Charles Curley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Here we have profound disagreement: if it's theft when a private
> individual does it, it's theft when a government does it. Governments
> are composed of people, and morality doesn't magically change just
> because one is anointed king or elected senator or whatever. If you or
> I have no moral right to do a thing, then we cannot delegate the power
> to do that thing to someone else.
This depends entirely on the assumption that private property is an
inalienable right, which is by no means in universal agreement. If
private property is not a natural right originating with individuals,
but instead a right created and protected by the government, then it is
indeed within the rights of the government to place restrictions/caveats
on it.
Your reasoning certainly does follow from the premise of property as a
natural right, which, from what I understand, is generally argued from
Locke's conception that property is formed by individual freedom to act
upon nature and thus is an extension of that person's liberty. This
seems to be on very shaky ground compared to the basic rights to life
and liberty.
--Levi
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