How do we effectively fight to restore private property, and our freedom of movement in America? Most think that just getting a president elected is the answer, but what if we lose that race? Or, what if we win the Presidency but lose the House of Representatives and the Senate? What chance do we then have to make any progress in protecting liberty? We have to live in the days after an election. We have to make our way forward in our lives. So, do we simply surrender and accept our fate? Or do we create a new path to protect and promote the ideals of freedom? The first step to answer that question is to stop depending on one person, one icon to lead us forward. We must take the responsibility ourselves to assure that government does not move forward unattended. We need to be directly involved at every ... Read More
The increasing encroachment of government regulations, pontificating politicians and the enforcement of Social Justice schemes have led to a loss of understanding of the terms private property and property rights. Once it was understood that the unauthorized entering of private property was a violation to the utmost. The property owner was justified and supported in taking necessary actions to remove the trespasser and secure that land. Today, such ideas in the new America are considered radical, old fashioned, out of touch, and even reprehensible. The homeowner can be arrested for defending against an armed intruder. The intruder can actually sue a homeowner for shooting them even as they break down the door intending to rob and do harm. Home protection is called violence, perhaps even racism. It’s a whole new world of compliance, fear, and acceptance rather than pride, protection, and prosperity in ownership. The Green New Deal is the ... Read More
The lines used to be so clear. On the one side were free markets, free societies, and openly-elected representative governments. On the other, was the force of totalitarianism choking off individual initiative, private ownership of property, and providing a ballot box with but one choice, normally defined as communism. The ideological lines were drawn as a titanic battle ensued across an iron curtain. The Western world united in a mixture of proud, independent, sovereign nations to fend off the creeping black plague that swallowed whole nations and erased their identities. In the end, the “Evil Empire” disintegrated under the weight of its own ignorance of human nature. Or did it? Conservatives hailed the victory, dispatching communism to the “ash-heap of history.” Many Conservative leaders put forth the idea that we would now be living in a “Conservative era”. The demise of communism, some said, would allow a spirit of cooperation ... Read More
In the 1990s, an all-out assault on property rights was well underway, lead by a radical environmental movement, resulting in massive federal land grabs in the name of conservation. As one can imagine, courts across the nation were flooded with cases of people attempting to defend their property rights from government takings. In the state of Washington, one of the major targets for such programs, the state Supreme Court realized it didn’t have an adequate definition of property rights to use in considering such cases. That’s when State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Sanders wrote a “Fifth Amendment” treatise which included the following definition of property rights: “Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal. Anything which destroys any of the elements of property, to that extent, destroys the property itself. The substantial value of property ... Read More
