whereby “people who think they are in immediate peril must first try to retreat from the confrontation before using deadly force. Prior to passage of the law, only people defending themselves in their own homes, for the most part, could use deadly force without first trying to flee.” (MSNBC)

That some of my readers had faith in the law surprised me somewhat. As recently as the 7/15/2011, I wrote about an “American veteran-hero jailed” for standing his ground, so to speak. Dr. Jerome Ersland was recently condemned to life in prison for defending his property and his employees from a gang of armed robbers. A pistol pointed at his head was not enough to save this hero from imprisonment, pursuant to defending his own life and the lives of his co-workers.

Ersland is from Oklahoma, which is in one of “14 states [that] have revised their laws to ensure that people don’t have to retreat from an attacker. Those states are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, according to the NRA.” (MSNBC)

UPDATE: At bottom, every employee, wife, pal wants a man like Ersland around when the stuff hits the fan. In “Sacrificing Kids To PC Pietism,” I describe the kind of left-liberal perverseness that permeates the letter below. Ersland is a hero; his is an adaptive, manly, normal version of the fight-or-flight response.

UPDATED: All Burglars Are Home Invaders (Property Über Alles)

Crime, Democracy, GUNS, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, The Courts

In “All Burglars Are Home Invaders,” now on WND.COM, I discuss the culprits Joshua Komisarjevsky and his accomplice Steven Hayes, who “On July 23, 2007, were apprehended at the scene of a crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. Their crimes:

• Raping Mrs. Hawke-Petit and her 11-year-old daughter Michaela.
• Strangling Jennifer Hawke-Petit.
• Setting the family home on fire, thereby killing Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley.

“… the Media and law enforcement are in the habit of describing a deadly home invasion as “a robbery gone wrong.” Consequently, homeowners have been culturally conditioned to consider the uninvited house guest as one would a modern-day Jean Valjean. Like Victor Hugo’s protagonist in Les Misérables, the “thief” is likely looking only to take a loaf of bread and leave—that is unless he openly announces his intentions to harm his reluctant hosts.

One extremely conservative writer even bristled when a news reporter broke protocol and applied the ‘home invasion’ appellation to the offense of breaking and entering:

… burglary is when a person illegally enters private property and steals things. A home invasion is when people illegally enter a home in order to terrorize, harm, or kill the residents… If we start calling all burglaries ‘home invasions,’ we lose the distinction between them.

The sooner we lose this distinction the better! All burglars are home invaders in-the-making.

Confronted with a criminal breaking and entering, there’s precious little the occupant can do to divine the intentions of the invader. It should be assumed that anyone violating another man’s inner sanctum will willingly violate the occupant. …If you believe in the sanctity of life you should fight for the sanctity of private property. It is a man’s right—even obligation—to defend his life and the lives of the loved ones living under his roof. Arguably, a right that is not vigorously defended is as good as a right forfeited. …”

The complete column is “All Burglars Are Home Invaders,” now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

Shipping is free and prompt if you buy Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE (Sept. 23): PROPERTY ÜBER ALLES. I would probably disagree with Myron Pauli about the equal importance of the troika of liberties all libertarians should shout from the rooftops. Property trumps liberty, for liberty can be variously defined. Our government insists we are free so long as we can vote. We know this to be untrue. Property, moreover, is harder to redefine. Thus, if our rights to property were fully upheld—the same state that tells us to consider ourselves free (and be grateful) would be unable to control huge areas of our lives—bedroom, boardroom, you name them.

“Life, liberty property”: I don’t believe them to be equally weighted elements of liberty.