I just can't stop kicking this hornet's nest, even though I find the experience intensely unpleasant, because I think it's important.
Of the libertarians I know and respect with whom I have discussed this, half say it's obvious I'm right while the other half are adamant that it's obvious I'm wrong. Both "sides" have explained their positions to me, either in private or in the comments on my blog, explaining why it's so plain that the other "side" is wrong on this matter. It's clear this isn't as obvious or cut-and-dried as either side seems to be positive it is.
Obviously, there is a blind spot, and I fully admit it may be mine. However, I'll try to explain why I don't believe it is. A primary part of that is because, regardless of how those who disagree frame my position, it's not about guns. It never was, nor have I ever claimed it was-- unless it was in the heat of the moment and I misspoke. It's just that guns are where the subject comes to a head.
If right-of-way is a legitimate concept, and I see no good arguments against it (and I have looked), there can't be anything you are arbitrarily forbidden to have on your person as you pass-- as long as it stays on your person and causes no harm nor any credible threat of harm. To forbid any specific object (including a gun) under these conditions is completely arbitrary and, I believe, wrong.
Supposing you have to cross someone's property, and-- due to right-of-way-- they grudgingly allow you to do so, are you then obligated to cross naked if they post a "no clothing" or a "no personal property allowed" sign? What if the weather would kill you if you were naked but it was essential for you to cross now instead of waiting until the weather is perfect?
If you are only allowed to take your bare body and nothing else-- no suitcase with clothes to put on once you get someplace where your humanity isn't violated, and not even anything stashed in either of "nature's pockets" (because that would be concealed carry)-- you'll never be able to take anything to or from your house. No food, no raw materials, nothing. You can't engage in trade. You are a prisoner and a slave to the other property owner.
Probably too hypothetical, but hypotheticals can still expose flaws in reasoning even if you say the situation is highly improbable.
So, my position is not just about guns-- even though that's where some people seem to believe the exceptions lie so that's where they focus their criticisms.
Why would clothes be different than anything else you need to carry? A gun is only "different" than clothes because of superstition. It is personal property which is necessary for survival in specific circumstances-- just like clothing. "But a gun can be used as a weapon!" So? I could strangle a person with a sock if I were a thug with that sort of training or experience.
You might say "You don't need a gun the same way you need clothing".
Well, you don't need clothing if the temperature and humidity are perfect, there's no chance of sunburn (since even wearing sunblock could be forbidden by the property owner you're dependent upon if he specifies "nothing but YOU") and if the weather were incapable of changing. But even in this case of absolutely perfect weather with zero chance of it changing, would such a requirement be reasonable or legitimate? Remember, you are surrounded by this other person's real estate-- "his property, his rules". His rules could (and probably would) kill you.
Clothes wouldn't be necessary in a climate-controlled world.
A gun wouldn't be necessary in a world without aggression.
We don't live in either of those imaginary worlds.
I understand trying to respect property rights, but there are some instances where it is anti-liberty and unworkable in the real world to do so in this way, to the exclusion of everything else.
Property rights are essential... but not sufficient. There's more to rights than property rights. If you can be held captive on your property by someone else's property rights, then there is no liberty.
It seems that right-of-way solves that. If you let it.
And, I really do believe it comes down to a superstitious belief-- a superstition created by decades of statist brainwashing-- that a gun is somehow fundamentally different from any other piece of property. It's plainly not.
Or, is a gun somehow the only legitimate (and/or acceptable) exception to right-of-way? If so, why, and how does that work?
Is this entire discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
And, again, if I invite you to my property, I will NEVER ask you to leave your rights at my property line. Never. I can't even imagine being so twisted. If I don't trust you with all your rights intact, I don't trust you and have no business inviting you onto my property at all. It's all about actions. As long as you don't steal, damage, attack, or threaten to do any of those things, you're welcome here.
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Writing to promote liberty is my job.
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support. If so...
YOU get to decide if I get paid.
Writing to promote liberty is my job.
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support. If so...
YOU get to decide if I get paid.
Somehow I feel more justified in instituting "my rules" if a person is in my living room, than if they pass thru my woodlot, hundreds of feet from my living room quietly on their way to enjoy the woods.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe proximity on owned property is a factor which should be considered? On so called "public property" I am more apt to respect free speech from a stationary or "acceptably distant" person than a person following me and bellowing inches from my face.
If they are following you and bellowing inches from your face, I would give you the benefit of a doubt if you used force against them, claiming they were posing a credible threat. It sure sounds like that might be the case.
Delete"If right-of-way is a legitimate concept, and I see no good arguments against it (and I have looked), there can't be anything you are arbitrarily forbidden to have on your person as you pass -- as long as it stays on your person and causes no harm nor any credible threat of harm. To forbid any specific object (including a gun) under these conditions is completely arbitrary and, I believe, wrong."
ReplyDeleteCorrect -- if "right of way" is a legitimate concept, then you have a "right" to it.
But having a right to pass over someone's property to get from your own property to somewhere else is a specific right to do that one thing, not a general right to do anything you damn well please. You don't get to build a house on the area in which you have "right of way." It's "right of way," not "right of ownership."
Please tell me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be conflating "right of way" with other rights to use someone's property when it comes to what you may bring onto that property.
If you have "right of way" to cross my yard, you can surely do so carrying a dead skunk, or naked and drunk, or toting a gun, if you want to.
That doesn't translate into a right to come into my house for a visit naked, carrying the skunk, and sporting the Glock, if my rules for my property say those things remain outside.
And if you leave the skunk and the Glock elsewhere and put on some damn clothes, then come over, no, I am not in any way responsible for your injuries if someone else who doesn't respect my property rights busts in and shoots you.
"You don't get to build a house on the area in which you have "right of way." It's "right of way," not "right of ownership.""
DeleteYep. And in these posts I specifically said you don't get to homestead-- just pass through. I'm not even sure you have a right to speak or make noise while doing so, since those things do exert effects beyond "you".
"Please tell me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be conflating "right of way" with other rights to use someone's property when it comes to what you may bring onto that property."
I have spelled out exactly what I mean. Not sure how I can write it more plainly.
(And the dead skunk would violate your property rights because it stinks-- a physical effect that impacts your property. I wouldn't carry a dead skunk across someone's property without their explicit permission-- and I would try to keep the impact to a bare minimum even then.)
Delete"And the dead skunk would violate your property rights because it stinks"
ReplyDeleteIt stinks just as much if I smell it across the property line. So you having a gun on my property doesn't violate my property rights, but you having a skunk on yours does?
The skunk smell coming from my property would violate your property rights (I never addressed that point). I would do my best to stop the smell from encroaching on your property.
DeleteAnd, just to be clear about the nakedness thing-- you are placing the burden for the nakedness on the traveler when I specifically said it was due to the property owner's demands. The traveler in my scenario didn't want to leave his clothes behid-- that's what the property owner demanded: "his property, his rules". If the traveler's nakedness then offends him... well, he's just insane.
OK, so just to confirm:
DeleteYou using my property in ways that I don't want you to use my property doesn't violate my rights.
But something being on your property that produces a smell I don't like on my property does violate my rights.
Is that correct?
The nakedness thing I was talking about wasn't the nakedness thing you were talking about. That was just a coincidence.
"You using my property in ways that I don't want you to use my property doesn't violate my rights."
DeleteThat would depend on how I'm using your property. If I have right-of-way and I don't do any damage (including homesteading or anything which leaves a physical effect) while on your property, your property rights are not being violated. If I don't have right-of-way, and you don't invite me to your property but I come anyway, I am violating your property rights. I don't want to rely on right-of-way, EVER. But the reality is, sometimes it is necessary.
"something being on your property that produces a smell I don't like on my property does violate my rights."
Yes, unless you are OK with it due to other considerations. Maybe you like me enough to overlook it, or maybe you get some other benefit such as using the smell as a mother-in-law repellent.
Now, if the smell is naturally occurring-- not my fault-- it may "violate" your property rights without me violating your property rights. Ask me to remove the stink and I'll do my best. I probably don't like it, either.
However, if I collect dead skunks and the smell impacts your property, then I am the one violating your property rights. It's the same if I pile trash around my property which blows onto your property. In that case, my actions violate your property rights.
I have never contemplated this issue from a ‘right-of-way’ aspect before but I have reached the same conclusion from another starting point. The self-propriety of a person involves their inherent compliment of natural rights just as assuredly as it includes their physical body. An individual’s right of self-defense or free speech is just as much a part of them as their arms or legs and cannot be separated from them without violating the whole. You may justly choose to exclude others from your legitimate property through the right of free association but if you let them enter it can only justly be as the total compliment of their existence as free persons. Any attempt to strip off some part of their reality through some supposed ‘property right’ of the owner is akin to assault and enslavement and thus illegitimate.
ReplyDeleteOf course their behavior or their actions when they are on your property are justly subject to your wish or authority but only through the aspect of their presence there (you can require them to leave by revoking your permission to enter). However, to demand that they relinquish their capacity for self-defense or to demand that they cease exercising their free speech is a denial of their self=propriety. I believe all of these intra-libertarian arguments are based on an erroneous and improperly extended concept of what a legitimate “property” right is; of what it is composed of and to what it extends. That is too extensive of a point to delineate in this comment.
"An individual’s right of self-defense or free speech is just as much a part of them as their arms or legs and cannot be separated from them without violating the whole."
Delete- R R Schoettker
Succinct truth. Thank you.
So I can let you onto my property or not, but if I let you on my property I don't get to say "but not in the monster truck?"
ReplyDeleteIf they ask for entry while they are leaning out of the window of the monster truck, then your right of free association clearly allows you to deny them entry. If you are inferring that the possession and presence of the monster truck ‘on another person’s property’ as an inherent component of the entrant’s natural rights, then I believe you are arbitrarily extending the definition of right in an “reduction to absurdity” fashion. Nevertheless, even here the actions are more properly evaluated in terms of free association rights than by any reference to the supposed ‘property rights’ of the owner over the entrant. However, these would come into relevance if the denial of entry was predicated on the potential physical damage to the tangible location or ‘real estate’ of the owner by the monster truck as opposed to the mere presence of the entrant. Briefly, I believe that “property rights” are just that. They are regarding the owners sole use decisions and disposition of a tangible location or physical piece of real estate. They are sovereign over employments or actions that detrimentally affect that “property” but are illegitimately applied to attempts to abrogate the self-propriety of another individual’s inherent compliment of rights or person.
ReplyDeleteBut my inherent compliment of rights includes the right to govern the use of the things I own, while your compliment of rights does not include the right to use the things I own in a manner I refuse to agree to.
ReplyDeleteThere's no conflict here.
My right to free speech doesn't extend to singing "Friends in Low Places" at the top of my lungs on your couch at 3am if I've rented that couch from you on terms that require quiet from 10am to 6am.
Your right to keep and bear arms doesn't extend to bringing those arms onto my property if I've conditioned your use of my property on you not doing so.
“But my inherent compliment of rights includes the right to govern the use of the things I own…”
ReplyDelete“the use of the things I own”
You own your property, you DO NOT own another person, not even when they are on your property.
“Your right to keep and bear arms doesn't extend to bringing those arms onto my property if I've conditioned your use of my property on you not doing so.”
“…if I've conditioned your use of my property on you not doing so.”
Correct, by your right of free association, but NOT by your “property” rights because that action does not detrimentally affect them.
I nevertheless concur with Kent that:
“And, again, if I invite you to my property, I will NEVER ask you to leave your rights at my property line. Never. I can't even imagine being so twisted. If I don't trust you with all your rights intact, I don't trust you and have no business inviting you onto my property at all.”
I concur with Kent that I would not ask you to disarm as a condition of entering my property. If I don't trust you armed, I don't trust you disarmed either.
ReplyDeleteBut that has nothing whatsoever to do with your rights. You don't have a right to do anything with or on my property except on my terms.
You have no legitimate "right of way" on or across someone else's property. Period. To claim otherwise is to negate entirely the definition of "property".
ReplyDeleteSo, you're saying right-of-way doesn't exist at all? Not ever, under any circumstances?
Delete"Property" ? or "communal resource maintained by a nominal host" ?
Delete