Posted on 10/06/2005 10:24:09 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Property comes with a bundle of rights. They include the right of use, to subdivide, to bar others entry and the right to develop. The property itself doesn't have "rights." The individual has rights in that property he owns.
Writer and economist Thomas Sowell explains the coorelation between visible and invisible property:
“Neither ‘property’ nor the value of property is a physical thing. Property is a set of defined options . . .It is that set of options which has economic value . . .It is the options, and not the physical things, which are the 'property' - economically as well as legally . . .But because the public tends to think of property as tangible, physical things, this opens the way politically for government confiscation of property by forcibly taking away options while leaving the physical objects untouched.”
It’s what one may do with property that gives it value. Property that may not be used via government dictate loses value because the owner has no right to do with it what he wishes.
The government banning smoking in a business is theft. The right of the owner to legally use his property as he sees fit has been stolen.
No one said a bar can no longer be a bar or a restaurant can no longer be a restaurant...only that you can't smoke there
Try reading "The Tragedy of the Commons."
It will help you understand the difference between socialism and the Marxist "common good" vs a democratic republic and individual freedom.
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