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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (327136)	12/10/2002 1:05:09 AM
From: Wildstar	Respond to of 769670

>>> Why? It's a valid and oft relied upon legal concept. Unfortunately, today, legal concepts have little to do with natural rights. The War on Drugs is a legal concept too. >>> One, that's a straight Democracy (51% wins all vote/decisions). We don't have a classic Democracy, we have a 'Representative' form of government. For example: a fillibuster in the Senate can hold up a bill, even though 51% - or even more - are for it's passage. The Courts can overrule actions held to be inconsistent with our founding document, etc. Right, and I don't have any love for democracy. Today, the constitutional republic doesn't exist though, because the tyranny of the majority still rules the roost. >>> As to the concept of 'public property' itself: The air is not owned by me, not owned by you... it is collectively the property of the public. Just because it isn't subject to private ownership, we can't say it isn't important. >>> The 'air waves' (electromagnetic spectrum available for transmission through the air) are also owned by the 'public'. It could not be otherwise, because if everyone just started transmitting on any frequency they wanted to nothing would work... it would all be static. Disagree. The air may be public property because it's impossible to delineate property rights with air. But the EM spectrum is not. Property rights can in fact be applied to different frequencies of the EM spectrum. Property rights can be assigned to all sorts of things that were previously thought to be public goods like fishing waters and roads. >>> The 'public commons' must be managed for the good of the public... as Malthus pointed out. The public commons should be privatized whenever possible. Civilization took a big step forward when the medieval commons was divided into private property, thus avoiding the tragedy that had been the fate of commons in times previous.