Private Property Confiscation

American Thinker ^ | 21 Aug, 2026 | Allan J. Feifer

[MtnClimber]

Americans traditionally understood that what they owned was theirs, not the government’s. Yet, over the last century, that principle has steadily eroded—from gold confiscation to civil asset forfeiture to proposed wealth taxes. The emerging principle is stark: Your property is yours only to the extent that the State allows you to keep it.

Preliminarily, what does it mean to own something? In America, the traditional answer was straightforward: it meant that the property was yours—not the government’s—and that the State had no claim to it unless you forfeited it through a criminal act or the government seized it through eminent domain for the public good.

Private property was understood as an extension of individual liberty, protected by right and law rather than being a privilege that the government granted at its discretion. That principle was deeply embedded in the American tradition and helped distinguish a free citizen from a subject of the State. That relationship changed dramatically in the 20th century.

Perhaps the most well-documented exercise of government power over private property occurred in 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, requiring Americans to surrender most of their monetary gold to the government at the then-fixed price of $20.67 per ounce. Those who failed to comply faced criminal penalties.

The following year, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 placed monetary gold under federal ownership and raised the official price of gold to $35 an ounce—a nearly 70 percent increase from the $20.67 price at which Americans had been required to surrender their gold. Whatever the legal justification, the episode demonstrated something deeply unsettling about the power of the State: It could declare lawful property impermissible to own, compel its sale to the government at a price it dictated, and then change the official value of that property after acquiring it.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: leftism

[MtnClimber]

And now DSA wants the state to seize everything.

[Kudsman]

No worries, we got John Thune.

[ClearCase_guy]

“Property is theft”
— Proudhon

In a Zero Sum society, the only possible reason for you to have anything is because you stole it from someone else. Probably a black person. Your ownership of property is merely evidence of your theft. Wealth (you see) cannot be created. It can only be stolen (by bad people) or redistributed (by good people).

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[marktwain]

The other side is: Taxation is theft.

[Vaduz]

When democrats rule 0 gain

[motor_racer]

Property taxes, whether on personal property or real estate, are wealth taxes that have been with us for many years.

If you have to pay someone every year for your home or else they can take it from you, who owns it?

To get rid of wealth tax as an IDEA, start by outlawing these.

[oldasrocks]

So if the guberment seizes all the property who will be paying the property taxes?
We are led to believe we own property. Don’t pay your taxes for a couple yrs and see what happens,

[glennaro]

Taxation is theft.

At minimum, taxation is "a forced extraction."
Cheers!

[Jan_Sobieski]

Two greatest forms of theft: Taxation, Inflation

[motor_racer]

Inflation should properly be called what it is: Currency Debasement.

[Vaduz]

It’s price of living in a town or city paved streets street light fire and police departments .....................

Taxes are the only money supply for them not many options.

[FiddlePig]

1913 Federal Reserve, 16th (income tax) and 17th (direct election of Senators) was the beginning of the end of the original USA Republic. It soon metastasized. The USA officially went off any connection to the gold standard in 1971.

You then must go back to the GREAT THEFT of 1933. After FDR took office in 1933, one of his first executive orders (6102, 6260) was to outlaw the possession of gold (coins and bullion) by American citizens. Using the Great Depression as a “convenient” crisis, his brazenly (not just unconstitutional but anti-constitutional) orders robbed the citizenry of real wealth and substituted it with paper money. The government paid folks the then current gold rate ($20.67 per ounce at the time) for the confiscated gold. A year later in 1934, the government increased the price to $35 per ounce, effectively increasing the gold on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheets by 69 percent. This increase in assets allowed the Federal Reserve to further inflate the money supply. This was the greatest theft of people’s real wealth since Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes ravaged Asia and Europe in the 12th Century. The government held the $35 per ounce price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon severed any relationship of the Dollar to gold, completely abandoning the gold standard. Inflation has been Fed policy ever since! Gold is true wealth. Paper is not.

[Ronald77]

Yep, just ask your HOA who owns your property, and it’s not you. You only get to pay for it, taxes and all.

[not in the club]

Property is an illusion. You only "own" what you can defend, either legally or physically.
Perhaps is better stated that property is an agreement. As long as everyone agrees that someone owns something, they do.

[KrisKrinkle]

No Taxation Without Representation.

[KrisKrinkle]

“Property taxes...are wealth taxes…” ‘To get rid of wealth tax as an IDEA, start by outlawing these.”

And then what? How do you propose to fund what they pay for? Will we get to vote on it like we do on property taxes?

[Georgia Girl 2]

My mother told me that lots of people did not turn in their gold.

[FrozenAssets]

Vadu sez...
It’s price of living in a town or city paved streets street light fire and police departments

Around here it is the price to provide all sorts of amenities to ninnies who live in a town 45 miles away while you haul your own trash 18 miles to a dumpster and pay for a private subscription fire department. But someone has to pay for all the borough officials to go on junkets