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It is fair to say that ownership is a prerequisite for human society. The ability to own things and have ownership respected by the other members of society is what allows for settled society to form. The evidence we have says that hunter-gatherers understood the concept of property and property rights. People in these groups owned thing and that ownership was respected. Early settled societies formed around the claim of ownership of necessary resources like hunting land.
In theory collective ownership is possible, but the one big experiment with it in the last century was a disaster. The theory was that once private property was eliminated, inequality and conflict would be eliminated. Yet within communist societies, there were laws against theft, thus tacitly acknowledging ownership. It also underscored the fact that conflict was not purely economic. Most crime is caused by an immutable fact of the human condition. Some people are born bad.
Not only does it turn out that private property and property rights are prerequisites for human society, but they are also a good measure of societal development. By the time the Europeans were ready to conquer the globe, they had worked through the problems of property ownership and how to settle disputes. Europeans landed in Africa and the Americas, only to greet people who had yet to master this basic concept. Even in Asia, property ownership was still in development.
In this age, property rights are a good way to see how things are slipping within Western societies. This story about a woman finding an ancient artifact at a junk store is a good example. She spotted what she thought was a strange lawn ornament that turned out to be a Roman bust from the first century AD. Its last know whereabouts were in Bavaria, but she found it in a Texas thrift shop. No one knows how it got to Texas, but it was most likely a war prize.
The interesting thing about the story is the women is being forced to give the bust back to the last known owner. Since that owner does not exist, it will be turned over to the Bavarian government. The argument is that the last acknowledged owner did not sell or transfer the bust. Without proof of that or something to suggest there was a rightful owner after the Bavarian king, the king still has rights to it. Since the king is no more, his rights revert to the Bavarian state.
On the one hand, it seems like a good result. Respecting property rights, even across countries and generations is a good practice. Jews have been hunting lost property, or claims to lost property, since the end of the war. Their argument rests on the fact that their items that were lost in the war are still their items, as they did not voluntarily transfer those items to the Nazis. The current owner may have honestly acquired them, but the seller was not legally allowed to sell them.
On the surface, this looks a good example of how modern Western societies enforce ownership rights. There is a global database of art. Unless you can go into that database and show you are the rightful owner, you cannot sell the item. That is why this Texas woman is being forced to give up her Roman bust. She probably could keep it in her garden, but she could never sell it to a collector. In other words, the lack of provenance has rendered it worthless to her.
This heartwarming story of rich people getting their toys back, however, is an exception, rather than the rule. This example of enforcement of property rights is the exception in the modern West. For most people, the phrase “you will own nothing and like it” is becoming the new normal. Even real property rights are conditional in America, as we saw with Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut. That case basically turned property ownership into a privilege granted by the state.
At a more basic level, ownership is a thing of the past in America. Tech companies are allowed to harvest your personal information without your permission and sell it, often using it against the people from whom they stole it. Privacy, which can only exist in the context of property rights, has been lost. The mass media routinely violates the privacy of people it has deemed enemies of the state. Ownership and everything that springs from it is slowly being eroded in the current age.
Here is a simple example of how the erosion of property rights has eroded the basic order of society. We get daily reports of computer breeches in which the personal data of consumers is stolen by thieves. The companies trusted with this information are never punished for their negligence. The thieves are never caught. In fact, no one bothers to look for them. Often the stolen property ends up in the hands of the media or random weirdos on the internet.
The result is you lose the right to privacy and the ownership rights to your data, with little recourse in the law. If something private about you, your views on some political issue, get stolen from a tech platform and posted in the media, you have no way to reassert your ownership rights. You cannot sue the news site that posted the stolen information and you cannot sue the site from which it was stolen. You, the victim, have no protection while the beneficiaries of theft are protected.
A good example of this is Trump’s tax returns. During his time in office, the New York Times came into possession of his tax returns. These were stolen from the IRS by an employee, most likely. This person had no right to those documents and they had no right transfer them to the Times. The Times knew this and knew they were in receipt of stolen goods, but they published them anyway. The standard in America is finder’s keepers and society is the weeper.
If the Supreme Court really wanted to do some social justice, they would forget about Roe and find a case to overturn Kelo in the context of the reestablishment of basic property rights. Imagine if we go back to the ancient custom that says you own you and you own what you make by default. Most the abuses of the tech monopolies go away as their ability to steal your property goes away. The media’s ability to use stolen property would evaporate along with much of their power.
A simple example on that latter point is the Roe leak. The person who received the stolen item knew it was stolen. The person who gave it to him, unless it was Sam Alito, had no right to transfer it to the reporter. Imagine a regime that says the reporter gets charged with receiving stolen goods and the leaker gets charged with theft. All of a sudden, the journalistic practice of selective leaking goes away and they have to go back to old fashioned investigating and reporting.
Beyond that, this case of the Roman bust underscores the root cause of societal collapse in the West. The elites care more about the chain of custody for works of art than they care about fixing roads or making sure the people can feel secure in the person and in their papers. For the same reason they care more about Ukrainian borders than the Mexican border, they care more about tracking art items than defending the basic concepts than make society possible.
It is easier for the elites to “care” about the chain of custody for a Roman bust than it is to care about busted roads or decaying schools. It is easier to slap on a Ukrainian lapel pin than it is to do something about fentanyl. The public gesture is also more fun and rewarding than the grunt work required of elites to keep society going. Ours is a Nero elite, people who spend their days dreaming of new ways to flatter themselves while the basics of society crumble. They need to come to the same end.
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gshock4me
(filler for publication)
Once the US seized Russian foreign reserves , from what I am told is something we didn’t even do to Hitler , the rules based internal was gone.
I imagine a bunch of guys in 17th century garb on their knees near a ditch being shot in the back of the head by he US . F-U and your treaty of Westphalia.
This means its “rule of force” from here on out which will will speed up the collapse by a huge margin . Oh and as an added bonus make recovery impossible.
I guess as my man Lord Arklon liked to say “Peace is for the weak!” and its back to slavery, genocide and conquest.
I kind of wish I was a bit younger. Maybe I could get a gas station fort of my own.
It’s a Caligula Elite. Trafficking children, carving them up, drinking the blood. 8 years of Barry getting dicked in the ass by Big Mike, in the fuckin White House. Now you got an old grifter, kiddy diddler fuckhead, destroying the country, right before our eyes. Installed, not elected, they shove these sick, demented motherfuckers in your face, because they can. You got the best gooberment jewmoney can buy. Wake up or kiss your ass goodbye, they want every fucking thing you got.
O/T – sort of. Private property seems to be what you can hold by force at the moment, as all the laws have gone out of the window.
Looks like Ukraine has turned off 1/3 of the gas supply to Europe.
Looks like part of the plan to ramp up the intervention requirements.
German industry is completely fucked.
Couldn’t Ukraine withholding the gas also be an attempt to economically blackmail their way into the EU and NATO.
I mean, with a friend like that….jeez…
Its also probably related to one of the large German gas importers VNG agreeing to pay up in rubles.
The day after that announcement Ukraine cuts off 1/3. Seems like the EU/US is going to cut it off for them if the companies won’t cut themselves off.
That seems pretty on-topic as a comment to an essay headlined THE OWNERSHIP STANDARD.
Legal types argue the basis of all law and property rights is the ability to enforce contracts. If laws and the ability to enforce contracts fly out the window, property rights go right along with them. In the Ukraine example you cited, the government in Kiev or Keeve or Keanu Keeve or however it is pronounced today likely is abrogating its contractural obligations to European nations to leverage military interventions, as you mentioned. As is the case with so much today, a ludicrous pretext likely is given, probably that a force majeure has voided the contract(s). You do have to wonder how many contracts the Euros, particularly the Germans, themselves voided with Russia when the hostilities broke out–probably under some sort of bad faith pretext. If laws are meaningless, and they are now, contracts can be broken at will and so they are. The first acts of juntas, and one is well underway throughout the West, usually include abrogation of contracts.
Since seizure of individuals’ property without due process of the law is routine now, that can’t be accurately labeled as the next logical step, but still a pretext will be given, likely ” ’cause we can and are at war!” We have entered the brutish world where raw force substitutes for law, and it is logical to assume anything can and will be done to you unless there is a reasonable expectation and fear you can do something equally as harmful. Calculations have been made that you cannot.
As an aside, it will be an interesting late autumn this year, will it not?
Actually, the traditional legal standard of ownership extended to anyone buying something in a “market ouvert”, an open market equivalent to a farmer’s market on weekends…Everyone knew that there was no chain of title for much of the merchandise, but nevertheless the buyer acquired good title…Under that standard of the Common Law, the woman would have owned the Roman bust…
also as an aside, people seem to forget that dying in/under a “war” means your life insurance and property loss insurance will not be paid out because WAR–howja like them apples?
I could buy a condo in Dubai, only live in it for one month out of the year, and be assured that no one will break into it for those 11 months while I’m gone. I may have to show my papers, it may be an oppressively hot islamic dystopia with expensive drinks in sterile hotel bars, but my Mac would be safe in my place. Can I say that about San Francisco? Can I even park my car there without a 24 hour guard in a gated garage? Part of private property is being able to leave it be without it being pillaged. Or not have your car door keyed just out of petty jealousy that you have something nice and they don’t. People buy a place in Belize because of the snorkeling and are surprised to find the furniture gone when they come back. Whose really free around here? Free for drug addled n words I suppose.
The vibrant parasites are just the most obvious takers. Those who rule us have shown a potential for far more immediate and severe theft.
this is why you have a servant class, you have a maid or houseboy and they watch over your stuff 24/7/365..also creates employment.
Let them die. If you can’t stand up for yourself , you are a slave.
“The theory was that once private property was eliminated, inequality and conflict would be eliminated. Yet within communist societies, there were laws against theft, thus tacitly acknowledging ownership.”
I always remind people that there were a lot of rich Soviets.
Communism, like Libertarianism, is not a viable model of government because both assume a set of Utopian ideals about the human condition.
As the US Government continues to spiral out of control, there are still people planning to vote in the elections this fall on the basic principle that their vote matters and has value – like property.
It does not.
The same people begging for their votes declared 75% of American Society “nonessential” and threatened those same people with the total destruction of their economic means unless they submitted to an untested vaccine that doesn’t work – because guess what? You don’t even own your own body.
Hokkoda-
On the US’ current trajectory I can easily see the regime declaring martial law and canceling the elections.
I have no clue how the citizenry would respond. The grillers seem perfectly content to grill on as though nothing is happening.
Canceling the elections and declaring martial law didn’t even happen during the Civil War. So basically your scenario is the Government overthrowing the Constitution and setting up a military dictatorship.
I don’t see the public going along with that peacefully, and expect 60% or so of the military would quit or join the anti-government side.
If the Biden regime were to announce that, I think you would see attacks on Government facilities at a level of violence that could not be contained by “martial law”.
Mass terrorism would ensue.
The Government Party depends upon the status quo. The status quo preserves the power structures. Elections are held. Everyone pretends they won or lost. Nothing actually changes.
Canceling elections and declaring martial law is not the status quo, which puts the elites at the most risk because they ARE the status quo.
The calculation has been made there will be no repercussions regardless of how oppressive things get. It is based on recent history and seems about right.
“Man, this grilled soy tastes awesome, I mean better than roach!”
Soylent Green, it’s good for you and you will eat it or lose your job….
Bwando
It’s what plants crave!
Wild Geese: They have no need to do anything so overt. Regardless of who purportedly wins or loses the November elections, nothing will change. Whether faster or slower, the trajectory towards economic destruction and population replacement will remain.
If I have any serious concern, it’s the marshalling of the media organs to anathematize various people as hoarders and profiteers in the face of increasing resource shortages this winter and next spring.
“White privilege” is the foundation for this narrative. When it reaches the point where White media faces no longer are front and center, it’s on. The only reason they remain now is to keep Karen in line.
See Sri Lanka, comming soon to a theatre near you.
I’m old enough to remember predictions that Clinton/Bush/Obama/Trump would cancel the elections due to “reasons”. None of them came true and it seems unlikely that this administration will either, if only on the grounds that it’s easier to steal an election and have the media and social media companies cover for you, than to deal with the repercussions of martial law and cancellation. A lot harder to cover up.
the smart play on the roman thingy, would have been to keep quiet about it, and find a private placement. at the very least hide the fukker off-site, and say “i lost it” in case some hebe come sniffing around. can’t criticize the texas lady that found it, as this is pretty exotic stuff…
She should have told the Bavarian Government to provide evidence that it knew the item had been stolen, when it was stolen, and from where – with documentation.
Then charge a finders fee.
I’m guessing it has a distinctive set of diagnostic markings, like chips, cracks, patina, if not markings from when it was in the Wittelsbach royal collection, that were known and cataloged when it was transferred to the Bavarian government in 1918 when the last King of Bavaria abdicated.
Therefore when Sotheby’s got involved, that alerted the Bavarian government “their” missing artifact was on the market, since in order to do business and maintain their reputation, Sotheby’s is hypersensitive to anything that might be stolen goods, and they know something of that value that ends up in a Texas thrift store probably came from some WWII US soldier lifting it in 1945, because it has happened before-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_medieval_art_from_Quedlinburg
Sotheby’s mainly sticks to money laundering, in which the .Gov is often a hidden party…
Right. Where did the Bavarian government get the bust? And the owner before that? I doubt that there is any legal chain of documents. How could there be, going back to antiquity?
One crucial aspect of any form of government is the enforcement of property rights. Be they of any type. Here in the U.S. in the form of land and living areas we have every sort of property imaginable. We have privately held property. We have communally owned property, National Forest, Parks, and the like. We also have a variety of holdings assumed under various treaties. The Bureau of Land Management tried to block a friend’s access to his ranch that was provided under the treaty of Hidalgo-Guadalupe, watching the FBI arrest people from the BLM was fun.
If you don’t have a set of laws, and long-term enforcement them of it the whole thing will collapse, and you can bet one thing will certainly raise its head. Right of Conquest, and a variety of its associated Horsemen.
Any proposed form of government will always face this question and in fact is probably the most vexing form of problem it can approach. Most of the work in the courts in the U.S. revolve around ownership, usage, and other aspects of private property.
One group conquers, makes law to formalize its conquest, the law breaks down, other groups get the idea to jump into the conquest game. Funny how that works.
Libertarians have the right idea thinking the state is force, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Sort of like the law is proof of ownership, now that I think about it. Maybe so obvious I shouldn’t mention my ignorance, idk
Around 60 % of mainstream hip-slop songs make reference to high end wristwatches ( according to Rolling Stone magazine) hence the daily Rolex robberies in broad daylight that usually involve a 9mm all over SoCal including Beverly Hills. Over the weekend a Rolls Royce full of negros jumped out of a RR and liberated some high-end watches in West Hollywood. The local news Could not understand why someone in a RR would need to rob someone on the street if they were wealthy enough to own a Rolls Royce. No mention that the Chimp out was a result of the open cage policy in California reform laws.
Even better… the guy who got robbed is the only one who has (so far) gotten arrested!!
God forbid someone who (along with his girlfriend) was ASSAULTED and then ROBBED should get mad and say the N word!!!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10797925/Drunk-LA-couple-Lamborghinis-robbed-19-000-worth-watches.html
Holy crap ! (Filthy human bastards ! Conquest of the Planet of the apes )
Uh, didn’t you people get the memo?
The offenders were Pavement Apes, the victims Honkies.
It’s all good!
Know blacks, no peace.
No blacks, know peace.
It’s really pretty simple.
That’s mighty white of you.
We need more Harry Callahans patroling.
No, I’m not being sarcastic.
Feral animals and shiny objects.
Can’t bear to listen to the cacophony that is called rap, but I’m reliably informed that the references are to Rolex and AP (Audemars Piguet) only. Not Patek Phillippe, Richard Mille, Vacheron Constantin, Breguet, Jaeger LeCoultre, or Lange & Sohne. In other words the watch has to be bling and seen to be a high-end item by others of that, er, tribe.
And I imagine Rolex is much easier to rhyme than JLC, VC, JLC, and ALS. Likewise for De Bethune.
Arshad Ali: The noggers have destroyed, for me at least, any appeal from so many once high-end brands. Jags, Rolls, Bentleys, vacations in Italy – it’s noggers all the way down. Anything they touch loses its appeal. And Rolex’s are downright ugly – I’ve thought so since I first saw one and learned of its supposed status as a college freshman. Patek Phillippe is much elegant, but still displayed by too much human trash for my taste.
The Rolex is the most boring watch ever made. Might as well strap a Sominex tablet to your wrist.
“If the Supreme Court really wanted to do some social justice, they would forget about Roe and find a case to overturn Kelo in the context of the reestablishment of basic property rights. Imagine if we go back to the ancient custom that says you own you and you own what you make by default. Most the abuses of the tech monopolies go away as their ability to steal your property goes away. The media’s ability to use stolen property would evaporate along with much of their power.”
Absolutely true in spirit. ROE is little more than symbolism, outside of what is the main issue: usurping states’ rights, which is what the goal was. Non-White abortion is a very positive thing although I do support a ban on White abortion.
As for KELO, it simply made clear what already was accepted policy. It should die, of course, but the main thing KELO did was show the public how farcical their rights are and what a sham the constitution has become. If KELO were overturned on a theory of due process/illegal taking, it would in fact be a great thing, but the robed robots gotta get paid and grift.
“Non-White abortion is a very positive thing although I do support a ban on White abortion.”
I agree, but I don’t think that the Supreme Court’s new look at RvW is entirely about abortion. I suspect a faction of the ruling class wants to turn down the heat on Heritage Americans and throwing a few states’ rights bones to the agitated grillers will keep them from doing anything about the waves of enemy aliens being dumped everywhere.
The more intelligent of the pirates that rule over us do more than merely steal everything in sight, but also act to secure their long term property rights. Alito and Thomas can’t do it alone, and I don’t see the rest of the marshmellow-spined blackrobes taking this heat unless they had powerful backers who convinced them to do it ‘for the good of the country.’
That’s why I see the i ntent of the roue as (re)placement of judges- most especially, with a female majority, who are easy to roll.
The thing that happened after Kelo that would not happen today?
1. People, regular people, regular citizens freaked out
2. State and local governments passed a wave of laws banning the practice that the Kelo loophole allowed – seizing property because the sales tax of turning it into a development/casino/hotel/etc. is a valid public interest
20 years ago, the government was responsive to the needs of the citizens, responded to their demands, and acted in their interests.
If that same case happened again today, the pleas of voters would be ignored and the politicians and local officials would be rapidly seizing property to build Indian casinos.
It only stops when government officials fear their personal property also can be seized or destroyed, and not one nanosecond earlier. Calculations have been made there will be no repercussions. Based on recent history, those calculations are correct.
Jack Dobson: The hell with their property. They need to fear for their personal safety. From Western Rifle Shooters from Gab – the lessons of Michael Collins and targeting the bureaucracy:
https://westernrifleshooters.us/2022/05/10/via-gab-13/
No doubt that’s the next step.
It starts with the pocketbook, though. Shortages this autumn can be exploited both ways. This seems like a non-sequitur, but it is not: I’ve noticed with some amusement that when an apparatchik says “China better X,” they never finish the “or” part. People who assume things just appear on shelves are about to get a very rough lesson. Also note the vibrant violence has started to spread to Karen’s neck of the woods. Those two things are about to become even more related. Thinking about it, Karen more or less is the United States version of a mid-level bureaucrat (outside those who actually are).
Michael Collins was perhaps not what you think he was.
This make a reasonably good case for such a thing once you start looking at the detail of the story.
https://www.big-lies.org/ireland-and-scotland/were-they-all-agents.html
Also anyone with a big film push seems to me to be entirely suspect. You only glorify your own.
This happened in Oklahoma City and while McVeigh was a murderer , the message was sent and heard for a while at least.
No More!
Also do read “A Bomb Made in Hell.” by Andrew Vacchs if you get a chance . Its a prescient tale from 1973 about a professional killer who snaps and goes Anders Bering Brehvik
Seems to me that, Anglo-Saxon Common Law’s rules on Ownership simply codify the primitive codes of Natural Law.
The act of hiding or caching an item, short of actually consuming it, is the foundational act of ownership. When a Raven hides a scrap of meat from its flock-mates, she is truly possessing it; she’s making that scrap “hers.” Until it is hidden or swallowed, it is part of the flock’s Common forage.
(English Common Law’s treatment of Squatter’s Rights, a form of legal plunder, probably borrows from primitive practices, too.)
Just like Ravens, the regular theft of our stashes by our fellow humans, or other critters for that matter, forces us to engineer defenses, improve our priest holes, and negotiate with others – usually within the clan, to forge trust and cooperative keeps.
Thereby do Human – and Avian – nations first stand up, and then spur the species’ social complexity, communicative prowess and, with them, intelligence, to evolve over time to yield the dominant strains of their animal Families. The process is ‘convective’ as the species is wafted to ever greater evolution, by the drive to acquire, to Own.
Kelo? What would be true justice is if the neocons and their banker brothers underwriting the war bonds, were forced to reparate the blasted cities, such as in Syria. Happy, peaceful cities reduced to ruins.
Might that all of their ill-gotten wealth- building nothing, destroying everything- might that all of it is clawed back to rebuild what they have destroyed, and that their whipped backs and blistered hands pick up the rubble. They will understand nothing else.
To give reparations to the towelheads, they would just raise our taxes to get the money.
Nothing will change until someone starts shooting these people.
Agree, but Syria was and is a Western people, as was Dresden.
Many others are not, say, Libya or Hiroshima, but I’m looking at the pillaged wealth accumulated by people who have no country.
That includes the “global citizen” class that has followed their banner.
Syria(ns) a Western people?
Some injections of Hellenic genetic material in antiquity, true, and again of Western European sp*rm during the Crusades. But to no abiding effect: Whatever genetic influence it may have had — likely little enough — over the centuries got totally overriden by Oriental culture and Islamic (including heterodox Islamic) religion.
I think that’s basically right. Prior to the 7th century the Near East unquestionably belonged to Western civilization. But with Mohammadan, Mongol and Turkic encroachments, it passed into the Oriental ambit.
Ostei Kozelskii is correct. We didn’t use to call our civilizational realm ‘Europe’ or ‘the West’. We used to call it ‘Christendom’ and it encompassed the entire Mediterranean periphery. Islam with fire and sword took half of it from us. I wonder if our losing the east is where the term ‘West’ came from?
I highly recommend Raymond Ibrahim’s “Sword and Scimitar” for a very readable overview of the struggle.
They’re Mediterranean, but so are Sicilians and Greeks.
For all intents and purposes, they’re white, and civilized.
Good article and important issue that needs to be addressed urgently in the next few years, but I think you picked the wrong examples. No one really cares about the Roman bust found at a garage sale, or even the impact of companies selling your data because that affects individuals only very indirectly.
This is far more troubling:
https://www.popsci.com/technology/smart-cars-lives/
As is the fact that Wall Street is going big into buying thousands of single-family homes to rent out (one out of every seven sales I’ve read), while the NY Times softens us up with an article about how wonderful renting such houses can be.
You will own nothing, indeed.
You are absolutely correct with everything you say, but, out of personal prejudice, I have to disagree with your point about the bust being a poor choice. I had the EXACT same thought as Z two days ago when I first read about it and noted she would not be able to sell it. I agree the stakes are much higher than this example illustrates, but it is such a perfect example of the inanity of the current system; an example that is much more striking than the slow yet precipitous decline of personal ownership found in your articles. Again, I have no Roman bust (besides my foreign wife’s breasts) and you are completely correct, but I found that particular point one that stuck in my craw.
The writing has been on the wall for a long time on this one. My wife just bought a new car and the dealership was absolutely adamant that she activate the ‘app’ that is intertwined with the vehicle itself. Even if you do not activate the app, the vehicle itself is sending massive amounts of telemetry data on you out at all times.
How far did you drive, to where, what average speed, what top speed, what route, what did you listen to while driving, who did you call (your contacts are stored in the vehicle’s memory now), for how long did your call last, etc etc.
Your vehicle can also be remotely disabled at will now too. So yes, you will get the privilege of driving so long as you are not one of those ‘White Supremacist Trumpers’ we’ve heard so much about who are the biggest threat since ISIS. If you are that, well… better hope you can find an old pickup still for sale.
We are rapidly approaching this—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrxyr1CjiSM
Engage in some WrongThink™ and not only will the car be disabled it will gently drive you, doors locked tight, to your nearest police station for re-education. The tech to do this exists –right now– this is not sci-fi. A Tesla in its current incarnation can easily lock you in from the inside, disable all driver inputs, and drive you to any location it is told to proceed to by ‘whoever’.
When the car is self-driving, you can only drive where they allow. I do not remember who made this remark to me probably nearly a decade ago, but it always stuck with me.
The Tesla is a good example of ownership “problems”. As near as I can tell, you don’t own the software needed to run the car. Even my gas powered Ford truck has several computers to control engine and drive train. What happens several years down the pike when Ford decides it no longer wishes to maintain the software?
As it is, I claim Ford (and Tesla) is now in “restraint of trade”. Third party manufacturers can not create many (cheaper) parts for replacement of Ford Motor original parts, nor can repair shops—even paint shops—perform work without major expense to obtain equipment and software from car manufacturers such as Ford.
Case in point, my Ford truck on its first road trip got a stone kicked into the windshield by a dump truck passing by with an unsecured load. 700 miles and a replacement windshield needed. Dealer replacement cost, $500. Third party $250. However, the third party had the windshield, but not the Ford software to reset/adjust the auto headlight dimming sensor on the rear view mirror.
I was offered a choice to take my chances with the new windshield, wait until their company (a nationwide company at that) thrashed it out with Ford, or replace the windshield and then pay a Ford dealer to adjust the auto dimming for the new windshield.
Ford got $500, but the real cost should have been $250. Oddly enough, this situation wrt software was settled in the early days of the computer revolution and computer operating systems. The problem is not new.
I look forward to applying my Air Farce training in electronics to figuring out how to disable these new gizmos. Supposedly that infrastructure bill with the DUI kill switch is gonna be mandatory in 2026. I can see all sorts of issues with this. For one thing, AFAIK breathalyzers require calibration once every year, or every 6 months for cheaper models. They also require expensive platinum for the sensor if you are using a good one. Contamination over regular use could cause erroneous results. Also if the vehicle is shared by multiple people, like a fleet vehicle, the germophobes won’t be happy.
Stopping the car from phoning home might be as simple as cutting the wire to the antenna that the spyware uses. I dunno, as of now I am considering buying a classic car when the current beater craps out on me.
Rando: From what I’ve read (I’ll have to search out the links I found months ago), most of this stuff is utterly intertwined with the vehicle’s operation, i.e. cannot be separated without totally disabling the vehicle – even as far back as the early 2000s. But I’m no mechanic, so who knows?
3g4me: From what little I know about breathalyzer sensors they rely on the presence of current to determine alcohol content. No current = no alcohol, so it may be something as simple as cutting a wire coming from the sensor module. Best way to fool a computer is to just give it erroneous data.
I do think it would be funny if they tried using some passive system that just looked for any ethanol in the interior area at all though. I could see a situation where some poor bastard goes to pick up a drunk friend from the bar only to find himself stranded after his reeking drunk friend staggers into the car.
Honestly though, with all the telemetry and other crap going on in cars a breathalyzer is the least of our worries. I honestly have nothing against Teslas as far as electric cars go. What really irks me is the self-driving and the fact that it’s constantly phoning home. They are just the most egregious example. And it’s not like we have a choice, everything new has a computer that tracks you in it. I think the only things new that don’t these days are low and mid-range motorcycles, but that’s not a solution.
I am not being flippant here, but I don’t get why people can’t get it in their heads that that the goal is just control, they don’t give a shit whether it works as proposed, or how much trouble it is for you, or if it locks you in the car and kills you and your children.
The point is the rule itself, not the stated purpose.
Just out of curiosity, by what year did all of these lovely refinements become standard issue on new cars? Don’t think I’ll be in the market for anything that new or newer.
2015 started to really pick up steam but mostly on higher end models, by 2020 its ubiquitous. Even Kia, Hyundai, etc. all have active telemetry.
Apex: Why I will not buy a new car. I realize they are trying to make ICE vehicles obsolete, and particularly older and less connected and more robust ICE vehicles. Despite the obscene cost of fuel, an older truck or SUV is the superior choice. I loathe my 2020 RAV with its chips and gadgetry. Every vehicle in the past 25 years has had some sort of electronic surveillance and control inextricably intertwined with its operations, but the danger lessens with every prior year of production and generation of vehicle design.
that is a two edged sword, yes an older vehicle will not track you but just try finding replacement parts and/or a reliable mechanic that even knows how to repair said vehicle, going long Schwinn..
At a certain point the only solution is war anyway. You can run or hide from tech totalitarians. Their appetite for your liberty is endless since they are empty and driven by fear and hate.
Its best to assume that techies are simply all evil do not qualify as people and act accordingly.
I suspect while we we might miss this easy public forum and neat new ways to make money, quick buy some merch, humanity if/when this goes down will breath a sigh of relief once its over.
Excellent example. If the government will take the small stuff, they won’t blink at the big stuff.
Remember the $400 million in gold/silver sunken treasure Mel Fischer spent years and a great deal of his own money finding in the 1980’s?
Everyone wanted a piece o’eight (or more, or all) of it. Florida, US government, government of Spain.
Case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. He won then; he’d never win today, even though salvage laws are explicit and crystal clear by custom, law, and international treaty.
errr.. $300 billion of Russian central bank reserves.
That right there destroyed the new world order and may have destroyed the dollar and the Euro.
Its nearly the only thing that would make Yuan and Rubles look like a good hedge.
Always turn down the “technology package”. Remember when mid and upscale cars in the early 2000’s came with in-seat entertainment and maybe a couple of pair of in-car headphones in the “technology package”? Talk about a joke…that stuff was obsolete the instant the smart phone/tablet were born.
When I bought my F-150 in 2013, the first negotiating tactic the dealer used to bring down the price was to not charge me for the built-in GPS and the “online” maintenance and the satellite radio. Even in 2013, those things were ridiculously out of step with portable tech, but the company put that stuff in the truck and tried to charge $2,500 more for the vehicle. The GPS in my truck is just a screen that shows where I am…I never use it for navigation because my smart phone is 1,000x better.
Btw, technology obsolescence isn’t the big problem with smart cars.
Deplatforming is the big problem with smart cars. Do you think the same corporations that routinely ban people from their IT platforms “for life” will have any problem pushing a software update to the car of somebody they don’t like that disables the car entirely? Virtually all of the electric cars on the market today can be disabled by a factory-pushed software update.
We already know that if the Government doesn’t like you or what you have to say, that they can rely on Corporations to silence you.
hokkoda: Your smart phone is reporting on your location and recording your conversations more than the older vehicle tech. Essential to have a signal-deadening carrier for it – easily available online from companies like Mission Darkness.
Just throw it away and get an old flip phone.
Flip phones are still sold today for sensitive locations. They are like $40 last i checked which means you don’t have to pay for a computer in your pocket.
Future society is we have one will probably be getting rid of this technology as a security threat though
Julian Assange, not an American but Australian, who’s only been to America once in his life, has no connections or loyalty to the U.S., posts information stolen from the U.S. Government on his own, foreign website. Information that contained proof that they were spying on ALL of us, among other things involving certain politicians. Assange’s extradition is being rubber stamped, and he will have a closed (super secret intel after all) kangaroo court, right here in “our democracy,” First Amendment rights won’t matter, etc. They can create a Nexus whole-cloth (see Michael Flynn).
They can already do whatever they want and enforce anything they want, and find obscure tortured precedents to do so. Any teeth added to media laws would be explicitly weaponized from day one to take whistleblower punishment to a whole new level. The idea of a whistleblower story with a happy ending is insane, unless the whistleblower is a regime apparatchik like some D.C. cocktail circuit slut like Valerie Plame. Unapproved whistleblowers have terrible endings where they end up financially ruined, or worse, unlike Hollywood propaganda movies.
We don’t need changes to media laws. We need a FTC that breaks apart oligopolies across the board, and especially media. Of course that won’t happen. Keep in mind that it wasn’t CNN or traditional that broke the Lewinsky story, but modern pamphleteer, the Drudge Report. He probably wouldn’t touch that story today given the level of kompromat they likely have on him given his lifestyle. Which is why today you would only go to that website if you want a link to the latest Tom Ford or Bret Easton Ellis interview, or the latest breakthrough in potential AIDS cures.
We would need a whole lot of monopoly-smashing, anti-trust bashing going on to avoid complete technocratic dystopia at this point.
The government loves this stuff and those who don’t in government are already compromised. Won’t happen very easily
In case that doesn’t work we probably will have to go Pol Pot on their asses , send all the techies that don’t meet Mr. Tire Shock to a collective farm or something
However the collapse of systems will make this evil dystopia much harder, It hard to maintain a thing like that without water, power and the ability to replace well anything
I think Frank Zappa pegged it about right when he said:
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
He also said:
“Communism doesn’t work because it is out of phase with human nature. Are we going to wake up one day to find this statement equally true when applied to the concept of Western democracy?”
Zappa was definitely what you would call a “free thinker”. I enjoyed the few interviews he did because it showed his linear thought process. Most people that do interviews have heard the same questions before so they respond with Response #8, or Response C. Zappa would just answer the question. He didn’t get it right all the time. He was a sex addict that enjoyed women, any place any time, even though he was married. But, when you listen to his kids, they have their heads on mostly right, and they all loved him. He eschewed drug use, except cigarettes and coffee. Sometimes his music was crap and he showed his ego by calling himself a “composer”, even though that’s what he was. It would be interesting to listen to his take on the last two decades if he wasn’t dead.
Zappa is right.
In reading, “Behind the Urals,” written by an American worker in a planned Soviet city at the height of Stalin’s power, one finds that the people there were quite interested in owning the best possible personal and household goods they could afford.
We also find other non-communist things like performance-based pay scales in still mills.
Oh of course there is ALWAYS a hierarchy, the Commies didn’t like it and I’m sure they tried to resist it, but it just can’t be stopped. In the USSR it wasn’t really based on money but some people got better apartments, or they jumped the queue for a new car, if you were the key man on a government project to design the next gen Mig, you got all kinds of better stuff. It didn’t take long before the upper class under the Tsar were replaced by a new upper class called the Nomenklatura. if you talk to Russians of a certain age they all know this, the funny thing about Western Marxists, is that they know very little about how Communism worked in the real world
They all think they are going to be the ones with the powers doing the assigning, not doing the digging.
Socialism with Russian characteristics is all that was. Maybe National Socialism was socialism with German characteristics.
Ism, ism, ism. At best it’s transposed on a people and their culture. Never pure, never what the big brains want, but they just keep trying no matter the misery or the body count.
Nat Soc was exactly that just as Ing Soc was the same as was Am Soc though we call it Social Democracy
All industrial societies went Socialist to some degree. A lot of reasons for it many of them sound , many not.
Its failing and the West is trying for Corporate Totalitarianism vis technology which is drum roll, Socialism with Corporate Characteristics.
This Pinko Tango will go on for some time but the rapidly approaching possibly our lifetime resource collapse will just end up with warlords and if we are very lucky most of this know-how will vanish in a few decades
I agree – I always found most of Zappa’s music offputting. Certainly many talented players on there (and “Black Napkins” is one of my favorite guitar solos – and who doesn’t like “Jewish Princess”), but the way it came together through his filter was a turn off; Zappa seemed to hold a contemptuous view of music through his constant affected insouciance and, I don’t know how to put it, maybe constant sneering jesting. However, I also agree with your other point; his interviews are well worth watching for someone who wants a thoughtful outsiders view on portions of the system.
“Zappa seemed to hold a contemptuous view of music through his constant affected insouciance and, I don’t know how to put it, maybe constant sneering jesting.”
I know what you mean, but I don’t think he held a contemptuous view of music. In fact, it was the most important thing in his life. Its just that his view of music incorporated “structured noise” which I don’t consider music. My main appreciation of his music was his lead guitar. There were a few riffs that were just jaw dropping. And he didn’t even consider himself a virtuoso guitarist. He admitted there were many much better technical guitarists in one of his self-deprecating moments.
Well – he did have Steve Vai in his band – possibly the best purely technical guitarist of all time. See “Teeth of the Hydra” – GTFO! And I know Beefheart, and Zoot Horn Rollo on Trout Mask is perhaps the most underrated guitar performance of all time, but I have to agree with LineintheSand below; it just never clicked with me. And Beefheart was not the genius – he was the Svengali cult leader who extracted genius from his subjects. Though, I suppose that is a genius of its own sort.
Zappa was one of a kind. Stunningly unique and talented. I don’t think he was contemptuous of music, but rather he was contemptuous of almost everyone and this is one of the reasons that I often don’t enjoy his lyrics. I feel like he is sneering at me.
My interest in Zappa led me to Captain Beefheart. These to insanely distinctive guys were friends as teenagers. Now do yourself a favor and go listen to Beefheart’s “Tropical Hot Dog Night.”
Zappa had an album titled, “Does Humor Belong in Music?” My answer is, “Sure, but you’re not funny, you’re just vulgar and mean.”
(Greg Johnson fans may appreciate that he is a huge Zappa fan.)
Most people are deserving of contempt and they receive too little of it which only makes them worse because they don’t realize how contemptible they are and take no steps to be worthy of respect.
And by contemptible I don’t mean irredeemably so. A contemptible man can learn to behave nobly. But he will never do so if never confronted with his behaviors.
Zappa was musically fabulous except for the trashy songs to attract morons…ie, “Titties and Beer.” “Hot Rats” is an awesome album (1969) as are “Waka Jawaka” and “The Grand Wazoo.” His best stuff was from 1966-1974. He hired all serious musicians-lots of studio guys. Not sure they should have named their kids Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva.
When thinking of Frank I always observe a moment of silence. What would he think of where we are and where we are headed.
Maby he’d just shut up & play guitar.
“Ours is a Nero elite, people who spend their days dreaming of new ways to flatter themselves while the basics of society crumble. They need to come to the same end.”
Hear, hear! And soon, before we all go up in nuclear flames. (Speaking metaphorically of course.)
Well Z your endorsement of Nick Fuentes was ill-timed. Sounds like they are collapsing. WTF, tickle parties. Apologies. Concerning property rights, Tn and kentucky have some weird ones. If you use a field or land for a given amount of time it becomes yours somehow.
This is about the tenth time you guys swore it was over for him.
I withhold judgement, but ir looking really ugly. Nobodies gaydar is infallible.
“By the time the Europeans were ready to conquer the globe, they had worked through the problems of property ownership and how to settle disputes. Europeans landed in Africa and the Americas, only to greet people who had yet to master this basic concept. Even in Asia, property ownership was still in development.”
Property rights were ironed out in Western European societies as long as conflicts were between Europeans in a particular state (England, France, Netherlands). But this obviously didn’t apply to how Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Dutch, and Belgian colonists dealt with the rest of the world, where it was all about confiscation, plunder, and pillage. Originally, I believe, the Pope sanctioned this for the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas — i.e. some legal veneer for the plunder. There has usually been some legal veneer for confiscation which continues to this day — e.g., Israelis confiscating Palestinian and and houses by claiming the Palestinians can’t legally prove their ownership. Of course everyone knows it’s an example of “might makes right.”
With regard to the USA, every treaty the US government made with the native Indians, it abrogated or repudiated. That the Indians didn’t have their own written legal code apparently serves as justification for seizing the whole land and divvying it up among the European settlers. This pattern of abrogating or repudiating agreements and treaties continues to today. No wonder Putin says the US is not “agreement-capable.”
The law — including property law — serves as a fig leaf for the powerful. The Nazis — including the SS — had hundreds of lawyers in their upper echelons. Everything had to be legally justified.
Now don’t me wrong: I’m not making moral judgements. I’m a student of power. My one point is that the only difference between the Europeans and the Mongols was the former dressed up plunder and pillage in legal language. And this obviously includes property rights.
I think, with respect to the Indians and their relationship with the US, you will find it’s more accurate to observe that the Indians simply could not be trusted to abide by any agreement whatever and tended to break those agreements in theatrically violent ways against ordinary Americans. This would tend to cause the US to respond and impose a new treaty on the Indians. You have to work hard to view this as the US sequentially repudiating treaties.
Native American leadership didn’t have the authority to make agreements with the European invaders. Their system didn’t allow for a single individual to speak for all.
When Keokuk signed away a huge parcel of native American land journalists asked him how he could trade all that property for what were basically trinkets. He responded that they didn’t know that he couldn’t actually do that.
If you wish to know more about the development of property rights you should read Andro Linklater’s “Owning the Earth”.
Of course, the British provincial governments in America before 1776, or the Crown, nor the newly independent states, or the United States after 1789 could trust the backcountry settlers from breaking treaties in theatrically violent ways either, creating a vicious cycle. For every atrocity, there was a counter atrocity.
The King of England issued the Proclamation of 1763, which the backcountry people ignored, setting off Pontiac’s War.
Z,
Agree wholeheartedly on revisiting or overturning Kelo V. City of New London, especially in light that seventeen years later, the land eminent domained to Pfizer lies undeveloped:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
“The final cost to the city and state for the purchase and bulldozing of the formerly privately held property was $78 million. The promised 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues had not materialized. As of 2021, the area remains an empty lot.”
Government knows better than you do my buttocks.
Wanna have real fun? Tackle property taxes, especially if you’ve paid off your mortgage. Who owns your house?
I never saw so much fed-posting in my life than the day that ruling was made, by both left and right.
We can amend the “ball park” comment to:
“When the team owners build roads, the taxpayers will build their biolabs!”
****
Thing is, corporations used to build roads- and housing, and trolleys, and utilities, and schools- to bring workers to their plants, such as 8 Mile in Detroit. The apartment blocks are right across the street from the GM factory.
Automation even to the level of the 60’s suppresses demand for labor or at least useful labor. They knew it than and were pushing a 320 hour or 4 day work week. The old Jetsons Cartoon kind of played to this with 3 hour work days.
This problem compounded by computers is is why so many jobs are in essence makework,
We are already over 40% GDP as government and there is no upper bound except that a certain point either the corporations becomes the state in most matters which won’t work since they can’t profit or the state becomes the corporation., aka Communism
We are trying to create a fake equilibrium to sustain a kind of capitalist oligarchic society and avoid fulfilling Marx’s diagnostic predictions.
And note here the word diagnostic. The diagnosis is correct but the solutions don’t wok since its always bleeding.
I’m guessing what is going to happen is that as we run out of cheap energy, brainpower and jobs oh and food and water too fertility will continue to decline and our culture/tech base will be unable to sustain itself.
We’ll collapse to a lower level. Hold for a bit. Collapse again and repeat this for a long long decline (h/t Kunstler for the Phrase)
Amish Paradise here we come.
Next up :
Asset forfeiture.
Yes, I am fully aware that when my mortgage is paid off I will still be made to pay property taxes. I imagine it will be less than paying someone rent though. That’s one way to think about it.
Never did the research, but I wonder about it. Is property tax on residential property a new thing or has it always existed? I bet the fedgov and the state and local governments don’t have to pay tax on the land they “own.” Especially when the taxpayers paid for it, and pay for its maintenance. But if you’re just a nobody, you better pay up… LOL
A new America will need to have an explicit Constitutional prohibition against property taxes or anything like them.
This would do a lot for rule of law and while the reee reee reee of various states and counties at the thought much less action can be heard from here, tough. Find another way
Banning property tax and the like would be great. Still, the people in charge would just find something else to tax, then jack it up as far as they think they can get away with. I hear that VAT in Europe averages about 20% these days.
The real problem is the people just sit and take it. We’re long overdue for another tax rebellion. That and there are too many people who contribute nothing, yet benefit from our taxation. You would think that now that the government is able to fabricate votes from thin air they no longer need the subsidized people to vote their chosen people into office. Why do we need to keep spending on EBT when we have dominion voting machines?
Today’s post is a good opportunity to, once again, go deeper.
The root problem is that government/laws/judicial system is broken and no longer provides an efficacious civil remedy for modern ownership disputes. And a single peon is not going prevail against this Goliath of incompetence and malfeasance because of the asymmetry of power. And waiting for voting harder to elect better politicians and judges is a demonstrated fools errand. So evolutionary fitness selection must kick into gear.
Imagine a day in which a peon wakes up one morning after having his personal data stolen by a tech company and used in a malicious fashion to harm him seriously. He becomes quiet and withdrawn, effectively disappears for months and becomes a nobody. Then, in a completely unconnected and unexpected way, the tech company HQ building collapses and God smiles.
In another unrelated side-effect, the local bureaucrats of the town run into the street and start jumping up and down shouting “utoh, utoh, utoh” while waving their arms around hysterically. This is known as “progress.”
> Imagine a day in which a peon wakes up one morning after having his personal data stolen by a tech company and used in a malicious fashion to harm him seriously. He becomes quiet and withdrawn, effectively disappears for months and becomes a nobody. Then, in a completely unconnected and unexpected way, the tech company HQ building collapses and God smiles.
A thousand killdozers would change the landscape of America (in minecraft)
Is it time to begin sharing YT channels with a wealth of practical information?
Asking for a friend.
It really is amazing (or maybe not) how little thought as to what the constituents want, goes through the minds of our Nero elite. Their lives revolve around nothing but maintaining power and testing the limits of f-ing over the culture and society. Unfortunately, a broad swath of our population don’t really seem to care that what they think or want ever gets addressed by the elites.
However, among the segment of society that should care and could possibly do something about this (ie, Whites), a significant proportion are libtard idiots who either go along to get along, or get ginned up by a really “important” issue such as RvW or evil Putin rather than a completely open border to our south.
Add to this that the population is so polluted now with colored sewage from all over the world, it’s hard to see any major changes on the horizon, barring some sort of black swan event that forces it, one way or another. The future definitely doesn’t look bright enough to wear shades.
If the lunatics in charge manage to goad Putin into going nuclear shades won’t matter.
I think the new $40 billion earmark for Ukraine is simply a covert way of funding the initial US buildup prior to open, direct involvement leading to WW3.
Ship the equipment in front of the troops to have it waiting when you arrive.
Well, prepositioning equipment and munitions may not be a useful idea given how the Russians have been making mincemeat of any attempted deliveries of these to Ukraine. Just having these over the border of some NATO poodle won’t do a lick of good if the US tries to spice things up; those over the horizon cruise missiles have plenty of range to give away beyond what they have shown within Ukraine proper. Attacking follow-on forces and logistics is key Russian military doctrine. If the US/NATO think that they will have their usual air supremacy, I think that may not prove to be be a wise assumption.
Maybe they could borrow some from the Afghans to replace the stuff Russia blows up.
Trumpton-
Precisely.
The guy on the Monkeywerx US YT channel has been watching US and NATO air traffic and it appears this is exactly what GAE is doing prior to a summer offensive.
When thinking of Frank I always observe a moment of silence. What would he think of where we are and where we are headed.
Maby he’d just shut up & play guitar.
Good excuse for more DoD spending and 10% for the big guys in both parties.
Also the US and its satrapys in Europe are desperate for more oil and other resources. Russia is not going to be McCain’s gas station any longer and by good the US will get cheaper oil it it kills us all and it just might.
Some of this is clown world, we are stupid to the core, some of it Russaphobia (literal fear here) and I think some of it is the fact we hit the downslide of peak oil a
While we are not completely out are essentially running out of fuel cheap enough to keep things running.
Empires are expensive and as soon as they stop paying, boom the periphery makes it play for independence End game beotches , end game.
Your points are valid. However, anything dealing with property rights, law, etc. is purely arbitrary, a human creation. As such, it will likely vary by time, place, culture, etc. This, as I often point out, is a universal feature of all things related to law, morality, ethics, custom, and so on. Yes, they exist and are useful, but what upsets some people is when I stress the point that all these things are purely human artifacts that have no independent existence in the natural world. In other words, they are inseparable from human beings.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I value property (and many other) rights. I own my home. But “ownership” means different things in different times. The very term “real estate” implies permission from a monarch (“real” -> “royal”). My claim to my property is a direct descendant from colonial times, when it was the King (or his government) that issued title to property. In normal times, the owner has certain rights to the use of such property. But it’s always subject to law. And yes, like it or not, laws change over time. There’s a high correlation between how stable or reliable a government is, with its enforcement of property rights.
It was in a ~1991 book by Davidson/Rees-Mogg if I recall correctly. They made a comparison along these lines:
In Argentina one could buy land suitable for growing cotton for perhaps $50 an acre. Yet in Mississippi a similar acre of land might cost 100 times as much. What’s the difference? In Argentina, one’s right to the property might change with the next puff of the breeze, a comment on that nation’s very shaky history and instability of government. Meanwhile, in the USA, property rights are about as strong as can be found in the modern world. The writers’ purpose was at least in part, to show that the valuations upon property reflect such real-world realities.
Are we perfect? Of course not. Eminent domain has its place. That’s why it’s mentioned in our nation’s founding documents. Like any law, of course it may be abused. Its purpose is clear in the case of needing to build a new road or other infrastructure. But yes, it’s far less clear when the stated goal is to build a sports stadium or a commercial development. A recent court case in California compensated the descendants of the Negro owner(s) of a piece of property in LA that was eminent domained a century earlier, most likely to keep Negroes out of the area. Whether one considers the taking abusive or not, it’s a perfect example of changing sensibilities in the application of the law.
The fundamental problems are the lack of agreement on standards. The standards may be arbitrary, but if there isn’t broad support, they are doomed to fail, or at minimum produce much strife, discord and other unhappiness.
my feeling on the use of eminent domain (not that it will ever happen but one can dream) is that if a government entity takes your property by eminent domain, they are required to pay you full market value plus 20 percent, and if the property is not developed within one year for the purpose by which it was taken, that agency would then have to additionally compensate you by another 50% of market value, and if that agency failed to then develop the property for the use by which it was taken, after 5 years said property would revert back to the owners free and clear with any contaminating issues being the responsibility of the said agency. I think this would make local governments much more cautious in seizing private property only to sit on it for years then sell it at an enormous profit to one of their developer buddies.
Jews have been hunting lost property, or claims to lost property, since the end of the war. Their argument rests on the fact that their items that were lost in the war are still their items, as they did not voluntarily transfer those items to the Nazis. The current owner may have honestly acquired them, but the seller was not legally allowed to sell them.
HA HA, the more you know
Becoming a nation of renters is an explicit policy of the powers that be, and it’s no mystery why. All of the sudden it becomes much easier to promote all the equity and diversity their hearts desire by placing problematic people wherever they want. It will be blockbusting on steroids, and the only recourse is to pay lip service to the regime if you don’t want a bureaucrat looking into your neighborhood.
It also destroys any ability to make where you live a true home, as any update is at the discretion of the renter, he will be able to make dictates that would not pass muster if you owned the home (gardening and gun ownership), and creates a purely transactional relationship to the surrounding neighborhood.
I’m shocked at how little many people in my neighborhood actually want to mingle, and if everyone was renting I doubt many would even bother to leave the house.
Since most of the political class are nothing more than rent boys, they fail to grasp the problem of extending the concept to all corners of society.
This is something very few politicians talk about, in the UK only (Tory)Michael Portillo sees the problem, in the 80s Thatcher built her success on turning renters into home owners. The French writer Houellbecq touches on the subject on occasion
“…if everyone was renting I doubt many would even bother to leave the house.”
Heck, that’s been my experience even in good times. If I don’t vacation alone then I don’t vacation… nobody will go with me and they never go themselves.
The Internet really is a drug, substituting reality with every flavor of fantasy. I scoffed when Farcebook went all-in on virtual reality. Not anymore.
Another good example is identity theft and particularly home title theft. In the case of the former, someone tricks a bank into extending credit on some scam credentials and the bank is held blameless? Nonsense. Everyone including the banksters knows that it is self-evident their “due diligence” is not sufficient.
The title is a whole ‘nother level of malfeasance. Some agency negligently uploaded titles to the internet, and banksters negligently accept a downloaded title at closing?
Incidentally, “the ancient custom that says you own you and you own what you make by default” is the lion’s share of what libertarianism used to be before it got hijacked into non-aggression.
It’s becoming clear they plan to install a state-controlled system of property distribution.
When I was living in the Third World, I had a driver that waited ten years to get a newer, better apartment, then, on the morning he went to get the keys the official was out. It was literally a variation on the old Soviet joke about the plumber coming in the morning.
I also watched a protest in response to the government coming in and clearing out a neighborhood of apartments and small shops because they wanted to widen the boulevard.
The protest was totally futile. I still miss the chicken rotisserie and vegetable stand they wiped out.
The common law rules of property recognized that one could obtain legal title by adverse possession; essentially occupying land under a claim of right and the owner not taking any action to eject the claimant within a certain number of years (usually about 20, but sometimes longer or shorter). Adverse possession claims usually involved land, since if an owner didn’t know who was on the land in the first place, it was likely he wasn’t making good, or any use at all, of it. Adverse possession claims are harder to assert in the case of personal property, since the rightful owner generally is unaware of the identity of the thief or the person to whom the thief has transferred title.
There are also the concepts of statutes of limitations and repose, which govern the time in which an action must be brought. I’m personally kind of surprised that the owner of the Roman bust could not assert a statute of repose as a defense, but I’m not familiar with this area of the law. I know that some European monarchs have been suing governments in various courts of human rights for restoration or compensation for property lost when monarchies were overthrown. Trying cases when the facts at issue are many years in the past is always difficult and the result may not be justice.
Property law is curious. Here’s a real world case. I’ve lived in my home for about 18 1/2 years. In that time, the three adjacent property owners installed a fence along the property lines. Being an HOA, the style of fence is regulated. Owners are also required to keep the fences cleaned. I looked up the law and while it varies by State, found the following would likely apply to me (Florida):
(From my perspective) If the fence was erected AFTER I’d bought my property, the fence (and its upkeep) is ENTIRELY the responsibility of the property owner who erects it.
This, if I’d wanted to be an asshole, I could have defied my HOA when they demanded that I clean “my” side of the fence, as I [apparently] could claim that was the legal obligation of the adjacent owner, both sides of HIS fence.
If I’d just bought this property, the fence(s) at the property line become shared as would its upkeep.
In the end, I decided the easiest thing to do was to clean the other guy’s fence facing my yard with my pressure washer and some bleach 😀
In my HOA, long time ago, the fence was common property and maintained by the HOA. Basically, the entire “outside” of every structure was the HOA’s responsibility. Costs in the long run would be high, but no quibbling over who does what and pays for what.
HOA’s suck though, Americans are not cut out for such “cooperation”. Hell, one of the biggest problems we had in the HOA was people claiming they were not in the HOA because they didn’t read/see/know the deed was attached to an HOA when they signed the property purchase paperwork.
Gone are the days when the spoils of war was also a right of victorious soldiers. Vae victis, as Brennus supposedly said, as he threw his sword on the scale.
The Russians seem to have a bit of that attitude even today as there’s quite a bit of German art they feel is theirs by right of conquest in 1945.
“War is a mere continuation of commerce by other means.”
Some Neocon, probably
“Hey! We own Kazaria! We ruled it until we were kicked out for parasitism, so we’re taking it back! Vey victis!”
Some neocon, certainly
I’m just bitter that I wasn’t allowed to properly sack any cities I conquered.
The problem is that property rights are selectively enforced according to the woke agenda. If your shop gets vandalized, looted or torched during the George Floyd riots, few people will get arrested and the charges will be dropped for those that do.
If hundreds of pieces of public statuary are defaced and destroyed by Antifa, there will be literally no arrests despite the crimes occurring in plain view.
If your church or pro-life counseling center is targeted by the baby-hacking nutjobs, there will be no consequence.
Just try torching a black business or pride flag, ripping down a statue of MLK or George Floyd, or vandalizing a synagogue and see what happens. Between the enhanced “hate crime” charges and the federal “civil rights” double jeopardy sham, you’ll get thirty years.
It’s actually worse than Weimar, because unlike Weimar, nobody is fighting back against the commie freaks. To the contrary, the commie freaks control the legal system.
Seems to me with today’s technology & 4chan spergs, at least some of those responsible for vandalism and destruction could be doxxed. Then individuals could possibly get some measure of justice for their losses. If prosicuters will no longer uphold law perhaps civil courts could be used. Imo fire must be fought with fire.
I suppose this would lead to lawlessness and anarchy and we certainly can’t have that.
If civil society continues to deteriorate, I suspect that vigilante justice or mob rule will become inevitable. A well-ordered government would be impartial and efficient in administering justice. (All these terms are relative, of course). As a government fails, so will such functions of a healthy government. Right now, government remains strong enough to function, even if it seems to be in an increasingly anarcho-tyrant fashion. As with the favelas in Brazil, or urban gangs here, certain citizens know they have no recourse at law, and they’re right. Any justice they will get will only come by their own hand.
I’m not advocating insurrection, mob justice or other violence. I just fear that, once a critical point is reached, it may be come inevitable and may snowball. That’s not a call to revolution or street justice; it’s just an observation of the history of nations and how they die.
Little Armenia and similar areas in L.A are like this.
They have scary Armenian mob security but the shopkeepers are polite and honest though they haggle the gold from your teeth if they can.
On the same grounds I’ve seen (on the news not FTF) engage is shootouts with robbers and in most other cases I suspect its a lot of dumpsters and shutting up.
Also in once case someone in community ran someone over while drunk. Hit and run The word went out (on the news even) and the guys suddenly felt remorse and turned himself in. I wonder why?
They are generally decent folks with a strong sense of tribe something other White groups need to learn.
If they do will prosper .otherwise they will be essentially domesticated pets and as helpless as a teacup chihuahua in the woods.
“Seems to me with today’s technology & 4chan spergs, at least some of those responsible for vandalism and destruction could be doxxed.”
They routinely are identified… and discovered to be the “victim” himself, and the matter is quietly dropped with no charges filed.
Jussie Smollett was the aberration, the grifter that got caught and somehow, was successfully prosecuted despite the System trying repeatedly to spring him free.
Thinking a website with photos, names, addresses, criminal & financial records family members etc..
Everything that could be found out about the perp.
Similar to what the left does. It would at least make serving.papers much easier.
The essay and some of the comments reminded me of Lady Justice – but as she now peeks out from under the blindfold, the scales are tipped, and the sword in her hand is at the ready to be wielded against…transgressors (you should know who you are by now, but Xman earlier comment will help if not)