[BigLawMonies]

Bluff This,

My answer with my friends who assert 1b is to concede this point as irrelevant because it assumes that all legitimate ownership comes from the transfer of prior titles someone else owned, or appropriation of unowned community property.

I argue that any reasonable notion of property rights includes the concept of adverse possession, which is an alternative means of acquiring property.

The first takings and even some takings today can be justified on the grounds that the new owner has possessed against the rights of all others and title now rests in him.

Most states recognize adverse possession, that a posessor can gain title to property by

1. Actually possessing it

2. Openly and Notoriously (i.e. anyone can see that he is using the property)

3. Exclusively (i.e. he is excluding others or requiring permission of others, through active policing or erecting barriers etc.)

4. For a certain period of time (without challenge) and continuous for that period of time.

5. He must possess adversely to all others claiming ownership.

The first property was probably gained this way. Someone started using something, policed others' use and excluded others' use. Over time people came to recognize the property as "his" even when he was not possessing or using it. This was not conquest, it was a good faith appropriation of probably basic things like arable land, orchards, etc. needed to survive.

This is how wilderness became property also, for in what sense it anyone "own a share in" the mojave desert before it was settled? Even if others did own a share, they allowed the share to atrophy and pass to others but not exercising their rights...

Now you may say that this property acquisition theory sucks/is unfair/ etc. but at least it avoids self-contradiction.


I think this is the best justification for first takings and intermediate conquest anyway because it protects peoples interests in security, repose, and freedom WHILE freeing us from truly bull [censored] claims by people who just have pieces of paper to waive around and haven't actually excercised their "ownership" for 30+ years.