Dear Harland,
If I steal your watch, then maintain, control, and well-use it, do I now own
it?
Warm regards, Michael
Was the public park stolen from someone??? If the public entity homesteaded the
property, why would it not own the property just as any other person or persons?
I am not saying I like hte idea of public parks owned by a government, but....it
would seem to me that the public entity has a better claim to ownership than the
occupiers.
Les
If somebody steals my money, and buys a watch, the watch is more mine than his. If somebody else sees the crook with a watch, and so robs him of the watch, that second thief does not become the rightful owner, either. Stealing it does not make it his, even if he stole it from a thief.
In the case of public parks in inner cities, the land has usually been acquired legally by the city government. It may have used eminent domain, or redevelopment money, but in the end some taxpayers generally paid for it. City parks are usually not unclaimed land which rightfully belonged to local Indian tribes. A case could be made for "homesteading" government land on the Great Plains, for example, because the taxpayers never paid for it, and nobody is using it. (I disagree, but such an argument is credible.) A downtown park is probably once private land which the city government bought.
Harland Harrison
Les,
Since the Govt exists on the initiation of force and stolen property, it
cannot legitimately own anything.
Warm regards, Michael