29 April 2014

I guess I want to delve into private property today as I keep reading about regulation, government take over of land, and the use of eminent domain.

Think of something small, to start with, when getting into the subject of personal property. A child has a piece of candy, it is theirs, they were given it as a gift or they bought it with money they had earned in some way. The piece of candy is theirs and no one else has the right to just take that piece of candy. The child may choose to eat the piece of candy or save it for another day; whatever the decision is, it is theirs and if someone takes it without asking that is stealing. STEALING!

Now let's say the child decides to build a house out of all the candy they have saved. Everyone around them says they shouldn't do that as it is a waste of good candy and tries to stop the child, but the child is adamant. The other people then try to force the child to stop building the house with their candy by getting together and deciding to stop the child by force and take the candy away to use as they see fit. This is essentially how eminent domain works.

The people, in the form of a local government, around a property owner decide they can find a better use for an individual's property than the person can themselves. They then take the property, pay the person they are taking the property from a price they deem to be adequate, and use the property.

Now you may say this isn't stealing as the owner was paid a price. Well, you miss they whole definition of stealing which is taking something without the owner's permission. Permission from the owner was never obtained, the property was taken by use of force in the form of government.

The candy house wasn't going to hurt anyone, the others just didn't believe the owner was using their assets wisely. Is this going to be the criteria for taking from someone else; are they using their assets wisely? If so, then we never truly own anything if someone can take what we have acquired because they don't like how we are using it. This isn't what the Constitution was written by our founders to mean. This is socialism. It is wrong.