squatting

[Barterer]

Man, that "Homeopathy Challenge" thing had better fail, or the implications for property rights could be disastrous!  It's the soup-in-the-ocean parable:

Somebody could "mix his labor" into some chicken soup ingredients, make two quarts, and call it the cure for the common cold.  Then for that homeopathic kick, he'd mix it into a lake so the soup was diluted to 10^-23456 parts per million.  Now the whole lake is his personally mixed homeopathic remedy.. you better stay out of it! 

Oh wait. You could still "ease" jet-skis and fishing boats into the lake.  But no soup for you!! And anyone caught mixing further cups of chicken soup in the lake, reducing its effectiveness, well.. we got ways <chaCHICK> of dealing with them.

[NJLiberty]

If there arises a dispute, then your rights, such as they are, will be those which are recognized by the other party and your community. If they see your actions as legitimate, then I'm sure they'll continue to do business with you. If not, then expect some repercussions. I mean, we don't have "laws" per se, we will have only what we can negotiate in advance to mutual agreement, or, if we use force, what we can adequately justify after the fact. That's a real free society.

Those aren't rights at all at that point. If I have to ask another person or the community for my rights then what do I actually have, the same system we have now where I am subject to the whims of government and the whims of the majority. I would have whatever "rights" they choose to allow me to have, and none that they choose to withhold. What sort of a free society is that? Why should you, or the community, be in charge of determining what my rights are? When did I subject myself to you? My right to my property trumps any claim the trespasser may think they have to use my property. It isn't their property, so as far as I am concerned they have no right to it at all. 

That being said, I have no problem with people working out agreements to share their property. As long as everyone is in agreement that people can come and go as they please, that's great. I'm all for people being able to create whatever sort of agreements they want. But no one should be forced to allow people to use his property if they don't want to share it. Their is no freedom in that.

George

[Dylboz]

Can you put your hands on your rights? Do you hang them on your bedroom wall at night? The fact is, you only ever have those "rights" that others recognize and respect. Sorry to break it to you, but rights aren't real things. Rights do not exist anywhere in the world outside of human relationships. They are concepts, abstractions, reciprocal agreements and expectations that are based on cultural context. Have you ever looked up the difference between contextual libertarianism and atomistic libertarianism? You should. Rights, liberty, the free market, and the lot are all abstractions that are only reified by human interaction. They require a community, other people, relationships, transactions, CONTEXT. All I am saying is, you only ever really have whatever rights your community and the individuals you deal with afford you in those interactions. A prevailing standard will emerge in your community, and can be written down (like a Bill of Rights) but it is a product of the combined history and expectations from the group's experience.

It is pretty funny that you think you can just make a claim to all these rights because you have made a parallel claim to ownership of property. If no one recognizes or respects that claim, then none of the rights you insist accompany ownership accrue to you. You think your rights trump the traveler, he thinks his rights trump yours. What happens? You have to work it out. You think you can just use violence. I say he'd be justified in defending himself. Why should you care? Because that community you're so dismissive of is the one that you depend on for friendship, commerce, and most importantly, the recognition of your right to life and property. You live in the context of that community. I seriously doubt you can happily or adequately provide for yourself everything you need and desire, alone on a chuck of land, even assuming that your neighbors choose ostracism as punishment for your murderous ways, rather than restitution or dispossession.

I want to live in a community that does not recognize your "right" to go aggress against the traveler, but rather one that recognizes his "right" to traverse your open land (and anyone's, for that matter) free from violence, so long as he does no harm to you, nor threatens to, nor damages your property or impedes your progress or plans. I want a community standard that privileges human life over fences. I am not against property at all, just the kind of property that justifies aggression and calls it defense. I oppose anyone claiming superior status over another human being by virtue of their position on the planet. That is what statists do. I don't claim to have the right to murder my friends when they come to visit my house, yet that is essentially the argument you guys advance. They are on my property, so they continue to breathe merely by my good graces. Sounds like you think you're the King, doesn't it?

Look, if your version of absolute property rights prevails, what is to stop a serial killer from luring people onto his property, executing them, then claiming they were there without his permission? Without witnesses to the contrary, there is no crime as far as your formulation is concerned. The property claim supersedes the victim's right to life, and their rights would have ceased to exist once they stepped on that guy's property without prior specific agreement. He says they were there against his wishes. We know they were invited, but again, without witnesses, you guys are forced to allow it because you claim that they forfeited their right to life by entering his domain. Oh, ostracism, you suggest? I hardly think it sufficient to prevent future murders or bring restitution to the victim's families.

I am really trying to ram home the point that the construction of property rights you advocate is statist to the core, requires vigilance and force to maintain, and turns property owners into despots who rule totally and absolutely, without fear of consequences, over the life and death of any hapless fool who violates their boundaries, and it denies human beings their intrinsic value and basic equality, while creating, for no reason, enmity between neighbors who seek nothing more than peaceful and convenient travel over open land to maintain commerce, communication, recreation and travel.

[Russell Kanning]

"defending land" ..... that smacks of the government to me

I'm don't understand how you arrived at that correlation.

How does defence == government?

Using force to control territory
I guess you and I just look at it differently.

[NJLiberty]

Okay Dylboz, so now we are just substituting one government for another. In your free society I am now subject to the rules and regulations the community decides is best, I only have whatever privileges and recourses they decide I should have (I will not call those rights since quite obviously if they dole them out they can take them back), and apparently simply by living there I am subject to that government whether I choose to be or not. How is that in any way different than what we have now?

In your free society you nominally allow me to have property, but if it is being underused in yours or the community's eyes then it is free to be used by anyone who comes along, provided that they do me no harm. I cannot defend my property except in situations and ways that you and the community would approve, and I am assuming that if there was harm done to my property that I would have to go to you and the community for relief? And I am not allowed to enjoy and be secure in my home because you also claim that you can invade my home if you or the community feels it is necessary. I'm having trouble seeing the freedom there. All I can see is that I would be trading my current set of shackles for another set of shackles, perhaps smaller ones, but shackles none the less.

Why can't we have a society where people are free to make their own agreements with others? Why must it always come back to a group deciding what is right for the individual? Why can't I be free to use my property as I see fit, if it is harming no one, to enjoy the fruits of my labor as I see fit, and to interact, contract, and trade in a voluntary fashion with those I see fit, and not be compelled to interact, contract or trade with those I don't?

George

[Lex]

I'm don't understand how you arrived at that correlation.

How does defence == government?

Using force to control territory
I guess you and I just look at it differently.

I would agree that we look at things differently 

I don't think you can avoid using force to protect yourself or your property unless you are okay with losing one or both.

I think there is a big differences between your civil disobedience against the government, which only exists as long as it can create the illusion that it is good, and a thief who does not create any such illusions and would have no qualms about stealing from or killing you. When the government kills, they have to either create the illusion that they did the right thing or keep the whole thing quiet. They didn't kill Ed Brown because it would have been a pain in the buttocks for them to justify killing someone over some overdue taxes and they already failed at keeping it quiet (thanks to our efforts). A person who kills/steals for himself for a living does not have any such obstacles.

What are you going to do, Russell, if a thief comes to your home and tells you to leave? Are you going to do nothing? Hope that you can change his mind somehow? What if he is really drunk? To the point that you cannot reason with him at all? Would you allow him to kill you and your family and drag you out back? Then pawn all of your possessions and sell your home. It's very difficult for me to imagine how someone could remain totally passive in such a situation.

I'm not trying to be confrontational. Those are sincere questions/observations. I suppose it would have been better to ask you them in person but if you could answer them here that would be great! 

[Dylboz]

Mr NJ, do you not get that you have to live in a community, and that all rights are reciprocal agreements between at least two people? They don't exist anywhere else! You ask why you can't have the society you wish with the rights you desire? You can! You just have to find a lot of people who will act accordingly. What is so difficult about that? Why don't you get it? The community standard will be whatever you guys agree on voluntarily. If you all think everyone gets to decide what to do and kill who they want and they never have to listen to anyone else or even consider the implications that their decisions have for their neighbors, then that is what will happen. Doesn't seem like a nice place to live, but if that's what you want, and you all agree, that is what you shall have. I would rather live somewhere else, but isn't this the competitive market for ways of living we have always advocated?

I think you're smart enough to get this, I just don't think you want to... But, I'll say it again. You always and everywhere only have those rights that you afford others, and that they in turn respect your exercise of. Period. A right is not a thing in space or list in D.C. It only exists in the context of your interactions with others in your community. We are talking a stateless society, so how are you going to make a claim to your property, the thing that you think turns you into a God on Earth, while you remain in its boundaries, if not one of your neighbors respects that claim? You have to establish that claim through direct negotiation or whatever process they'll peacefully acknowledge, unless you want to show up and start a war. You can't go to the county courthouse and get a deed by signing a title and then wave it at them, unless of course, that IS how they've chosen to set things up. Which means, that's the community standard for recognizing property claims. See?

Also, you fail to notice that at least once in almost every post I wrote in this thread, I differentiate between your home, including developed attached land and buildings, and the open land I advocate for easement on. I wouldn't ever enter your home except in the most exigent of circumstances, and I would expect to pay restitution for any damages if I did. Resistance would be justified, especially if there were no reason for my intrusion.

Anyway, what you describe as "another government" with such derision, is what life with human beings who are interdependent is like. That's the agora, the marketplace. And I never argued against making voluntary agreements with others, on the contrary, I am saying that is exactly what you must do all the time in the absence of a state and its set of predefined rules enforced by cops. Indeed, those are precisely your vaunted "rights."

And Lex, I hope you don't think I'm advocating pacifism, I specifically said before that any threat should be met with the necessary force to remove it, and that I couldn't imagine a situation in which you wouldn't be justified in using force against an intruder in your home. I wholeheartedly advocate self-defense, just not aggression in the absence of a threat.

[John Edward Mercier]

And feudal lords claiming absolute authority over their land and all the people on it is how states were born. The statutes were developed as a means of dealing with problems arising from that unequal relationship and the brutal tyranny it created, not the other way around.

____________________________________________________________________


Look, I realize I am very verbose, so I am going to try and crystalize my thinking here.

Life>Property

Property -is not equal to- Person

(this also means I reject self-ownership, especially the version that equates possessions with the body, as a person is not a thing that can be owned even by itself, and besides, it's either a meaningless tautology, or an appeal to religious or mystical dualism)

Also, an occupied home and attached developed land, like plowed fields, gardens and orchards are not the same as open land, and are not subject to easement. I cannot imagine a circumstance where entering these premises without permission wouldn't constitute a tort, the circumstances of which determine the specific response. Even in our earlier example of the flagpole or my "medical emergency," I do believe I'd be obligated to pay restitution for damages (though I personally would forgive the debt, since in each case I would have allowed entry).

I believe that the individual is the basic unit of morality, and I also believe that each human life is inherently, and equally valuable. I respect other's sovereignty, autonomy and their possessions because I wish them to reciprocate that respect. Just as consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of the body, rights are reified through human relationships and interaction. They are an emergent property of negotiation. By claiming that your status as a property owner somehow negates another individual's rights, subordinating them to you, you are creating, by the arbitrary standard of title, an unequal hierarchy, wherein you are free to enact violence on them. This is the very evil of the state, and we should oppose it.

Just ask yourself, do you reject the state's claim to the legitimate use of initiatory violence as always and everywhere invalid, or do you merely covet that power for yourself on "your" land? If you adhere to the NAP out of respect for other's right to life (and reciprocally, your own), then I cannot see how you can reject the easement idea or advocate a world made up of petty dictatorships where our lives are entrusted to the caprice of whomever' property we are treading upon (after all, there will be no "commons" or unowned land, right?). To my mind, this is not an improvement, but rather a significant regression, a return to feudalism.

Finally, another real world example of what I am trying to describe vis a vie "easement." Out here in Arizona, we have a lot of land designated "Open Range." Most of it is BLM land, where ranchers have permits to graze their cattle, though they are not exclusive, but much of it is owned by the ranchers themselves. They let their cattle roam freely, and they cross paved and dirt roads that go through them freely (hence the occasional gruesome spectacle of a car-cow collision, which, I believe rightly, obligates the driver to buy the cow). This land and the roads that traverse it are often used by 4 wheelers, campers, hikers, day-trippers and more. The custom is, if you open a gate, close it behind you, if you pack it in, pack it out, and generally tread lightly, leaving it as you found it. If damage is done, like running down a cow, you pay for it. It works, and no one gets shot.

But BLM land is not private...
And I think if you tried to homestead through squatting... it would create exclusive use.
I would expect the squatter to want the same piece of mind in their construct and labor as I have in mine.

[mackler]

If you sqaut on property long enough you can become the legal owner of that property.  It's called "adverse possession." Not surprisingly, the law does not recognize adverse possession on gov't property. Bank-owned property is fair game, but banks usually try to sell their unused property.

[Dylboz]

I wholeheartedly agree JEM, I certainly want peace, both "of mind" and between people. My advocacy of easement shouldn't be confused with squatting, except perhaps as one end of a continuum leading to homesteading on the other. Easement is a means to preserve both peace AND property. If we agree that the homesteading principle is a viable means to establish legitimate property claims, and their basis is the admixture of labor, then we'll have to also agree that those claims can degrade over time if no further labor is added. "Hit it with a stick and it's yours forever" doesn't work. I think others have noted that a claim must be maintained through continued effort, even if that just means coming around and reminding your neighbors that the property is still yours.

But, easement is intended to refer to open land, not your house, your yard and the garden in it, or even your plowed fields and orchards. I mean, if you have a great big estate, and a river runs through it or an ancient footpath or even a road traverses it, you shouldn't bar people access to those means of travel, nor should you begrudge them a temporary camp or even a little hunting and gathering of the natural resources around it. If the person makes no threat to you, nor impedes you progress or plans, I do not believe you have a "right" to aggress against them.

As for BLM land, it hardly matters that it is "public" and not "private," since it is leased for the exclusive use of those ranchers who graze their cattle there. Someone is making a claim to the land as property, and delimiting the uses permitted therein. Easement prevails to persons not party to those negotiated specific prior agreements. See?

[John Edward Mercier]

In NH, rivers are open. Roads depend on ownership as labor to maintain them is involved. Ancient footpath (King's Highway?) are replaced with roads. But much of NH is managed timber land (tree farm).
Because the best representation in NH of gov't is the property tax, natives don't tend to hold unproductive land.

[Dylboz]

Why can't we have a society where people are free to make their own agreements with others? Why must it always come back to a group deciding what is right for the individual? Why can't I be free to use my property as I see fit, if it is harming no one, to enjoy the fruits of my labor as I see fit, and to interact, contract, and trade in a voluntary fashion with those I see fit, and not be compelled to interact, contract or trade with those I don't?

George

I want to address the above piece by piece. So, here goes...

Why can't we have a society where people are free to make their own agreements with others? Why must it always come back to a group deciding what is right for the individual?

Besides the fact that the above is precisely what I advocate, you seem to want to have it both ways. On the one hand, you want to do whatever you want without taking others into consideration. Then, recognizing that you have to deal with others (the despised "group") you want to negotiate on an ad hoc basis what the precise terms of your interactions will be. Well, that's exactly what I'm advocating, yet you think this is an imposition, that the group is deciding for you. What will happen in your community is, through experience and an accumulation of voluntary interactions and exchanges, others will come to have certain expectations about you (and each other) in their interactions with you. These will be the "rights" you have in the context of your community.

Why can't I be free to use my property as I see fit, if it is harming no one, to enjoy the fruits of my labor as I see fit, and to interact, contract, and trade in a voluntary fashion with those I see fit, and not be compelled to interact, contract or trade with those I don't?

I want you to do all of the above, but I think that by claiming the Royal prerogative of absolute rule over your property and denying that others have any rights while on your property, you are in fact harming others. You are forcing them to to be inconvenienced by having to go around if a pathway through your land is the quickest way to town. If you see in your binoculars a traveler walking across open land on your property, and you take aggressive action against that person who posed you no threat, and you hurt or kill him, or even if you cause him to be late for an appointment or dinner, you have harmed him. It is you who is compelling him, not the other way around. There is no interaction, trade, or contract involved in walking. There is no threat or aggression committed until you initiate it. You are the one making an excuse for violence.

Look, if you have a compelling reason you don't want some one somewhere on your land, put up signs, build a fence, post warnings, etc. If there is no pre-existing thoroughfare or other reason someone else might be there, I think you're fine in defending that claim with force. If you tell your neighbors, I'm sure they'll respect your wishes, since they'll be expecting the same from you, so you'll have no need to do so. But, for otherwise open space, undeveloped land that lies between destinations or connects to adjacent property, easement ought to be the default position. We do not need any more excuses for violence than we already have.

[Nathan.Halcyon]

So Nathan,
I squat on "your" land, say ... 10 acres or so ... make improvements, and then head over to the county office and file deed with them. Are you going to fight me on this? You did free the land. I am just taking what you have freed, no?

You would not squat on "my land." However much acreage I may purchase, only what I use would be mine. Make whatever improvements you want. Build a fucking empire state building. Be your guest, eh? You are free to it. No agreement is necessary. Free to it, until you claim legal title as private property. The land is yours only so long as it is used. If not used, it is open to claim. Such action is unnecessary in my opinion, and constitutes force, not against me, but against everyone. To me, land is not a commodity to be owned. You run afoul of employing "law" and government agency in your scenario, to act forcefully on your behalf to protect an invalid claim. In such a scenario, your life if forfeit. You would, through force applied by agency (state), attempt to impose your will. Oh, yes, I would act. I would abdicate my claims, vacate the land, hunt you down, and do my best to put a bullet in your gullet or abdomen. With you no longer making exclusive claim, I would return home.

With you dead, a fortunate event, I'd return to my home if possible. In a real world scenario, with your government at your back, your beloved state and your law, I would have no chance. As no anarchist here has a chance. No libertarianism has a chance. Only the mechanism of the state has any chance. You ensure its survival.

[Pat McCotter]

 

[Russell Kanning]

I guess the guy gets my stuff.