Posted by enjoiskaterguy on 05/21/11
Last updated 05/21/11

I have been reflecting on this for some time, and I am not sure what conclusion to come to.

The way that property has been illustrated for me was that in the beginning of man, property was first devised by some arbitrary idea in someone's head that they were going to make a claim of ownership on some parcel of land or object.

Ex:

There's this story of two men who lived in harmony and ate, slept and went throughout there days in the same area. One day, Man A decided that he didn't like Man B eating the apples off a tree that he too loved to eat from. So to remedy his frustration, Man A erected a fence. And in doing so restricted Man B's access to the tree. If Man B were to try and have an apple off the tree without the permission of Man A, Man A would then enforce his claim to the tree by use of force and would proceed to hit Man B with a stick until he got away from the tree.

Man B soon figured that if he was able to obtain the apples he wanted, he too would have to defend himself. So, Man B decided to find a larger stick and demanded to have access to an apple. Man A saw that Man B's stick was much larger, so he stepped down and let Man B have an apple.

In the back of his mind, Man A still held a grudge about the tree, so he devised a way to rap a rock around a larger stick and threatened, again Man B with force to stay away from 'his' tree. Man B, not wanting to get hurt, finally conceded and left Man A with the tree.

Man A was left with his Tree to himself for the rest of his days...until that dreadful day when someone else came along with a bigger stick with a bigger rick tied to it. The end!
----------

So , what I was trying to get at was that property rights initially was created through the use of threat and therefore violated the rights of another person's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Man A never made the claim that he would manage to tree to create a larger and more prosperous yield for the summer harvest, he just didn't want anyone else having access to it.

No, today property is used in a more sophisticated manner, in that our property is kept up and made profitable and taken advantage of all that said property has to offer. Property is one of the highest planks of a successful free market economy and a prosperous nation, but also it is important to note that property as an idea was not the same long ago as it is now. In today's world, property is seen as some natural right, but if we think about the first steps in the claiming of property in mankind's history, one would have to come to the conclusion that property was probably created, most likely by force.

That's just my two cents. I don't claim to have the answers, but this is just something that has been itching in the back of my might for quite some time and I wanted to share this with you all. What do you think?

for Liberty!

Brennan

Posted 05/23/11 T-Paine Waddell, AZ

I like the analogy but how do we know that the person with the bigger stick didn't move on to be the tribal leader? The person with the bigger stick seemed to act like a Mogadishu warlord in that his bigger gun allowed him to take whatever he wanted without any regard to the claims of other people. In my opinion, the tree was like public property in that it was shared equally by everyone in the same way air is. However, the common ownership of the tree and its fruits ceased the minute someone picked a fruit from it. The perosn who picked the fruit is entitled to the fruit since it was his time and energy that did. No one else can claim any right to that fruit but they can claim a common ownership to the entire tree up until someone takes the time to 'plunder' one of those fruits. That is because the person doing the plundering spent his time and energy doing it so he paid a price for that fruit that no one else did. To take that fruit from that person after it has been plundered would demand an equal repayment to that person of the time and energy he spent originally taking the fruit off of its limbs. That sounds like money or barter but what we are really trading is not the substance itself but the time and energy we spent getting that substance. This is why the prices of things go down when they are easier to provide to the public. One more thing, communist theory, I believe, thought that property was worth a standard amount of labor. It really borrowed a lot from Locke's thinking about property but it destroyed the natural freedom of the individual to decide what his time and energy was worth. This is why it established price controls because there is no reason, according to communist, for people to demand more than what the government thought it was worth in terms of time and energy than what the individual involved thought. We see this in fascist states (which was always based on the same socialist thinking) and we see this in modern politics where we have public/private utilities where rates are set by what the state thinks what the time and energy involved in producing that energy was worth. Individuals seem to lose a lot of power in controlled economics to decide for themselves what to do. Also, value is usually agreed upon. A seller can think his products are worth less and sell by what he thinks they are worth but if the buyer thinks they are worth more then the seller raises his prices. The opposite can also happen where the seller thinks his products are worth more than what the buyer thinks which causes the buyer to think he is getting ripped off. He then does not make the purchase. The point is is that value is commonly agreed upon within society.

Posted 12/01/11 enjoiskaterguy Santa Rosa, CA

Thank you for your input. To this day, I still don't know how I feel about this issue...in fact, the idea that man can own land to me is totally confusing and I don't think that any individual can claim ownership to that land. The time and energy to build a house on it is no excuse for owning the land underneath that said land. How do we deal with these ideas and conflicts in terms of applying them to the philosophy of volunteerism and liberty?

Posted by enjoiskaterguy on 07/08/10
Last updated 07/08/10

You know, I have talked with my other C4L local leaders about the toxic fumes topic, and they would say that freedom is freedom and no matter what, the individual has a choice in what they put in their bodies, even if it emits hazardous fumes into the air. I have pondered heavily on these points prior to this post and would have to say that, yes, no one individual has the right to poison mine or your air, but the question I have is this: What type of law, if any, do we then come up with that protects both the rights of the smoker as well as the pregnant woman, and or the small child who say that the smoker is assaulting and or killing them with their toxic smoke and they have the right to legal recourse?

Do we get a police officers to say:

"Move along Mr. Smoker. You can't exhale that waste in this location. There could be kids or the elderly around here and we don't want them to be harmed by your toxic smoke".

Or should the police officer tell the children or the pregnant women to stop complaining and deal with it or they will be arrested for obstructing the smoker's freedom to inhale their cannabis(or cigarettes for that matter)?

I have heard of different arguements about these sort of things in the past. There was some article I read on Dailypaul.com I believe that talked about this. The title went something like Whose Freedom is it Anyway? or something like that. It delved into the Catch 22 aspect of freedom and whose freedom does the government have a responsibility to protect in those cases. I can't remember the complete context so I will elaborate on one case mentioned in the article. It pertained the ideas of media/entertainment regulation...i think one of the examples was on whether or not pornographic and or violent images should be censored on television or that if someone doesn't like that channel they should just change it if they don't approve of such imagery. Now on one side of the coin, one would say that he or she shouldn't have to make the effort to be on their toes 24/7 worrying that they or their children might stumble across something that isn't allowed in their household and that such safeguards like the FCC should be put in place so that we don't witness such objectionable material and poison the minds of men. The other side of the coin would say that it is the responsibility of the parents to monitor and regulate what the children(and they, the parents themselves too) come across and not for the FCC or some other bureaucratic system to decide for them and that if a company wants to have a show that has sex or violence in it that they should have that right to have that show with out restrictions. They say that the parents should be the deciders and should call up their service providers and either cancel their contract or tell the provider to block or ban certain channels from entering their home. Now I am not saying that I approve of children or anybody watching such material. On the contrary, if I were a father I would never allow my children to view or listen to such things. The question is about whose freedom we protect and of them which is the correct one in a free society?

How about if a man or women decides to be a nudist and walk around downtown naked from now on? Do they have this freedom to do so or should they be arrested because of indecent exposure because the mom across the street doesn't approve of human's showing their naked bodies in public and damaging her children's minds? In this instance, who is the government supposed to protect? Whose freedom is it? Do we enforce indecent exposure laws to protect those virgin eyes from seeing other naked people's bodies or do we protect the freedom of the nudist and allow him or her to keep on keeping on the way they want to live?

Personally, I haven't come to the conclusion about what to do about the smoker coming to sit down at the bench where I am at and putting me in the situation to have to inhale his/her chemical/toxic smoke or walk away. Do I tell that smoker to stop smoking because it is inhibiting my freedom to breathe....cause in a way that smoker is physically attacking me, is he not? Man Kind's lungs weren't designed to inhale anything other than air and anything foreign is rejected by our bodies by a system of safeguards...e.g coughing. Do I punch the smoker, put toxic fumes down his/her lungs or run and get a police officer for assault with a deadly smoke? Should I just suck it up and keep breathing, walk away, or send this smoker to court for poisoning my air? Is air private property or does it take a place as part of the 'commons' that we all must respect or law can come down on us for polluting it? Do we have a measurable air bubble that we own around ourselves? And if someone puts something in the air and it happens to seep in our bubble do we take law into our own hands, sue the smoker or simply ignore it? I don't know how to answer this one. If someone can help me find an intellectual argument to persuade me one way or the other, it would be much appreciated. Thank You!

Posted 07/09/10 BusterBrownJeans East Lansing, MI

The problem lies with government and public lands. If you are a true Libertarian and believe in anarchy, no govt, then the problem is simple. If the smoker exhales the smoke on his private property it is fine until that smoke travels to another person property. It would be like someone dumping garbage on their lawn and then a big wind blowing it into other peoples property. The real problem is the public land part of the problem. Who has the rights, everyone equally. The smoker is still in the wrong because again it is like littering. The smoker is destroying property. I think shop owners and restaurants should still have the choice of smoking or not. Since it is contained indoors and not spewed into the atmosphere. Smoking outdoors should be illegal, just like coal fired power plants should be fined or sued for pollution everyday. If the smoker can recapture the second hand smoke then there wouldn't be a problem.

Posted 07/09/10 kdupes Cincinnati, OH

In a public outside place, politely ask the smoker not to smoke near you. Many smokers are kind and observant, especially once they know they are bothering someone. You may find that a smoker is as quick to move away as they are to give away a smoke to another smoker. Asking in a respectful manner will likely get a respectful response. If it doesn't, you have the right to voice your opinion of how awful you think the smoke and their behavior is and how it is affecting you. You have a right to say these things loud enough in public that others will hear, and then maybe social pressures or embarrassment will make the smoker think before blowing smoke near those who don't like it. "He who wants to reform his countrymen must take recourse to persuasion. This alone is the democratic way of bringing about changes. If a man fails in his endeavors to convince other people of the soundness of his ideas, he should blame his own disabilities. He should not ask for a law, that is, for compulsion and coercion by the police. " -Ludwig von Mises

Posted 07/10/10 JohnnyYuma61 Covington, TN

I agree with kdupes. What's wrong with politely asking the smoker to move if it bothers you so much? I have seen no studies that suggest that because a person smokes, he is automatically inconsiderate. I smoke. If a person asks me politely to move, I will, and I always have, usually apologizing as I do. BusterBrown, the statement that "The smoker is destroying property" is pure nonsense. Smokers have been smoking long before the Fed began counterfeiting. They have probably smoked in every square foot of the public domain. It clearly isn't destroyed. Also, coal fired power plants provide jobs and electricity (Electricity that you presumably want). They are also regulated, and fined if their emissions are out of limits. If you happen to believe that CO2 is a pollutant, that's another discussion altogether. This country will not be run by windmills and solar panels alone. Please don't ask for a law. We are gonna have to make something other than laws and paper money.

Posted by enjoiskaterguy on 04/15/10
Last updated 04/15/10

   I have been talking about this new Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 prop that will be on this November ballot with a lot of people for quite some time and I have found it to be a very heavy decision for a lot of us liberty loving individuals.  Some argue for the support for this prop to pass on the premise of social equality and and freedom of personal choice without government intrusion.  Others see this "legalize" wording to be used as a framework to further control our lives with increased theft(taxation) and would increase the size and scope of government on all levels...not to mention an overhaul and expansion of the welfare state.

   I understand that there are many economic implications that would occur for the worse if the bill should pass.  The individual will essentially be punished(taxed) for growing, selling, or purchasing cannabis and would have a negative affect on one's personal economic stability and wellbeing as a result.The statist who support this bill do it purely on their selfish admirations and desires to expand government. As individuals we do though have a duty to dissent against totalitarian laws that go against a free society.  If this bill does pass, it does not mean you have to be apart of their game.  Remember that cannabis is just a plant, and if you believe that you home is your castle, you have the right to grow whatever you want on your property.   It is absolutely ridiculous for government to try and regulate a plant.  If you see this bill as intrusive and burdensome to your life, liberty, and property, then I suggest that you grow your own cannabis if you so choose to; with or without government approval.

   I have come to the conclusion that in order for us to obtain liberty, we must do so by acts of gradualism and with patience.  As fellows sovereigns of this Republic of California, we must recognize and come to the realization that we live in one of the most 'nanny-state' atmospheres; with politicians on all levels of government preaching the philosophy of stat-ism and that through no other way than through a progressive approach can we begin to divulge the ideas of freedom and liberty to our fellow Californians .  Today's elected officials will not readily decriminalize personal consumption of cannabis in fear that it would be political suicide and would not allow the government to robe it's citizens by taxing it to further their statist agenda.  We must also acknowledge that the super majority of Californians do not support such a radical step towards personal liberty.  For most have not been educated on the facts and overall damages restrictions and limitations governments put on products that have a natural demand for consumption.  The majority are unaware how this failed drug war increases not only poverty, gang warfare and government spending to house inmates for non-violent 'crimes', it also creates and supports an international black market drug trade.

   I sincerely believe, after outweighing the pros and cons of this prop, that the benefits of this proposition will surely win over the detriments, but we must slowly acclimate the general public to the idea that cannabis consumption should be the decided by the individual and that government involvement in regulating and taxing a plant is laughable to say the least.  Then, and only then can we make that vital step in fully decriminalizing this plant for good and getting that much closer to a free society.

Posted by enjoiskaterguy on 06/21/09
Last updated 06/22/09

Yesterday, June 20th 2009 I approached Congressman Mike Thompson about HR 1207 and if he would co-sponsor the bill. Representative Mike Thompson had a pasta dinner last night at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. The event was a fundraiser to help get Thompson re-elected and throw support towards Obama's new Socialistic, government heath care proposal.

The main talking points at the event from the Congressman was about Heathcare and how the children are the future that are going to inherit. What a cop-out answer...you see they say it's for the children, but that's the lie that is spewed amongst our representatives to enforce that they are humanitarians and caring loving individuals. The underlying backdoor reason for legislation in the name of "the children" is really about control. I common manipulative move most representatives use.

Besides what was discussed, later in the event I approached Rep. Thompson about The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 and if he would co-sponsor the bill. At first he stated that he had as of yet not reviewed the Bill and claimed that he had never heard of it. I then engaged in trying to give him the Bill, the US code which would be amended and the list of co-sponsors. He denied the documents and said to give them to his Sonoma County rep and then he would consider it(He was busy at a pasta dinner and I guess he didn't want to hold on to it).

I further elaborated that there was currently 237 co-sponsors, 67 which are Democrats, and neighbor Congressman Lyn Woolsey, George Miller, and Rep. McClintock have co-sponsored it. I also discussed how Senator Bernie Sanders was recently denied transparency from Federal Reserve Chairman when questioned in a committee hearing about where the TARP funds exactly went and what banks were lifted up. Mr. Thompson commented and said "Oh yeah, we should audit them" when I re-enforced that he should co-sponsor. I was very surprised to here this from him and will hold him to that statement.

After speaking with him, I was directed to this lovely woman who was engaged in helping me with my needs. I gave he the HR 1207 documents and left her my information. She said that this bill would go to the Congressman's D.C staff and reviewed over with Mr. Thompson before he can make a decision to co-sponsor or not. I thanked her and went on my way.

If you live the 1st Congressional District of California, Rep. Thompson is making a couple of appearances. Here is his website for more info

details.http://www.mikethompsonforcongress.com/event

His next event is another Pasta Dinner fundraiser in Mendocino County on Saturday, July 11th.

So That is my experience and first ever try at citizen journalism. I hope those of you who have not gotten your congressman to co-sponsor the bill, go out there and pressure your congressman. Go to their events, call them up, e-mail them, or best yet Fax them. The fax gets right and their face and they have to look at it. They can't delete a fax!

The Revolution Continues!

- Brennan Westerson

Sonoma County C4L Coordinator and RLCCA member

Posted 06/22/09 Molon Labe76 Eureka, CA

Interesting. The following is the text of Rep. Thompson's reply to my email asking for his support on H.R. 1207. His email response seems to indicate that he believes the FEDRES already has sufficent oversight from the GAO. Please enjoy: June 19, 2009 Dear Mr. Escola: Thank you for contacting me regarding the Federal Reserve. I appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns with me. On February 25, 2009, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act (H.R. 1207). This legislation would expand the authority of the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct audits of the Federal Reserve that include agreements with foreign central banks, deliberations and actions on monetary policy matters, transactions made by the Federal Open Market Committee and discussions or communications regarding these matters. Under current law, the GAO has audit authority over the Federal Reserve except in these enumerated areas. H.R. 1207 has been referred to the House Committee on Financial Services, where it awaits further consideration. Congress created the Federal Reserve as an independent agency within the government and tasked it to carry out its responsibilities without being exposed to excessive political and private pressures. However, by law and by practice, the Federal Reserve is accountable to Congress. The Federal Reserve is not a private bank, although national banks are required to keep a certain percentage of their funds on deposit at the Federal Reserve. The seven members of the board are appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. Congress routinely monitors the Fed through formal and informal oversight activities. Also, there are numerous audits that occur regularly of the Federal Reserve Banks and the system as a whole, by staff, outside audit firms and by the GAO. The issue of expanding the GAO's audit authority in this way has been considered by Congress before. The areas that the GAO does not audit were set aside to allow the Federal Reserve to maintain its independence from Congress and the President. Limits on the scope of GAO audit authority also allow it to keep certain information confidential because immediate disclosure of discussions or actions by the Federal Reserve could disrupt financial markets and cause panic. Even the GAO has said in the past that if Congress were to grant them expanded oversight authority, safeguards should also be put in place to ensure this information is kept confidential. Please know that I share your concerns regarding the need for transparency in our country's economic policy. Congress is expected to consider comprehensive legislation to reform our regulation of financial markets, and the role of the Federal Reserve in our economy will be an integral part of this debate. I will keep your concerns firmly in mind as I investigate this issue further. Again, thank you for sharing your concerns with me. Please continue to contact me on all issues of importance to you and to our district. Sincerely, MIKE THOMPSON Member of Congress http://www.mikethompson.house.gov

Posted 06/24/09 enjoiskaterguy Santa Rosa, CA

"I will keep your concerns firmly in mind as I investigate this issue further." - Re. thompson He always says this in his letters about HR 1207. I hope he Co-Sponsors.

Posted by enjoiskaterguy on 06/25/09
Last updated 06/25/09

Today my favorite musical artist, Michael Jackson has died.  He was 50 years old.  Rest in Peace!  I hope your dancin up a storm where ever you are!

In remembrance to the King of Pop,I say thanks for all the Great tunes! Here's a link to his  hit videos.

---> http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=michaeljackson&view=videos

Posted 07/01/09 SoldnerMadchen Santa Rosa, CA

I was really sad about it too :( he was amazing. Dude 4 celebrities have died now in the past few days, what is going on? You should totally come over and watch MJ's dvd with us and have dinner and play wii and stuff. --Kate