In fact, the rich are politicians themselves, de facto, even if they never seek elective office in one of the majoritarian plebiscites that we've confused with "democracy" and "statecraft" for the last few centuries.

What principles? That's the question. No fundamental or "natural" right precludes statutory rights that are more limited as an individual's entitlement to the protection increases, as in a progressive consumption tax or title expiration for example.

A King has far more authority than one of his common subjects; therefore, he requires far more limitations of his authority to avoid despotism.

Greater than who, Martin? Greater than what other group, Martin? Isn't that quite an arrogant statement from you?

How do you have such insight and wisdom that you can tell us that "the rich" have a greater interest in their property than we middleclass do in ours?

What is the standards that you measured to come to this startling and unusaul judgment? Did you do a survey of middleclass or poor and find them disinterested in retaining their property against all outside attempts to seize it?

Clearly the people shown in the video clip were not what we would call "the rich" and they seemed to have great interest in keeping their property and resenting its seizure. Were you able to go to those seizing the land, "the rich", and after surveying them found they had a "greater interest" in the land?

How did you quantify that interest into greater and lesser, richer and poorer?

I think what you do is called baseless pontification, in the military we said, "if you can't blind 'em with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh.t"

I got news for ya kid, you, Martin Brock, and I vidyohs, are politicians whether we like it or not; just as we are salesmen whether we like it or not.

You still hung up on your idea that there are no natural rights and all rights come from the state, and only then after the state has codified custom and practice into statutes?

I have natural rights, you have them as well even though you deny them. My natural rights naturally (naturally!) depend on my ability to defend them/enforce them, but that makes them no less natural rights than they are if protected by a state.

The right of men to hold property predate any association with, or formation of, a state.

Greater than who, Martin?

Greater than someone with a smaller dollar volume of property rights to protect, i.e. greater than someone who is not "rich".

Greater than what other group, Martin?

I'm not the group thinker here.

Isn't that quite an arrogant statement from you?

No. It's just a statement of fact.

How do you have such insight and wisdom that you can tell us that "the rich" have a greater interest in their property than we middleclass do in ours?

I don't need any special insight or wisdom. I only need to know what these words mean.

What is the standards that you measured to come to this startling and unusaul judgment?

See above. My conclusions are neither startling nor unusual. They only reflect common parlance that you, unusually, seem to reject.

Did you do a survey of middleclass or poor and find them disinterested in retaining their property against all outside attempts to seize it?

This survey is irrelevant to my statements. I nowhere ever assert that middle income and poor people are disinterested in their property rights; however, if you have some evidence that middle income and poor people, as a class, oppose all statutory restrictions on their employment of their property, I'd like to see it.

How did you quantify that interest into greater and lesser, richer and poorer?

Just as I describe above. It's very easily quantified, because property has a market value; otherwise, we couldn't distinguish "the rich" from other people in the first place.

I think what you do is called baseless pontification, in the military we said, "if you can't blind 'em with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh.t"

Obviously, you're free to think whatever you like. You may think I'm bound for eternal torment after death if you want. I can't do a thing about it and wouldn't.

Regardless of what you think, "the rich" by definition are people entitled to govern assets with a market value above some threshold distinguishing this class of persons from other persons. It's not rocket science, even if the notion baffles you and certain comrades of yours in the military.

… [all of us] are politicians whether we like it or not; just as we are salesmen whether we like it or not.

Of course. The rich are more political, because they are entitled to govern more resources, where the market value of resources is the measure of "more" vs. "less". It's not like politicians and statecraft only appeared on the Earth in 1776 when we started holding these biannual plebiscites in North America.

You still hung up on your idea that there are no natural rights and all rights come from the state, and only then after the state has codified custom and practice into statutes?

We can discuss "natural rights" (or emergent order) if you like, but you don't seem to have pondered the question much. I don't reject emergent order at all. I nowhere state that I reject emergent order. I state above that property rights that make no distinction between "rich" and "poor", in modern terms, are not "natural" in this sense. If you want to debate this statement, we can debate it.

The right of men to hold property predate any association with, or formation of, a state.

No. You're discussing natural territoriality here. "Property" describes something else. "Property" adheres to some standard of propriety, not simply a claim that an individual will defend by his own force for his own reasons or even a tribal convention unenforced by any central authority.

If your use of the word "property" were common, then all sorts of "property" would be illegal, according to the state in my neck of the woods, but hardly anyone around here uses the word so.

… in 1776 when we started holding these biannual plebiscites …

1787 is more appropriate here.

The "rich" have a greater interest in the strong, principled protection of private property rights, because they have a greater volume of rights to protect, by definition.

I don't think we can say this definitively. Weak, conditional property rights could damage opportunity and innovation so badly that "the poor" would suffer more than "the rich". A direct tax, while more costly to "the rich" in monetary terms, could wipe out a leveraged middle class for generations. I know you, Martin, have your own ideas about what you think are superior alternatives to strong, principled protection of property rights, but this statement is too strong.

That's why the rich typically dominate politics.

No way. They dominate politics because there are barriers to entry to politics that wealth clears better than anything else.

Do nomads have this sense of property, or do they have a sense of boundary (in the sense of defensible area)?

Are you saying that a rich person has more need or incentive to protect their fourth home than a poor person does their first?

The notion that a person with 10 million spread across 3 countries is more worried about property rights than a person living payday to payday with their family in their house is simply absurd.

Martin has no opinions or thoughts, only certainties, therefore no need to qualify his expressions. Statements of fact only, eh Martin?

We need a man with that kind of wisdom and certainty for king.

Outside of muirduck, I (vidyohs) may well be the dumbest and least educated of all the posters that comment here, and even I saw through your arrogant baffling BS, Martin, in about two encounters long ago. Those encounters were the stimulus for creating the "mulberry bush" analogy to aspply to debating you.

If the day comes that the sky darkens, and I see a huge split tearing the Earth asunder, I'll know that Martin experienced a moment of doubt.

Run for King, Martin, you're a natural.

Property: 2 a. something owned or possessed: specif a piece of real estate b: the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing: ownership c. something to which a person has legal title

Black’s Law 7th Edition

Property 1. The right to possess, use, and enjoy a determinate thing : the right of ownership . 2 Any external thing over which the rights of possession, use, and enjoyment are exercised

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One trip to the mulberry bush and no more.

I see no reference to rich or poor, modern or past times in those definitions.

Those defintions include my shoelace to my vehicle, and everything in between.

The definitions are acknowledgement of what is, and not statutes dictating what is.

From 2.5 million years ago and Lucy saying, "These are my figs", to vidyohs today saying, "This is my Honda", individual natural right to property has existed.

Perhaps you consider the concept to intellectually esoteric, and it may make your head hurt; but, if the government comes and confiscates my property for whatever trumped up reason, they have only taken the property, they have not taken my right to that property. They can't take my rights.

With perhaps rare exception, no one has a greater right to property than anyone else, no one has a greater interest in property rights than another.

Government did not create our natural right to property and legally can not deny them.

That the government does function in an illegal manner in many things, says more about us as sheep than about individual natural property rights.

The wealthy generally have more time and/or money (in gross) to throw at things, but that doesn't mean they care more about it.

Being rich, they also have more ability to protect their property, whether it be from thieves (private security), or from gov't (pay for political influence).

It is the little guy whom property rights really protects.

A direct tax, while more costly to "the rich" in monetary terms, could wipe out a leveraged middle class for generations.

Taxes often have this effect, because the statesmen engineering them often are not of the middle class, but the same can be said of "property rights" in general.

Even when statesmen are of the middle class, a few years of officiating in the state changes their attitude, as they perceive avenues up and out of the middle class through via their office.

I know you, Martin, have your own ideas about what you think are superior alternatives to strong, principled protection of property rights, but this statement is too strong.

You know less than you imagine. I don't have any alternatives to strong, principled property rights. I rather favor different property rights than the ones you presumably favor. There is nothing fundamentally "improper" about a progressive consumption tax. In fact, the formulation I favor limits the state far more than a formulation of forcible propriety without the tax.

No way. They dominate politics because there are barriers to entry to politics that wealth clears better than anything else.

You write "no way" and then simply repeat my point with different words.

Martin, do are you using "property" in the sense of a defined territory?

In the broadest sense, a "property" is anything to which a person is entitled, but I would limit the usage further to entitlements which the title holder my exchange for other entitlements.

Do nomads have this sense of property, or do they have a sense of boundary (in the sense of defensible area)?

Property is not a sense. It is a standard enacted by a state. Natural creatures have a sense of territoriality, but that's something else.

People may have both a proper (or "lawful") and an improper sense of territoriality. One's personal sense of "mine" has little to do with his "property". If you think it does, try the logic out on any judge the next time you find yourself in a "property" dispute.

Wishful thinking is not the law.

Martin: It is a mistake to measure people's values and interests based only on money.

I don't measure people's "values and interests" generally in terms of money. I measure the value of their property, specifically, in terms of money, and this measurement is entirely conventional.

For someone who has little, a $50,000 house is worth everything in the world they have. To a rick man who owns ten million dollar mansions, losing one of them doesn't mean as much. Which is harmed more by eminent domain abuse?

So what? I've never suggested any enactment of eminent domain that makes no distinction between rich and poor. On the contrary, this sort of distinction is precisely what I advocate. A progressive consumption tax does not limit the consumption of the poor. It only limits the consumption (vs. investment) of the rich.

Being rich, they also have more ability to protect their property, whether it be from thieves (private security), or from gov't (pay for political influence).

The rich do not protect property from the government. They engineer property rights through the government so as to maximize their property.

Property is not "outside of the government". The whole idea is nonsense. You have no property at all outside of a government. You have only your personal sense of "mine".

Most children learn at an early age not to confuse their personal sense of "mine" with their "property". We're born with a sense of "mine". We must learn "property", because it is an artifact.

Martin, you may want to reexamine your stance on this one. Your first sentence alone is obviously contradictory.

My first sentence is not contradictory. Only your interpretation of the words is confused. You're the one with an oddly idiosyncratic idea of "wealth", not me.

Anybody with less of something is less willing to give it up. On the converse, the more of something you have, the more willing you are to give some of it up.

So what? I claim that the rich exercise greater authority to exchange goods, as measured by the dollar volume of goods they may exchange. It's not rocket science. What the rich are "willing to give up" is a separate question that I haven't addressed at all. I'm not discussing anyone's "willingness". I'm discussing people's entitlements.

The wealthy generally have more time and/or money (in gross) to throw at things, but that doesn't mean they care more about it.

As Michael Jackson recently demonstrated, the "wealth" we discuss here buys little time. The wealthy are not entitled to more time than others in my neck of the woods.

What people "care about" is your obsession, not mine. It's just a fact that "the rich" exercise greater authority over resources (or exercise authority over more resources) than "the poor", because that's what the word "rich" commonly means.