Unlike a lot of people who are strongly libertarian in their sentiments, I support the right of private, law-abiding citizens to violate the wishes of land and property owners by carrying weapons on their property against their will. The reason is that I believe that the right to life is so fundamental that it supercedes all other rights. Now, here's a situation for the libertarians who give the property owner unlimited rights in this regard.
Suppose there are no government-owned roads. Suppose a rich person who despises you buys all of the land around your house, in a perfect square surrounding your yard and home. You cannot cross from town onto your property without trespassing on their property. Society at large allows you to carry any weapon you want, but the rich person who despises you does not allow any weapon to pass over their property.
Do you have a right to violate their property right by carrying a weapon across their land as you travel between your home and society at large?
I would say yes, a person does have the right to carry.
This subject--absolute property rights that trump everything else--is fairly problematic. It is appealing in theory, but as you've illustrated, there are cases where the granting of absolute property rights to one infringes on the basic rights of another. When an absolute property right infringes upon the freedom or right to life or self-defense of another, it seems to me that property right may be curtailed, as does the right to life for capital criminals, or the right to self-defense for (genuine) violent felons who abuse their right to use violence judiciously.
But there is a bigger problem. One of the diseases of our society is that right to property is made contingent upon the by-your-leave of Caesar, who actually owns everything in practice.
If only we had the former problem (an inverted hierarchy of property rights) and not the latter. Many ills and infringements that we see today...to include the Endangered Species Act, the ADA, the Civil Rights Act...all violate right to property like crazy.
What hierarchy would you like to see implemented Mike? Right to life and self-defense come to mind as (1) and (2) respectively, with maybe property as #3.
Life->Preservation of Life->Property Rights.
Do you have a right to violate their property right by carrying a weapon across their land as you travel between your home and society at large?
No. An armed trespasser constitutes a threat in my book.
Furthermore, if the property owner told the armed trespasser to leave, and he refuses to do so, then that is grounds for using violence against the trespasser, including deadly force.
If the encircled guy doesn't like the idea of being boxed in by the mean rich guy, then his first response should have been to move when the rich guy started buying up the surrounding lots. Stuff like that doesn't happen all in one day, after all.
Failing that, if the encircled guy must trespass, then he should do so unarmed. And if caught, he should obey the property owner's commands. Doing so gives the trespasser enough moral ground to deserve to keep his life; the property owner, morally, can only pursue legal action against the trespasser. And that means a jury trial, in which case the meanness of the rich guy and the cruelty (or not) of the circumstances will be factors in the trial, thus leading to the possibility of acquittal for the defendant. An acquittal could then be used as leverage in a civil suit against the rich guy in order to obtain some right-of-way or something.
In any event, I think this situation is pretty far-fetched.
True, but in this case the armed trespasser could likewise consider your actions to be far more hostile to his life, liberty and property.
The encircled property owner could likewise consider the rich man's actions an act of violence because they were designed to use the force of law to essentially subject him to a prison-like existence.
It easily could. Furthermore, your argument here assumes that the encircled man gets notice of what is going on, rather than one day waking up with armed guards on the outskirts of his property.
Had this scenario happened under old English common law, a jury probably would have ruled that the encircled yeoman was justified in killing the rich man on the grounds that the rich man illegally imprisoned him, and attempted to kill him by denying him access to even food, water and his job.
It is. That's why it's called a "thought experiment." It's specifically designed to create an environment in which you can test out your principles as though they could be applied coherently. As others here have observed this property-uber-alles approach creates an environment which is conducive to tyranny and ultimately destructive of the right to life which is more important than property rights.
Now, I'll expand the experiment further. What if the rich man posts sentries on the border of his land, with orders of shoot-to-kill any trespasser, irrespective of his actions, needs and desire to negotiate. Now, the encircled man cannot even speak to him without the prospect of being shot dead the moment he tries to cross onto the rich man's property. He is now imprisoned, through a very extreme interpretation of private property rights. He cannot safely go into town, engage in commerce, buy food, go to work, etc. Is he justified in using force against the rich man?
This scenario is far-fetched under our system, both in its conservative years and even today. It would not be nearly so far-fetched if hardcore libertarians got a chance to radically redesign the law.
Then he's welcome to stand guard on his property, too. He can even shout insults across the property line, or set up a big sign that says "Rich guy smells like elderberries" or whatever. But the rich guy has still not violated anyone's rights, so trespassing on his land is still a rights violation.
Just for kicks, let's extrapolate that a little further. I can't leave America and enter another country without permission. And there are definitely armed men willing to enforce those boundaries. Does this constitute a prison-like existence for me? Do I (or should I) have the right to armed trespass across a foreign border?
Suppose I wasn't an American. Suppose I lived in a small landlocked country like Andorra, and there was a famine or something. Do I (or should I) have the right to armed trespass across a foreign border?
I'm not buying that. I think that's about as likely as the rich guy in question being an alien from Zeta Reticuli who has come to earth to breed with our females in order to create an alien-human hybrid ruling class. In which case any libertarian society would be short-lived anyway as our reptilian overlords would soon be enslaving us to prop up their intergalactic empire.
Seriously, in a typical neighbourhood, you've got a neighbour on each side, at least one to the rear, and a fourth party who owns the roads. Consolidating all of that in the hands of one party in one day is somewhat preposterous. If the rich guy can make all four transactions in one day, then the would-be encircled guy can definitely sell his house on a moment's notice and avoid this scenario altogether.
That's entirely possible, which is why I mentioned the jury-trial scenario in the first place. Jury nullification isn't something one can depend on, but it is probably the best ethical option in this scenario. No society is perfect, and there will always be situations where people will have to make difficult choices; sometimes that includes choosing between starvation and a criminal trial. And random chance can alter the fate of either party. Perhaps the encircled guy will get struck by lightning. Or maybe the rich guy will be killed in a tornado. Not even a libertarian society can see all ends.
The right to life IS a property right, as are all rights. Also, there is a difference between the right to life and the right to another's resources.
Suppose the only available food was another human being. If I'm starving, do I have the right to kill and eat the other guy?
I'm sorry you feel that way. In my experience, it is government that turns people against each other, not freedom. I think this whole scenario is far more likely now than in a libertarian society. Between eminent domain, airport security, traffic laws, environmental regulations, and all the other nonsense, I find it difficult to believe that a libertarian society would not be preferable to what we have now, and by a considerable margin.
A libertarian society will not eliminate sin, nor will it prevent bad things from happening to good people. All it does is provide us with the best possible mechanism for managing those bad things in the most just manner.
No, but there is a difference here between what you are calling it, and what it actually is. As Something Feral said, this amounts to an armed blockade, and act which between nations would be considered an act of war by the blockading party.
If you aren't menacing anyone, then yes, you should. I am about as hostile to illegal immigrants as Wes of Animate Matters, but I would have no problem with a Mexican fleeing famine with his family and a revolver, and seeking aid across the southern border. Intent is everything.
You may not buy that, but it certainly could happen if the rich man goes to all private parties and buys their land in private deals. Just because you find it unrealistic, doesn't mean that it couldn't happen in a libertarian society. That quiet buying up of land could happen even today under our current system if the neighbors didn't tell the encircled man that they were selling.
Suppose the rich man offers each neighbor 4x the value of their house, just to be spiteful? In this economy, most homeowners would take that almost as quickly as they'd take a winning lottery ticket. You're assuming rational behavior on the part of a man of means with a vendetta against someone.
What you're assuming here is that the property owner will even let it get to a trial rather than exercise his right to defend his property to such an extent that the encircled man will live long enough to get to the police. Suppose the rich man doesn't care about being sued, and cuts the land-lines to the encircled man's property. Then he adds a radio and microwave jammer to block off access to cell phones so the encircled man cannot call in the government for legal arbitration, and he is then forced to either cross the rich man's property or hope that some passerby will actually notice that the government needs to arbitrate.
I know this is very extreme, but that's why it is called a "though experiment." It's to test the very limits of your principles here based on something that could be theoretically possible under a libertarian regime.
You wouldn't have a right to take it because the right to life cannot be abolished except through the actions of the individual. I suppose this is one area where philosophically, being a "Christian libertarian," I disagree with mainstream libertarian thought. I don't really see how you can argue for a right to suicide or actions tantamount to suicide, since we don't own ourselves. Rather, it is God who owns us and we don't have the authority to dispose of His property right in our bodies except for His purposes.
I am not saying that our current system is preferable. I'm saying that there are downsides to the typical vision of a seriously libertarian society that most people don't consider. One of which is that property rights may be exercised in ways that are sociopathic. Liberty isn't going to happen in a society which simply creates an authority vacuum, but rather in a society where all liberty is balanced between freedom for individuals within the context of their natural responsibilities toward others. In a practical sense, this means that you are free only so long as you don't exercise your liberty for the harm and deprivation of your neighbor. In the case I've shown above, a rich man could do precisely that under a hardcore libertarian system. Being a bit more conservative than libertarian sometimes, I would have no problem with the encircled man coming out of his property with an assault rifle and taking matters into his own hands in what is clearly an act meant to deny him everything from employment, to even food and medicine.
Liberty must exist only within a society, rightly ordered, in order to keep it from becoming a vice that will consume itself because of the natural tendency of man to hurt his neighbor. Society can regain much of that natural order by the correct application of law, such as legalizing drug use, but allowing private citizens great latitude in hurting drug users who behave in a threatening way toward them. Likewise, property rights need to be established under the law in such a way that they don't become a trump card against others' basic rights.
Of course it won't eliminate sin, but the view that it has towards certain rights is simplistic and libertarians have rarely been willing to debug the flaws in their own ideas. What I showed here is that under a libertarian system, as currently formulated, it would be possible for a rich man to create a private prison using a combination of his own property rights and by putting mercenaries on his property to kill the other private citizen the moment he "threatens his property" by setting foot on it, armed or unarmed.
The only difference is one of scale. Suppose the encircled guy happens to own the entire earth and the rich guy buys up the rest of the universe and blockades the earth. The principle here is the same, but the scale has changed dramatically. In this scenario, though, the encircled guy has all the resources he will ever need for his own survival; in the neighbourhood scenario, he does not. That's what this whole thing boils down to - resources. If a man does not have sufficient resources, does he have the right to take another's?
And an armed trespasser constitutes bad intent. If his intentions are so pure and he really means no one any harm, then he should trespass as humbly as possible. That means no weapons. An armed trespasser is an implicit threat. A beggar who resorts to using threats, whether implicit or explicit, is no longer a beggar but is rather an extortionist.
If we're going to assume an irrational man, then why doesn't he just hire a hit man and kill the other guy? That's a lot easier and cheaper than buying all that property.
And I stand by the point that if it is possible for the rich guy to buy all that property in one day, then it is equally possible for the other guy to sell out and move somewhere else before the rich guy's transactions are all completed. Houses don't get sold in secret, after all. When the first neighbour moves out, the jig will be up.
I think you meant "won't" live long enough to get to the police. Otherwise, you lost me.
And the trial I was referring to involved the rich guy calling the police and pressing charges against the encircled guy for trespassing, not the other way around.
If there are no better options, then sure, the encircled guy should make a run for it. But he should do so unarmed in order to maintain the moral high ground.
How about if I just cut off a leg? A man can live without a leg. Do I have the right to forcibly take and eat his leg?
Adding Christianity to the mix makes a difference in a number of ways. So far, I have been assuming a purely secular libertarianism.
Yes, bad things will continue to happen to good people regardless of societal arrangement. No intelligent libertarian would argue otherwise.
This happens all the time in every environment. Libertarianism happens to handle it better than other systems, but it won't eliminate it.
Libertarianism does not create an authority vacuum. It creates lots of monarchies - every property owner is king of his own castle.
Ah, but the rich guy isn't depriving the other guy of any of his
. The other guy still has everything to which he has a right; the difference is that he no longer has some things upon which he . Just because a man makes himself dependent on others for certain goods and services, that doesn't mean he has a right to those goods and services.You're confusing rights and dependencies. A tick may be dependent on the blood of mammals, but that doesn't give it a right to it. Likewise, a man may be dependent on food, but that doesn't give him a right to have others provide it for him. There is a risk in becoming dependent on the goods or services provided by others; that risk is the possibility that those things might be taken away. Simply needing something does not confer a right to it.
Again, dependencies are not basic rights. If they were, then a sex addict would be justified in committing rape, the drug addict would be justified in forcing a local farmer to grow poppies, and the penniless commuter would be justified in stealing gas.
I doubt that. There is an awful lot of libertarian stuff out there, and I'm hardly qualified to be any kind of banner-carrier for the ideology. I'll wager all your concerns have already been addressed in a far better manner than I ever could. Check out the mises.org forums, the downloadable stuff there, etc. Or start your own thread at the forum and pose this scenario there; I'm sure they'll be happy to debate with you.
Incorrect. The scenario states an armed trespasser, not "armed or unarmed". This detail makes a big difference.
Alright, let's make sure that we meet halfway here on understanding the issue to keep from arguing further at potentially cross purposes:
1) A rich man buys out all of the land surrounding an enemy who doesn't have the ability to escape beforehand by selling his land.
2) The rich man posts no-trespassing signs that state clearly that trespasses will be dealt with using force.
3) The rich man hires Blackwater-style guards to act as sentries around the land barrier around his enemy.
4) The rich man orders his guards to "shoot to stop by serious bodily injury" any intruder.
Is the encircled man morally in the clear to regard this as an initiation of force since the rich man has put him into a position where he cannot trade with anyone, cannot participate in civil society, and possibly cannot even see his children again if this set up were to happen when they are with his extended family?
The reason I assume, for the sake of argument, that shooting an intruder is permissible is because in Louisiana and Texas, you are free to shoot people in defense of your property, and I would assume that even greater latitude would be given in those states if a libertarian government were in power.
I obviously regard this as an act of armed aggression against one's neighbor, and would argue that the neighbor, and community at large, would be morally justified in driving the rich man and his guards out of town at bayonet point, if not actually killing them for waging a private war.
Mike,
I find myself in agreement with you on this. Life trumps all, and the ability to maintain life is something originally we were born in the past to be able to do and over time we have become more intelligent and developed tools to assist us. In the case you ask about above I likely would not carry my gun when crossing the private property, as a concealed weapons permit holder I am obligated to follow any legal restrictions now and would do so then if legally required. Since in your scenario there is no government owned roads I would possibly be required by law to respect his wishes.
Unfortunately what the person buying the land has done is create what some refer to as a gun free killing zone.
His presumption is that everyone will abide by his wishes and therefore he believes he and everyone who crosses his property will be safe. If everyone in the world were a law abiding citizen it would be a safe bet, all law or rule following citizens would not carry on his land however this creates a problem.
A criminal would have no reason to care about the property owners wishes and would carry his gun to complete his nefarious tasks regardless of the property owners wishes.
That means that the rule followers become fish in a barrel for the criminal. They will be unable to defend their life on the property owners lands. This is why so many object to any limitation on where a law abiding citizen can carry their guns.
If you recall the church shooting in Dec. 2007 in Colorado Springs where a parishioner killed the man about to go on a shooting spree, had the church had a rule against carrying weapons and the parishioner been a good law abiding citizen and church follower many more people would have died. The shooter would have had no compunction to follow the no carry policy after all he was there to violate a commandment and murder fellow humans, do you think a rule against guns would have stopped him?
Would I have a right to do what the property owner forbade, yes. Would I use force (carry against their wishes) to enforce that right? I don't honestly know.
I do know that by forbidding you to carry the property owner should be liable for your safety or in the end be no less guilty an accessory than a party holding you down while a serial killer slit your throat.
In the case of encirclement, the person wishing to carry arms should be granted an easement or means of egress through private contract. Now, I understand that "should" doesn't hold much water in a thought-experiment, but there's a question of "neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" applying to each party. The person wishing to trespass while armed is constrained (and arguably, willfully imprisoned by the bad neighbor) in such a way that if that person were a nation, the neighbor would be effecting an armed blockade (neither here nor there, but it is food for thought). The neighbor, on the other hand, is not (in my opinion) under proportionally greater threat from the armed trespasser by virtue of his trespass (geometrically speaking, this could be universally true in terms of absolute distance; a peaceful yet armed trespasser is arguably preferable to an armed, hostile neighbor camping the property line at the closest point to your domicile, waiting for a clear shot). It is to the benefit of both to cooperate in a peaceful manner, an advantage to the rich neighbor to do nothing, and of questionable advantage to either party to engage in armed conflict.
In a situation where there are no public roads, some protocol would have to emerge as a reasonable means of transport from one place to another, as it is highly unlikely that only one property boundary would crossed in the process. Furthermore, some degree of cooperation would be necessary with the neighbors, as a road depends on continuity for any degree of utility.
(All argumentation aside, Happy New Year, Mike!)
Bad analogy. Where you went wrong here is that the encircled man is prevented by the threat of deadly force from peacefully trading with or interacting with anyone else. The rich man is using his property rights as a basis for using armed force to prevent even peaceful trade with other people. This isn't about appropriating someone else's property, but rather to what extent a property owner may use their property to prevent another from exercising basic rights.
An armed person in a public place doesn't constitute bad intent. An armed person on your property, with no reason to be there, constitutes bad intent. A refugee who flees with his family and a rifle for protection is not someone with bad intent, but rather someone who has intent to protect his family from criminals along the way.
You're now just trying to dodge the point by throwing up your hands and making up rules that fit with your counter-argument.
You can stand by it all you want, but that doesn't make it work. My side could happen, yours assumes that all things are equal, which they aren't. Your side assumes that the encircled man can find a buyer willing to buy him out faster than a rich man willing to pay extreme premiums could find potential buyers. In fact, the argument that he could find a buyer that fast just to match the rich man's position is little more than an a Deus Ex Machina.
And I pointed out that the rich man could (legally) and would (volition) use force, including deadly force, rather than let it get to a trial. His specific intent was to use his property right to maim or kill the encircled man the moment he sets foot on his property.
That assumes that his possession of a weapon on his person at the time is immoral and not a recognition of the fact that his neighbor is intent on injuring or killing him. That being the case, his decision to carry a gun is a matter of self-defense, since his neighbor is intent on using all martial force he can muster to prevent the him from exercising even basic rights or participate in normal society.
Of course not, but then that's because you have no positive right to his leg. You have no property claim, and its connection to the rest of his body is proof enough that he has exclusive claim to it.
I assumed both. In the case of Christianity, the man has a natural, God-given right to defend himself from an evil man who is intent on using his property right to essentially commit murder. In the secular case, the man should listen to his will to power and use whatever level of force he wants to defend his rights.
But your own argument above shows that libertarians will often refuse to do anything about certain abuses which any decent person would recognize as being both evil in intent, and specifically aimed at creating an environment which is tantamount to initiating force against a weaker party.
In this case, it would, by not recognizing that the rich man is using his property right as a subtle use of force against his neighbor. Since the rich man would be free to kill his neighbor the moment he steps foot onto his property against his stated will due to the fact that property rights are absolute under an orthodox libertarian system, this scenario shows how a libertarian system would have problems with the exercise of property rights.
So the man has no right to participate in society now because someone has encircled his property? What if the man's children were on vacation, and the rich man declared that he would shoot them the moment they trespassed onto his property to rejoin their father?
Once again, you're twisting this to fit your argument. The rich man is guilty of preventing the man from:
1) Maintaining employment against the wishes of the employer and the employee.
2) Trading with others.
3) Participating in normal civil society.
It is, in effect, a prison-like existence except the prison has no accepted civil authority because it is based on private property rights of one man, with no authority accepted from the rest of society to behave as such.
Again, you miss the point. The encircled man is being prevented from peacefully obtaining these things, which is an inherent use of force against him. Unlike a government, which may have certain natural duties that cause it to limit these rights, the rich man is doing this without civil authority or accountability. He is essentially setting himself up as an emperor over his neighbor's kingdom, which is now his vassal state, dependent on his every whim to trade and relate tot he rest of the world.
Doesn't matter, since the man could post a sign on his land saying that all trespassers would be shot. As such, he would have the right under an orthodox libertarian system to use force to stop his neighbor from trespassing. Even if he didn't explicitly order him to be shot dead, he could buy .50 caliber rifles for his guards, and tell them to hit the man in the thigh or torso to "wound him."
Furthermore, in my very first comment in response here, I expanded this experiment accordingly, to include the rich man putting sentries on his land to use force to stop any intruder, irrespective of actions.
That depends on the circumstances of the encircled man's property. Depending on how much acreage he has and how many renters he has, he might have all the trade he needs. If you want to limit this scenario to a man who has purposefully made himself dependent on others who don't live on his property, then please specify as much.
In a libertarian society, there would be few, if any, public places anyway.
Says who? The armed trespasser? And why should any man bet his life on the possibility that the armed trespasser on his property means him no harm?
Not at all. You implied a man irrational enough to fritter away a fortune; I think it's fair to ask just how far this lunatic is willing to go.
For that matter, we can just as easily assume irrationality on both sides and just have the encircled man burn down the house of the rich guy when he and his family are inside sleeping. Problem solved. One irrational fellow deserves another, I suppose.
And you're assuming the encircled guy is demanding market price for his house. He could just as easily ask a dollar for it, or simply abandon it altogether. Abandonment happens as soon as that course is decided upon; it would almost certainly be quicker for the encircled guy to abandon his house than it would be for the rich guy to make multiple transactions involving haggling, paperwork, lawyers, etc.
And if the trespasser is armed, then the rich guy has a legitimate defense if he goes on trial for murder. He can make any claim he wants about the encircled guy's motives, and the gun in the guy's cold dead hand is all the proof he needs. This is why it's important for the encircled guy to trespass unarmed if he must do so at all. He retains the moral high ground, and the jury will look less favourably on the rich guy killing an unarmed man. And there's a chance the rich guy would suspect that, making him less likely to kill him.
No such intent has been demonstrated. The rich guy might be making the other fellow uncomfortable, but he has not violated his rights.
Trespassing is not a basic right. And "normal society" is a nebulous term that can mean anything. A farmer would have no need or want of what city folks would consider "normal society".
Exactly. Even though my life depends on eating his leg, and he would still live without it, I still don't have the right to take it from him. Because it's his. My "right to life" does not trump his right to his own property, even when it's property he doesn't need in order to survive.
Then we should call it quits and start over. Adding Christianity to the mix changes everything.
Not so. A principled onlooker who is outraged at the actions of the rich guy can buy up all the land surrounding him, thus giving him a taste of his own medicine. Or, more likely, an unorganized group of people, organization, or charity will exist which will do that. I'm sure you're aware of the inverse relationship between charity and government. Much of libertarianism relies on the social consequences of one's actions acting as either a deterrent or means of justice.
These two men don't exist in a vacuum. A libertarian society allows for things like shunning and other forms of discrimination that are currently forbidden by law.
I disagree with the "subtle use of force" characterization. There has not been any use of force by the rich man, subtle or overt. There has only been a demonstration of having the means to use force.
It is not necessary to leave one's property in order to "participate in society". A farmer living with his extended family and renting out his barns to tenants in exchange for goods and services has all the society he needs. It is government that has created the commuter society that we live in today, mainly due to forced integration of schools and the resulting white flight. In a libertarian society, the social and demographic landscape of this country would look vastly different.
Did you ever play Sim City 2000? Remember the arcologies? That's the sort of thing I envision, but on a smaller scale, and on a voluntary basis.
And you're assuming a poor city-dweller who can't or won't provide anything for himself. You also assume that "normal civil society" is the same thing for everyone. It is not.
Only those things he is dependent on others to provide. The rich man isn't stopping him from growing his own food or collecting his own water. The encircled man can have everything he ever wants or needs, so long as he is willing to provide it for himself or by trading with his tenants.
And I'm not sure "inherent use of force" is even possible. That sounds like an oxymoron or something.
Of course it matters. This scenario was about carrying weapons onto another's property without permission. Let's keep the goalposts where they are.
I didn't read it that way. I read the "any trespasser, irrespective of his actions, needs and desire to negotiate" as meaning a situation where dialog was not possible, not a situation that was expanded to include unarmed trespassers.
But, whatever.
In any event, I think I've had enough of this. If we can't even agree on what we're discussing (armed trespasser vs. any trespasser, libertarianism vs. Christian libertarianism) then there's not much point to it.
Ok, I didn't quite get all my tags right, so you'll have to read a little more carefully to figure out whose response is who's. Sorry, Mike.
This might be nit-picky, but does the ownership of the property by the encircling party include air-space or the earth beneath the surface?
It seems that a well-defined set of requirements for "property" (restricted to real-estate) would have to be implemented to argue semantics regarding the rights of property-owners; restriction of the term to a "skin" of fixed-thickness would implicitly designate easement, although the logistics might be problematic (think tunneling, suspension-bridges and airspace).
Furthermore, does it restrict travel along waterways?
Those are valid concerns, Feral. Property lines have traditionally been along the earth's lines of radii, though government occasionally changes this, like in Alaska where a landowner does not enjoy subsurface mineral rights.
Waterways are completely different. Rivers are often boundaries in and of themselves, whereas oceans are usually no-man's-land. "Freedom of the seas" and all.
And, of course, water is a commodity that falls from the sky and runs along the land, making the issue even more complex.
Renters? I'm talking about his ability to trade, even to take his own crops to market without getting harassed or shot dead by his neighbor who has his property completely surrounded and blockaded from the rest of society. If you want a better picture, imagine a feudal lord, blocking in a yeoman farmer, and telling him that if he didn't go into town on his terms, he'd have his men severely beat the yeoman farmer the moment he set foot on the lord's property.
I was referring to public in the general sense that when you are outside, you are in public.
In a normal case of trespassing, you'd have a point, but in this case, the property owner set up his property as a means to deny freedom of movement, freedom of trade and other basic rights that libertarians take for granted from the encircled man. My point here, Triton, is that the rich man has set himself up as a de facto government over his neighbor simply by aggressively asserting his property rights.
From a secular perspective, the encircled man would have the moral high ground if he did that for several reasons:
1) The rich man sought to aggressively deny him every normal freedom, right and privilege accorded to adults.
2) The rich man was armed and ready for the same.
3) The encircled man had done nothing to bring on this prison-like existance.
4) The community is not intervening to arbitrate.
But why should he have to abandon it to escape the wrath of someone richer than him? That's the sort of thinking that lead to Kelo v. New London. The only ground that I could see, in this scenario, for abandoning the property would be to go into town, raise a militia and arrest the rich man, his family and his guards and bring them to court for carrying out an act tantamount to a private war.
On the other hand, if the man has hired security guards, his odds are well in his favor that the encircled man would never make it out alive and the government might never know it happened unless someone hears a rapid succession of gunshots.
What if he says that he won't allow the encircled man to cross his land, even by helicopter, in order to trade, see his family, etc? The reason I am skeptical of the rich man's rights here is that he is asserting them aggressively so as to deny his neighbor any lawful participation in civil society. You see the government-individual angle going one way, as previously demonstrated, but the situation I see here is that in an extremely libertarian system, a rich man could essentially reinstitute a form of feudal existance wherein all men may be kings, but some may be vassals of another for reasons beyond their control.
I doubt most farmers would have been so non-chalant if a British Lord in the 18th century, bought all of the land around their community and told them that they had to pay him a fee to safely cross over his land buffer into the rest of the colony. The reason is, most people recognize that the man's intent here is to take his property right too far. You know how they say "your right to make a fist ends where my face begins?" Well, most people, even most classical liberals and conservatives, would say that in this case the richer man is trying to extend his righ to make a fist a few millimeters into the other man's face because his intent is to expand his property rights so as to create a situation where another man cannot function in civil society.
But again, the difference here is that by taking the leg, you would be taking property or risking the man's life. The difference between this argument and the one I created in the thought experiment is pretty big. The key difference is that all along, you've assumed that the rich man was buying land around a man who could be self-sufficient. Suppose he were a normal suburbanite, on a quarter acre lot? The rich man could do things like remove the previous easements that allowed running water and electricity to the encircled man's property. He could also do things like instruct his guards to turn away any ambulence that comes to the man's property in a case of medical emergency since the ambulence would be on private property. There are a whole host of possibilities of how this could lead to the death of the encircled man.
I factored in the secular side as the sort of bad cop to the Christian good cop. The reason I'm not opposed to the encircled man killing his neighbor if need be is because in a secular context, after a while, the encircled man must ignore principle and obey his will to power if he is to survive. Wasting away because some asshole owns all the land around you, and you're "too principled" to just walk across his land anyway to get to and from town, is suicide with no reward since you'll just end up as a piece of rotting meat in the ground.
And then we get into a reductio ad absurdum until half the world's land is used for this purpose. The question that has to be answer is, can you buy property for the purpose of creating a private prison for your neighbor, who has harmed no one, including you? That's what this boils down to.
There is also a demonstration of a willingness to use force. If you have created a situation where someone may not avoid your threat of force without wasting away like a prisoner on their own land, they would have a pretty convincing argument that your threat of force was a subtle use of force just like what a prisoner experiences in prison from the guards.
But you're the one assuming a farmer. That's a convenient 2% of the population of the United States. Even most small town residents with a few acres in rural areas could be victimized like this in an extremely libertarian society.
What if he doesn't have his own seeds or enough food starting out? Is it acceptable for the rich man to get away with so aggressively enforcing his property rights that his neighbor cannot even acquire enough food to survive until he can become self-sufficient?
It's an "inherent use of force" because there is no way for someone to stop a law-abiding person from trading with the rest of society without using force against him.
That's why I posted this, to make sure that we could ensure that we aren't talking at cross purposes and meeting halfway.
Do these same "business owners rights" people support a business owner's right to only hire whites, preferably busty blondes, and harass them?
Does he have the right to enforce a dress code of thongs for all employees?
Does he have a right to pay blacks and females lower wages?
Does he have a right to refuse to allow soap in the bathrooms?
Government has ALWAYS had control of business, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.