Re: Dan Brown gets panned


In article <ddfr-D10EDA.11305729092009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
David Friedman <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

To begin with, property in land need not be created by governments,
since one observes it in stateless societies as well. Indeed, one can
argue that a primitive version predates not only government but our
species, in the form of territorial behavior.

I'm not contesting that.

My claim was more specific: That all currently private land in the US
was forcibly confiscated from the original inhabitants (who owned it
in a fashion similar to what you describe above) then assigned to others
by governments.

That aside, in your passion to attack your imagined version of
libertarianism, in which all libertarians are anarchists and libertarian
anarchist don't believe in any institutions for defining and enforcing
rights, you have completely abandoned, without noticing it, your

I did not claim that all libertarians were anarchists, only that receiving
property by way of a Kelo vs. New London type confiscation scheme ought to
be abhorent to them.

As for my "original claim", I think you are attributing someone else's
words to me:

You responded:

You should really stop and give some consideration to not using stupid
analogies when you want to parade your libertarian theories in front of
people.

Land doesn't spread its boundaries encroaching into other people's land
on an irregular basis as radio propagation does. Why is there not a
single AM or FM frequency in America for all the channels that want to
broadcast there? It would vastly simplify the design of transmitters,
reducing capital costs after all.

I wrote no such thing. That is someone else's text.

You have now switched to arguing that private property in land requires

No, *you* have switched from arguing with me to arguing with someone
else.

I have not claimed that private property derives only from the existance
of a government, only that all privately owned land in the US is the
result of government grant following the forcible confiscation of that
land. There were a variety of governments and a variety of coercers
involved, but the end result was transactions that should not be considered
legitimate by libertarian principles.

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