People who are party to an evil can be brought to the bar of extralegal justice.

[zackbass]

The Dutch create land every day.  They OWN it.

The don't create locations. Locations pre-exist human labor.

Oh is THAT what we are talking about?  All of Known Space is some Location or other.  I still will not put up with someone walking into the volume where my bedroom is located.

Yes - all of know space is a location.

Your "bedroom" is constructed via labor and thus personal property.

So if I put up a tent on my private property, and a squatter puts up a tent on my private property, you are going to pretend you can't see the moral difference.

I don't personally ascribe to the mutualist "possession and use" convention. I am a geo-mutualist so ascribe to Locke's "enough and as good" proviso.

How very nice for you.  Now please answer the implied question.

Well, if you have put up a tent on your land via your labor, then you are in use of the land - no?

I found the tent there.  Musta been left on my private property by the dead socialist I see inside it.

[BillKauffman]

The Dutch create land every day.  They OWN it.

The don't create locations. Locations pre-exist human labor.

Oh is THAT what we are talking about?  All of Known Space is some Location or other.  I still will not put up with someone walking into the volume where my bedroom is located.

Yes - all of know space is a location.

Your "bedroom" is constructed via labor and thus personal property.

So if I put up a tent on my private property, and a squatter puts up a tent on my private property, you are going to pretend you can't see the moral difference.

I don't personally ascribe to the mutualist "possession and use" convention. I am a geo-mutualist so ascribe to Locke's "enough and as good" proviso.

How very nice for you.  Now please answer the implied question.

Well, if you have put up a tent on your land via your labor, then you are in use of the land - no?

Yes, and the trespasser is in use of my land too, on the lot I own next door, but I am not.  Do you see a moral difference?

I said I don't subscribe to the "occupance and use" standard of the mutualist, but I do believe you have a moral obligation to those you exclude for what you did not labor to create (a location) otherwise you may be violating their right of self-ownership by forcing them to labor.

[zackbass]

... lots of people have brought squatters rights cases to courts in the case of abandoned buildings.

And against whom have these cases been brought - the real owners?  Who has been paying the property taxes year after year?

My own experience buying tax-deed properties is quite different... ownership changes hands because the taxes were not paid - the new owner is the one who pays the County for the land after the County takes it over.

[Tom Sawyer]

oh goodie ... a thread that has brought zackbass out of the woodwork, a three name guy, some gunslingers, and bill (land tax) grennon

it is interesting to see who is excited about this concept

Thanks for the comic relief. 

[BillKauffman]

Most politicians believe in this communalistic and anti-property rights majoritarian, "for the common good" concept of "community planning" .  That's where these bureaucratic critters think they should have the power to decide what buildings look like, decide if a building should be designated as "unsafe" or blighted and condemned

All of which are just ways to deal with negative externalities which these folks are elected to do (protect the property values of their constituients).

[zackbass]

But that is not what adverse possession is about.  It's about someone taking over land notoriously and hostilely:

http://www.expertlaw.com/library/real_estate/adverse_possession.html
"the person claiming ownership through adverse possession must show that its possession is actual, open, notorious, exclusive, hostile"

If  I choose not to "use" my land for 50 years, waiting until I am ready to play with it or look at it some more, or finally to sell it now that the market is improved, or ready to give it away to a friend or relative, it is immoral for someone to claim that he has been squatting on it for the last 20 years and has more right to it than I have.  That is THEFT.

Positive law, as it currently exists with regard to adverse possession, somewhat conflates adverse possession and homesteading such that the two are incorporated together under the same principle under law.  Adverse possession law includes cases of abandonment where the homesteading principlal normally applies.

The thing you quoted is only part of adverse possession statutory law, and common law, and it is that part which I object to.  That is, the taking of that which is not actually abandoned by a showing of some kind of open and conspicuous use by a person who feels like coming along and using somebody elses property.

We agree that that is immoral, but I am not (yet) satisfied that abandonment comes under "adverse possession" Law.

If you look at adverse possession law in this country, and the case law history of it... you will see that it covers two distinct kinds of cases.  The doctrine is not confined to only the second kind described below:

(1) First, it comes into play when people try to take over [bona fide] abandoned buildings,

(2) Second involves cases where people try to take land which is currently owned by using it in a conspicuous manner.

[... I don't know what the ratio is between the two kinds of cases, but I suspect the former is quite a bit more common the latter...]

So give us one example of type (1) where the Court ruled under Adverse Possession Law on an Abandonment case, okay?  If there are so many of them.  You sure they're not using some other legal theory?
   

You can find a few interesting, relatively recent cases of this second type, in a case that occurred in Colorado (causing much outrage, actually).  In that case, a neighbor was using another neighbors empty plot of land adjacent to the persons house, and they were "borrowing" (trespassing) the neighbors property for quite some time.. basically to dump dirt and debris and such for yard work... and the offending neighbor went to court and gained title to his neighbors property by claiming his use was open and conspicuous for about a period of ten years, or so.

Are you telling me that the new guy was awarded OWNERSHIP of the land, so that he now had TITLE and  could now sell it, exclude the former owner, etc.?  Or is this really merely a case of getting an EASEMENT of some sort?  What if BOTH of them had been dumping their crap there and walking through there and so forth?  Or a hundred people?

[zackbass]

Most politicians believe in this communalistic and anti-property rights majoritarian, "for the common good" concept of "community planning" .  That's where these bureaucratic critters think they should have the power to decide what buildings look like, decide if a building should be designated as "unsafe" or blighted and condemned

All of which are just ways to deal with negative externalities which these folks are elected to do (protect the property values of their constituients).

Absolutely.  As evil as hiring the Mafia to Force your neighbor to do what you want.

[zackbass]

I do believe you have a moral obligation to those you exclude for what you did not labor to create (a location) otherwise you may be violating their right of self-ownership by forcing them to labor.

I wouldn't dream of Forcing anyone to do anything at all; they may labor or not, as is their whim of the day.  Just as I refuse to accept that they may Force ME to do anything at all.  All I expect is to prevent their doing bad stuff to me, and all they have a right to expect is that I not do bad stuff to them.  Screw Positive Obligations!  (But you are in great company.  Jason Sorens has been arguing for Positive Moral Obligations for years, right along with you and the other Looters and Cannibals.)

(BTW, the term Self-Ownership is meaningless.  The relationship between you and your "Self" is Identity, not Ownership.  Feel free to own a Body though - yours, or that of anyone willing to sell his to you... we do agree that one aspect of Ownership is the right to sell, correct?)

[zackbass]

... lots of people have brought squatters rights cases to courts in the case of abandoned buildings.

And against whom have these cases been brought - the real owners?

Reason I ask is, if they have to go to Court against the real owners, then it was not really Specifically Abandoned, was it?  The Real Owners wouldn't contest ownership if they had Specifically Abandoned the land, would they?

I like the idea of unowned and unownable property as a lubricant, an Anarchy Park where no one may be excluded, where anyone may build whatever he wants and anyone may destroy it.  See Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy"... it is free on his web site http://www.larryniven.org/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.shtml

But what you are describing is a system whereby one man may gain Title and subsequently do to others what he did not want done to himself - EXCLUDE them.  It can't work that way, because the guy is almost certain to go away for a minute, to use the bathroom or go to work or something, at which point some other guy (hopefully the Real Owner from whom it was stolen) can move in and claim Title - until he in turn has to leave for a minute.  And so it goes.

[John Edward Mercier]

oh goodie ... a thread that has brought zackbass out of the woodwork, a three name guy, some gunslingers, and bill (land tax) grennon

it is interesting to see who is excited about this concept

I only have one name.

[John Edward Mercier]

Adverse possession can be a decent doctrine, I think, if narrowly construed.  It follows the Lockean necessity of use.

Nope.  Never.  What's mine is mine.  You have no right to tell me how or when or whether to "use" it.  Maybe I'm just not ready yet, it's nobody else's business.

Easy "Adverse Possession" is a major reason Muslim societies are so poor.

The Dutch create land every day.  They OWN it.

By what natural means did you acquire it?

Sent away.

And how do you demonstrate to others your ownership?

Recorded deed at courthouse.

And the deed at the courthouse you don't recognize as State enforced?

[zackbass]

Adverse possession can be a decent doctrine, I think, if narrowly construed.  It follows the Lockean necessity of use.

Nope.  Never.  What's mine is mine.  You have no right to tell me how or when or whether to "use" it.  Maybe I'm just not ready yet, it's nobody else's business.

Easy "Adverse Possession" is a major reason Muslim societies are so poor.

The Dutch create land every day.  They OWN it.

By what natural means did you acquire it?

Sent away.

And how do you demonstrate to others your ownership?

Recorded deed at courthouse.

And the deed at the courthouse you don't recognize as State enforced?

Sure it is.  Is that what this is about?  I didn't see the part where your position was "All State-Enforced property interests are immoral" or "All State-Enforced activities of all types are immoral."

Okay, let's play that for a while.  Let us know when you want to go back to the other discussion.
Say I have two cars.  I drive off in the red one for a while.  According to my idea of morality, if I come back and someone has taken the blue one without my permission, that is THEFT and it is immoral.  So I call the cops and they incarcerate the thief.  I have just made use of State Enforcement of a Law against Theft.
You got a problem with that?

[Russell Kanning]

i wonder how long these guys can go on

[zackbass]

... lots of people have brought squatters rights cases to courts in the case of abandoned buildings.

And against whom have these cases been brought - the real owners?

Reason I ask is, if they have to go to Court against the real owners, then it was not really Specifically Abandoned, was it?  The Real Owners wouldn't contest ownership if they had Specifically Abandoned the land, would they?

And now you want to say that you were not offering this as an example of Abandonment?  By snipping off the part where I QUOTE you as using the term "ABANDONED BUILDINGS"?  Come on answer the question.  Reminder:  This question is about the Specific Intentional Abandonment that you say is most common, not the OTHER discussion about true Adverse Possession, where we have already agreed that it is Theft to steal another person's land if he has not SPECIFICALLY Abandoned it and he wants to hang onto it it for the rest of his life even when he is not within sight of it or has to go to the toilet or take a nap.

[zackbass]

Come on answer the question.  Reminder:  This question is about the Specific Intentional Abandonment that you say is most common, not the OTHER discussion about true Adverse Possession, where we have already agreed that it is Theft to steal another person's land if he has not SPECIFICALLY Abandoned it and he wants to hang onto it it for the rest of his life even when he is not within sight of it or has to go to the toilet or take a nap.

What is........ "the question".......?

I'm not seeing any question asked there, other than the one I dealt with in the prior messages where you seemed to have misquoted me, and as a consequence, misinterpreted what I said... or.... well... I am not entirely sure what you did, but I addressed that.

Oh come on.  You said, as I quoted, "... lots of people have brought squatters rights cases to courts in the case of abandoned buildings."

And then *I* asked, "And against whom have these cases been brought - the real owners?"
(See?  There is a Question, don't you agree?)

And then I clarified, "Reason I ask is, if they have to go to Court against the real owners, then it was not really Specifically Abandoned, was it?  The Real Owners wouldn't contest ownership if they had Specifically Abandoned the land, would they?"
(See?  There is a nother Question, don't you agree?)

This is not rocket surgery.  Clear questions about SPECIFICALLY ABANDONED PROPERTY.  Clearly keeping the distinction YOU made between Adverse Possession stealing of property that the people wanted to keep (the cases we agree are immoral), and this other kind that you say you do not object to and that you say is more common - ABANDONED BUILDINGS and "SQUATTERS' RIGHTS".