🚀 go-pugleaf

-=: - Bull.  The REAL taking is the fact that someone took the land away 
-=: - from wildlife in the first place, and tried to claim exclusive right 
-=: - to it, instead of merely sharing it with the people & wildlife who 
-=: - were there originally.  Nobody can be faulted for taking what isn't 
-=: - yours.  
-
-=: Oh, so those noble American Indians never killed one another to take
-=: land?  They never stole the women of other tribes as slaves?  They
-=: never killed off the horse in North America from over-hunting?
-
-=If you had read Mike's post, you would have noticed that he gave
-=primary ownership to the wildlife, not the Indians.  I'm not entirely
-=clear what you have against the Indians, unless you just want to draw
-=attention away from his point.
-
-I would prefer to focus attention on the point that an adult human living
-in the USA in the late 20th centuury apparently feels that wildlife has
-dominion over the land and that this should take precedence over any
-subsequent property rights assigned by aboriginal or socially advanced
-civilizations.  On what basis then, would this person found society?  Bear
-in mind that every square millimeter of the earth is a potential wildlife
-habitat.  The simple act of walking entails the destruction of minute
-animals.  The construction of any shelter will cause habitat destruction. 
-I would say that Mr. Vandeman is espousing an absurd concept of property. 
    
Why is it absurd to require that you have clear title? That is the law!
And I am not aware that any law gives you ownership of plants and animals
that happen to be on your land. Even if you can prove that you "own" the land
(you can't), you can't own any living things. You may think this absurd, but
wildlife don't. Nor did slaves who were "owned" in the last century. It is
the current myths about "ownership" that are absurd. At best, you can only "own"
something while you are alive, so it is AT BEST very temporary.
 
-=But you make a good point.  Almost every human society has destroyed
-=the environment surrounding it.  I believe someone has charted rises
-=and falls of the Mayan empire to the destruction and recovery of the
-=surrounding forests.  Our technology merely gives us the advances of
-=bulldozers and toxic waste instead of slash and burn agriculture.
-=It's unclear to me why you defend this destruction as a good thing.
-
-I didn't see where anyone was defending destruction of wildlife.  I
-thought that the discussion concerned private property rights.  
  
Property rights don't extend to living things, so that doesn't give you
much freedom. Better to admit that you are just "borrowing" the land, and
sharing it with some other beings.

I am just now reading Roderick Nash's _The Rights of Nature_, which tells
the history of these ideas, which goes back at least as far as the Greeks.