Re: Overheard on the scanner

On  Thu, 08 May 2008 20:51:13 -0400 Sean O'Hara <seanohara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
carved the following into the hard stone of rec.arts.sf.fandom 
>In the Year of the Earth Rat, the Great and Powerful Douglas Berry 
>declared:
>> On  Wed, 07 May 2008 17:54:51 -0700 David Friedman
>> <ddfr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> carved the following into the hard
>> stone of rec.arts.sf.fandom 
>>> In article <8te42491lv8ousj1b0nrum5lnm414jmnns@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>> Douglas Berry <penguin_boy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>> 1. What is your view of the origin of rights to property in land? How 
>>> did you get the right to exclude trespassers?
>> 
>> By laying down the money for a specified plot and assuming legal
>> responsibility for it. 
>> 
>
>I think David's asking about First Causes here -- how did the first 
>person to own that plot of land get that right, which has been 
>passed down to you?

Oh, please. Right of conquest, one would imagine. Hell, we're having
this exchange in English because a bunch of Normans decided to own
Saxon England.

But back here in 21st century America, property is based on economic
investment and governmental regulation. One pays money for a defined
property. You are now the legal owner of that property and can, within
the bounds of local law, do with it as you wish.

If my wish is to keep people off my grounds by way of a fence and
signage, that is my right. 
--

Douglas E. Berry  Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail

"Where is the prince who can afford so to cover
his country with troops for its defense, as that
ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might 
not,in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief
before a force could be brought together to repel 
them?" - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-1784