Liberty Lines 6-23-2011

(Published in the State Line Tribune)

In case you haven't noticed, the Farwell park needs toilets. If you are like me and have spent much time there, you too have probably seen kids relieving themselves under the picnic tables, or on trees, or behind bushes. Not really an optimal situation.

However, if the only way to get toilets at the park is to use "tax" money, then forget I mentioned it. Nothing is so important it needs to be financed by robbing my neighbors. Any facilities could and should be provided and maintained strictly with private funding.

For that matter, it would be nice if some civic group could completely take over ownership of the park so that it would be entirely privately managed and maintained. I think it could be kept much nicer that way. In other towns I have seen parks owned by private organizations, such as the Lions Club, and they are almost always nicer than government-owned parks in the same towns. Who decided parks should be a government function in the first place?

But, I digress, so back to the subject at hand.

I'm sure there would be some problems if toilets were built. Vandalism? Probably. "Unapproved uses", such as sex, drugs, and "underage" smoking? Probably. Do you think those things don't go on anyway? I pick up garbage at the park for "fun"; I know more about what goes on there than you might imagine. However, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, if it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg it really is none of my business.

If you let private owners exercise their rights of ownership, I'm certain they could provide facilities and find non-governmental solutions to any behaviors they had a problem with. I know I could and surely they would be smarter than me.

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Taking without consent stealing

Taking without consent stealing (Originally published 5-20-2011- As written; not as published.)

Once again I got through another week without feeling the need to attack anyone with physical force. And I survived anyway. Nor did I find it necessary to steal from anyone in order to survive another week. No, really!

Is that surprising? It shouldn't be.

Sure, some people were attacked and stolen from, supposedly on my behalf, but, as always, it was without my consent and it was completely unnecessary. I even witnessed some of these acts from afar as I went about my business.

Also, while no one attacked me or stole from me directly, there are always concealed violations that are said to be socially acceptable to the majority. These are done for "the good of society", by those who have been voted into positions, or by those hired by them, which permit them to get away with acts that would be illegal if you or I decided to go freelance and do them without official permission. These acts are wrong regardless.

Taking a person's private property, including his money, when he would rather keep it for his own purposes, is theft no matter what you call it. Whether it is done in a dark alley, beside the highway, or in a brightly lit office makes no difference to the foundational facts of the act.

The same goes for violating any of his other property rights. As long as a person is not stealing, attacking, or damaging other people's private property, no one has a right to interfere with him. Not by force or by law. Not even because you believe society as a collective would be better off if he were prevented from doing what he is doing, or to prevent him from harming himself. If you don't own yourself and your own life, to do with as you please as long as you harm no other individual, you own nothing.

Sure, I probably expressed some opinions in the past week that offended other people; just as other people expressed some opinions that I found horrific. However, I don't have a right to not be offended, and as long as their opinions don't "break my leg or pick my pocket", to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, then I am unscathed. As are those who interacted with me.

Dispatches From Libertopia

I have begun a new blog: Dispatches From Libertopia.

If you want an upbeat blog from the future, after the fall of The State, give it a visit.