The Issue Again...

[Kaj]

Since the street sweepers thread had over 100 responses, and in all that, my main points were avoided, I'll try again... and start with some clear points to avoid the tangents that the previous thread was forced into ...

1. First, this issue is about ownership of the land (territory) itself, not your personal property like your house (so don't try that route again, even after corrected repeatedly)
2. This issue isn't about whether one likes the federal govt. I don't like how some corporations are run, or maybe your household, but that has no bearing on whether I can call its territory my own or not.
3. I have stated that I am not Skidoo nor are my politics even close to his, so please stop trying to attach his bad arguments to me rather than address my arguments (even after the mod stated you were wrong)

You claim you own your territory (land). But you haven't addressed my repeated point (which you don't dispute) that you are still subject to the jurisdiction of a group of people who do not reside in your territory. So how do you "own" your land if it is not sovereign from the US govt? How do you not own the airspace associated with your land if you really own it? How are you not exempt from the laws of the US if you really own your own territory? The fact is -- you don't own it in that sense and neither did any of the previous "owners", and you all seem to admit it. So if you aren't the sovereign owner of your territory, and the people of the US through their govt never ceded this territory to you, then you never owned it in the full sense. Attempts to say I am for govt ownership of everything are cheap because you yourself admit you don't have sovereign ownership of the territory -- which means you don't own it fully. Now, if you make the US govt an offer to purchase its land and cede their territory from its jurisdiction, then you can own it. This can happen and then you can make any law you want or have no laws, and you are sovereign in the sense that you are free from the US govt. But you can't have it both ways. The territory of the US was acquired by the people in some way (Louisiana Purchase one example), and was never relinquished to you. Try to offer the US govt $20B for some remote island and I'd bet they sell it to you in a heartbeat and you can call it PVNland, but until then this is a semantics detour because you admit you aren't sovereign, yet you invoke sovereignty when you don't want to follow the laws of the territorial corporate board. And if you think the territorial corporate board oversteps its charter (the Constitution), that is still not an ownership issue, its an issue with the board's operating policies that should be addressed by the shareholders (citizens) if they think the board is out of line.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
You claim you own your territory (land). But you haven't addressed my repeated point (which you don't dispute) that you are still subject to the jurisdiction of a group of people who do not reside in your territory.

[/ QUOTE ]

A gang terrorizes the neighborhood. They slash your tires if you don't pay them $50/day. Do they own your home?

I'm just trying to get some sort of baseline out of you here. Because basically your argument seems to be, "the government can kick your ass, so you don't own [censored], and I don't care about legitimacy" - in other words, might makes right.

(descriptive arguments snipped)

Again, from the previous thread:

States cannot legitimately own property.

A previous post of mine:

[ QUOTE ]
Basically, it comes down to the fact that the nature of government makes it impossible for a state to have a property right: states acquire land either by buying it (with stolen funds), by decree (which does not confer a legitimate property right) (also note escheat would fall into this category), by conquest (effectively robbery), by emminent domain (a subset of conquest), or by "working" the land (which would not confer property rights in the case of government, since they are working the land either with conscripted labor or they are purchasing labor with stolen funds).

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Also, note the chicken and egg problem:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...e=1#Post7766767

[AlexM]

People think you're Skidoo? You post nothing like him. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[AlexM]

His argument is actually that the government owns all the land and the people just rent from them I think. And he's right.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
His argument is actually that the government owns all the land and the people just rent from them I think. And he's right.

[/ QUOTE ]

Government *controls* land. This is different than *owning* it.

[Phil153]

Exchange government for "people" and you have a more accurate depiction. The people own all the land, but they've developed a system whereby an individual can claim exclusive and very extensive use of a piece of land. The people agree to protect each other through violence to prevent other individuals taking that use away.

This is merely a social contract - there is no actual, absolute right to any piece of land. If pvn claims there is an absolute right, then this is purely his belief and has no basis in reality.

And it absolutely is a system of might makes right. The people who originally muscled their way in and protected it from being taken by others gained a historical claim, and their violence is being maintained by the social contract, government or no, which every newborn is violently forced to accept under any system.

[2OuterJitsu]

[ QUOTE ]
Exchange government for "people" and you have a more accurate depiction. The people own all the land, but they've developed a system whereby an individual can claim exclusive and very extensive use of a piece of land. The people agree to protect each other through violence to prevent other individuals taking that use away.

This is merely a social contract - there is no actual, absolute right to any piece of land. If pvn claims there is an absolute right, then this is purely his belief and has no basis in reality.

And it absolutely is a system of might makes right. The people who originally muscled their way in and protected it from being taken by others gained a historical claim, and their violence is being maintained by the social contract, government or no, which every newborn is violently forced to accept under any system.

[/ QUOTE ]

You sound like an ACist.

[pvn]

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This is merely a social contract - there is no actual, absolute right to any piece of land. If pvn claims there is an absolute right, then this is purely his belief and has no basis in reality.

[/ QUOTE ]

But the "social contract" rights do have a basis in reality?

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And it absolutely is a system of might makes right.

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Glad we got that out of the way.

[mosdef]

[ QUOTE ]
States cannot legitimately own property.

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Can you explain to me your stance in this thread that states cannot legitimately own property, but collectives can (as you've stated elsewhere)? I think you're going to make appeals to voluntary vs. involuntary transactions, but I want to make sure.

[Dan.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Exchange government for "people" and you have a more accurate depiction. The people own all the land, but they've developed a system whereby an individual can claim exclusive and very extensive use of a piece of land. The people agree to protect each other through violence to prevent other individuals taking that use away.

This is merely a social contract - there is no actual, absolute right to any piece of land. If pvn claims there is an absolute right, then this is purely his belief and has no basis in reality.

And it absolutely is a system of might makes right. The people who originally muscled their way in and protected it from being taken by others gained a historical claim, and their violence is being maintained by the social contract, government or no, which every newborn is violently forced to accept under any system.

[/ QUOTE ]

You sound like an ACist.

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Because he believes in socially constructed property rights? Nearly all schools of thought believe in property rights, son.