See Walt Disney and his buying land for Disney World.
Is this in any way informative?
And do you understand the difference between the lineal needs of a road or canal, and the areal needs of a park?
I’m afraid I’m not going to Google “Disney World,” so if your message was profound, just spit it out.
On the other hand, if you do want to Google to learn what Republicans think on this topic, “Bush Texas Rangers eminent domain” might be a good search string.
“Lineal” is easier because at least you can go around. “Areal” is harder, since you don’t want a hole in the middle of your area.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976719796
Who says you should?
Just don’t ascribe what he says to other people, same as I wouldn’t pull an anonymous comment off a Huffington Post and ascribe it to “progressives.”
A real hard-core absolutist would insist that they’re SOL. Most, including me, would not – provided we’re talking about truly necessary roads/canals etc. that cannot practicably be located elsewhere.
If a city were to say “we want to take your land for our police station, giving only the price we choose to pay, and we won’t using consider the vacant lot two blocks away” … now we’re moving into different territory.
The reason eminent domain has been in the news is that in recent years various governments have gone far, far beyond the traditional usage of eminent domain for necessary public works, and into the government using eminent domain to transfer property from one private party to another on the theory that the new guy will pay more in taxes. In practice, this has resulted in rich developers using the power of government to screw less powerful individuals and groups.
The Kelo case was well known, but here are others:
dp
You mean the piece of useless swampland that he was able to start buying at eighty dollars an acre but which had its price rise up to eighty thousand dollars an acre once people realized somebody was buying land in the area?
I’d say it’s a pretty good example of how buying up land for a large project won’t work in a strictly free market environment. If you can barely buy thirty thousand acres of swampland without speculation making the prices too high, what are the chances you’re ever going to be able to buy the land for a hundred mile expressway between two cities?
Once again we’re back to the point of asking what the libertarian position is on an issue. Do libertarians oppose eminent domain in general? Of do libertarians just think there should be reasonable controls on eminent domain? And it that’s the case, what’s the difference between libertarians and Democrats and Republicans? Plenty of non-libertarians oppose the Kelo decision. What are libertarians bringing to the argument that isn’t already there?
Wow, it’s easier to get a cat to respond to a ball of string. You just proved my case for me.
If someone wants to farm in a fertile floodplain, why wouldn’t they weigh the pros and cons, risk factors, etc. and act accordingly? Markets would spring up - if they haven’t already - to hedge against those risk factors. If hedging mechanisms don’t exist, then the unhedged risk remains on their balance sheet. They can price that into their final product.
It’s their call. It’s their choice. Why does anybody else need to get involved, at all? All of those costs will get appropriately transferred into the price of the finished agricultural product. I’ll decide whether to buy that product, or not, as the consumer.
I don’t understand the Google-ing thing. It sounds like a pathetic attempt to dismiss the argument by insinuating that your debating opponent is stupid.
Maybe I am stupid. My wife certainly thinks so.
So please spare a few more minutes and educate this poor, uneducated stupid person on what the hell you are talking about.
Or are you saying we do need to build hydroelectic dams, otherwise the “stupid will be damned”? I’m getting a little confused. Am I stupid, or are the farmers in the floodplain stupid? It’s hard to tell from your post. You seem to be saying both…and apparently only you, or the government, is smart enough to sort this all out and save us from ourselves.
These are actually among the few legitimate questions in this thread. To answer them, take a step back.
Regarding flood control: the value of farmland is inversely related to its tendency to get disastrously flooded. Currently people farm land that is cheap for that reason, and then expect the governnment to do something about the flooding, such as building a dam. In a libertarian society, the person contemplating this land would have some choices: get cheap land but run the risk of getting flooded out; go for more expensive land that is not liable to flood; or possibly join with his neighbors to do something about the flooding. Maybe that would be a dam; anyone not participating might lose their access to water.
My point here and in my earlier post is that there are always creative solutions for these kinds of issues. When the government is not stepping in and changing the game (e.g. collecting funds from the whole nation by force to build a dam that maybe lots of people in the area don’t want) then the people involved have the chance, as well as the responsibility, to come up with their own options.
If I were the smart owner of a fire fighting company, by the way, I would have two sets of rates: a nice low subscription rate, and a much higher “oh my god my house is on fire” emergency rate. If someone chooses not to purchase fire protection, I probably won’t have my folks standing around and watching, though, as they would not respond to the call. Heartless? Who is responsible, me or the feckless homeowner? Having fire protection would be another legitimate cost of home ownership (which I already have anyway, in the form of fire insurance mandated by my mortgage holder). Maybe, like local streets, fire protection could be handled by the neighborhood association, so that you couldn’t buy a house in the neighborhood without participating in fire protection, and you wouldn’t have two fire companies working the same block.
And one other point that libertarians frequently make: my free-market fire protection would probably give a lot better value for the dollar than the current plan where it’s paid for with mandatory property taxes.
Roddy
Wow. I’ve left your post intact in the quote because it seems, in its own way, a masterpiece.
I spoke of flood-control dams (though often dam are multi-purpose) as an example where community (i.e. government) effort is needed for good outcomes. You ignore flood control and seem to imply that farmers should instead buy weather derivatives to hedge their risks!
I find that hilarious. I’ll leave it to you to draw further conclusions about our relative smartness.
Do tell us which questions in this thread are illegitimate, so that we may know what to avoid discussing when it comes to Libertarianism, please.
It seems unlikely you’re visualizing something like the huge Chao Phrya River Basin if you think in terms of a few neighbors chipping in to build a dyke. :smack:
And, you seem to ignore that libertarians do not have a monopoly on the concept of fair-value economics. The idea that costs should be afforded by those who benefit is routine. (Although, off-topic here, governments often subsidize agriculture as a matter of policy.)
On the related matter of eminent domain, furt seems to approve of well-intentioned use, but disapprove when government is instead part of a kleptocracy. (Similarly, SDMB ex-intellectual jrod approved of good government regulation, but not bad regulation.) I think we can all agree on this. One is curious how elections might work in a libertarian model.
But you seem to assume that
- the government can best decide what a “good outcome” is
- the government is best suited to delivering said outcome, and not the community working on its own.
As Roderick’s post illustrates, both assumptions are questionable.
Seems to me very on-topic.
Would you refer to the State and City of New York as being especially kleptocratic? I wouldn’t, any more than I would most governments. Like all humans, they get away with what they can get away with
In a Libertarian society, would there be a Supreme Court? If so, what would be its role in interpreting the Constitution?
It’s going to be a dam. That’s the best way to control flood water.
And threatening to deny somebody access to water isn’t a major threat when you’re discussing a flood control project. The whole point is that people don’t want all that water. Or are you saying that people who live upstream from me can dam off a river that flows through my property? If so, I’ll see you in libertarian court mister.
So let’s say we have a town meeting and one hundred families show up to discuss a dam project that will stop the flooding in the valley we all live in. People agree it’s a good idea and they want to build the dam. And we’ll assume that the people who own the best site for the dam agree to sell the property for a reasonable price.
But what happens when ten families decide they don’t want to pay for the dam project. They say flooding is God’s will and they’re not going to resist it. What are you going to do? Flood their houses and nobody else’s? Nope, flood control works for everyone in the valley equally regardless of who pays for it. So the rest of you grumble but decide to build the dam and divide the costs up into ninety parts instead of a hundred.
But then another ten families say “Wait a second. They’re getting away with not paying? Then to heck with it. We’re not going to pay either.” So now you’ve got eighty families paying and twenty families getting a free ride.
Now another ten families steps forward and says “Times have been hard this year. We were barely able to scrape up enough to pay for a hundredth share of the dam project. But we can’t afford an eightieth share. But we’ll chip in the hundredth share that we can afford.”
But then another ten families step up, “How is that fair? Why should we pay a larger share when we’re all getting the same protection? We refuse to pay more than our fair hundredth share.”
In a Progressive society, would there be a Supreme Court? If so, what would be its role in interpreting the Constitution?
Personally, I’m OK with this, though I’m not under the idea it’s perfect or anything.
Hint: before asking any question, replace the word “libertarianism” with “liberalism” or “conservatism.” If, phrased that way, the answer is obvious or absurd, then it’s probably a bad question to ask.
By the way, a few decades ago, I sometimes described my own views as “libertarian.” My views have changed little, but I haven’t self-described that way for a long time because I don’t want to be associated with screwballs.
I pursued a specific example. There are millions of rice farmers in Thailand who depend on a River, and multi-billion dollar government infrastructure to control that River makes sense. So much sense that I wonder if you guys are engaging in self-parody, or have confused a small creek for a large river.
Instead of encouraging government to control the river, your suggestions seem to be
[ul][li] Let the millions of farmers head for the hills to raise poultry or gather coconuts. (Import the country’s rice from California?)[/li][li] The individual farmers, lacking flood control, should call their commodity brokers in Chicago and trade call/put options on future rainfall.[/li][li] Each little village should erect a few meters of dyke along a 500-mile River. (Let’s ignore the evident ignorance that reservoirs, not just dykes, are needed for flood control.)[/li][/ul]
Perhaps I’ve misrepresented some Dopers’ views slightly here for humorous effect … but the “screwball” designation for post-rational “libertarianism” is confirmed.
Well what do you do when one of the land owners at a critical point in the planned route tells you that the land has been in his family for generations and he would need you to sign over 90% ownership in the Canal in order to part with it?
We get it, furt-there is no single answer as to what Libertarianism is about, so all questions about it are absurd.
Now, could someone who believes that there are some fundamental Libertarian beliefs please answer the question?