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Bruce, Jeff et. al.<BR>
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Ah, Libertarian political theory... <BR>
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Individual property "rights" are granted and enforced by what entity? The individual, the government, God or... ? <BR>
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It can be argued there are no individual property "rights" without a government to grant, protect and enforce them, otherwise the so called rights that ownership of land confers are nothing more than "might makes right," enforced by whoever has the biggest militia, although this also implies that whatever government has the biggest militia becomes the might to enforce whatever rights are granted anyone, so we are back to "might makes right." It is hard to escape this conclusion, no matter what principles you insist are really enforcing the "rights" involved.<BR>
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Anyway, the manner in which the government determines what are and are not legitimate individual property rights, as these rights conflict between different individuals with different values, cannot be derived from only accessing the concept of the rights of the individual, without introducing the concept of the "commons" (sky, air, water, etc.) in some sense of this word. And once on that slippery slope, the pure Libertarian political philosophy slides down, down, down to oblivion. Are you reading this, Dale C.? Ayn Rand thought she had a way out of this problem, but though brilliant, she was biased.<BR>
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Jean, I appreciate the spirit of your post on light regulation, but I do not think you can define the "jointly held community sky" in terms of individual property rights, as you appear to do below. Individual "property" can be bought and sold, but I do not think when you define the sky as an entity described as "jointly held community" you mean for it to be bought and sold, just as we recognize that water and air cannot be always defined in terms of the rights of private property owners when air and water, in many cases, cannot be controlled by an individual in a manner that confers upon them rights of individual ownership, in the same way someone's cow or horse can be "owned" and thus bought and sold.<BR>
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I can see it now. The brave new world of free market libertarianism ruling our lives. The sky has been privatized and vast global corporations own the orbiting shields that control sunlight and the view of the night sky. If you don't pay your "sky shield" bill, your sunlight and night sky is blocked. And anyone complaining is just some commie liberal wacko looking for government handouts who thinks everything should be free. <BR>
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If there is such an entity as the "jointly held community sky" then if it could be bought and sold as private property it would no longer be what it is defined as. This is one reason why when the states or the federal government sell public lands to private property owners (including corporate entities) they are violating a fundamental principle of what the "commons" represents. <BR>
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And if you go down that slippery slope far enough, there will be no "public" land left!<BR>
Don't doubt for a moment there are some powerful interests in the USA that want just that!<BR>
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Jean wrote:<BR>
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"If it were truly an all or nothing option for lighting your property and <BR>
protecting your animals, that might be one reason to consider allowing the <BR>
unregulated use that you propose, but it seems there are many other options <BR>
that could decrease the "leakage" from an individual's private property onto <BR>
the property of others, which I would also define to include our jointly <BR>
held community sky."<BR>
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Ted Moffett<BR>
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