db, when someone disagrees with you, you immediately come to the conclusion that that person is illogical, absurd, etc. Consider the possibility that once in a while that they may not accept your premises, or Rand's.

ycandrea: that is exactly what I said, it should be current to the reality of our times and you confirm that by stating- "... it is giving welfare to anyone and everyone that has changed... and is the problem" Yes, changed to what we currently have multiplied, over time, to egregious, unsustainable levels! To be clear in this respect and respond to your counter-comment I no way limited my comment to only property rights. The comments in this thread also reference immigration and it is therefore relevant that welfare and all other subsidies come into play when applied to immigrants. I hope this clarifies my previous comment.

If I set up a micronation, then the citizens of that micronation WILL be shareholders, but I agree with your points and am giving you a +1.

Thank you DB. Please bear with me, I am not trying to change your mind, more of solidifying it in mine. If a road is privately owned then it is a business and the business must make money charging people for the use of the road. If the business owner decides he doesn't want black people on his road (assuming it is still 1860), if there is no alternate route he can be forced to do business with them. The only thing separating this from other, improper, antidiscrimination laws is the fact that he is operating a public thoroughfare. To accept this one must accept that his discrimination is actually doing physical harm to a person or group of people by not letting them travel where they wish to go. I accept that. He may charge them because their right to travel does not entitle them to the product of his labor but he may not harm them by denying them access. I can accept that.

I may be making a bigger deal of it than it should be but that is still a fine tightrope to walk there.

I am not yet on board with the government as just a caretaker of public property. It took me all day to get this far (been working too) but I have long maintained that there is no such thing as public property, just park a 5th wheel camper in the wrong area of a national or state park and you'll find out who owns it real quick. I know it's a pragmatic position for dealing with an overreaching government but nothing is owned by nobody, and everybody can't own anything. I'll keep working on it though. Right now my head hurts.

"the current reality of our times" does not change anything. It is not property rights that is the problem, it is giving welfare to anyone and everyone that has changed. That is the problem, in my opinion. .

You are weaseling out of it again! But I am tired of this. I am going to take your refusal to tell me exactly what is wrong with my analysis of this problem as proof that I am right. I don't have any more patience, so I am not going to respond to any more of your arrogant BS.

DB, I live in Tucson, AZ...in the illustrious 100 mile zone that the feds ignore the Constitution. I have some good friends on the Border Patrol, and I can tell you for a fact that you are incorrect in this statement, "No armies are crossing our border.". Armed federalies commonly cross the border, and when they are stopped, they claim that they did not realize they were on the U.S. side. S.O.P. dictates that they are returned to Mexico, with their firearms. Now, maybe they are just lost...maybe G.P.S. does not work at the border, or maybe they are escorting in illegals, drugs, etc.
Growing up in Chicago, I knew nothing about what went on down here, until I moved here. There is a constant flow of people, drugs, weapons, sex slaves, and other bad things flowing across the border.
I firmly believe that we are a country, not a charity. We should have sovereign borders and they should be protected.

MarkHunter: Very interesting comment and in particular your last paragraph. Well stated.

ewv: While I have been following closely this thread and the preceding one on "property rights", your comment here I find appropriate as it is stated with relation to and in proportion to the current reality of our times. That has, sorely, been missing from many comments on these two topics.
Edited for spelling

Txs. It can become very disheartening to continually encounter anti-freedom and anti-Objectivist arguments on this site. But I'll note that one of the things that's always kept me involved in Objectivist thought is that once understood, it is as you say, "so right, so logical, so comfortingly clear".

Indeed. Any argument or action taken to infringe on someone else's freedoms can only lead to infringement on everyone's freedom. All men are free, or none are.

WOW Zen! Sounds so very, very logical to me! (sniff). I'm sorry, but I get emotional when I see something so right, so logical, so comfortingly clear. It goes right to my brain and my heart. I knew I was right but couldn't put it into words like this!

Right on Zen! I am one of the silent ones because I am still getting my bearings on this issue. I strongly lean toward db which, to me, represent freedom and liberty and objectivist core values. I do, however, understand the fear some of us have watching our country turned into a welfare state by taking care of all of these illegals. But the answer is never getting rid of our freedoms. It is getting rid of the welfare state. Just my two cents.

The answer is straight forward - you cannot use property rights to imprison anyone and a proper government cannot initiate force You are attempting to do both and yet deny it.

Agreed, and simply stated.

It's damaging to our rights when this critical distinction is wiped out by oversimplified analogies. A proper government's ability to act is granted and limited by its citizens, not (as you point out) by "right"—not based on the freedom to act as required by its nature.

Perpetuation of all the stolen concepts and other contradictory packaged ideas that personify "Government" make it easier for government officials and employees to overstep their tasked responsibilities and further erode the property rights they should be protecting.

How hard is it to explain clearly what you think is wrong with my logic, instead of making it sound like I have a comprehension problem - I don't! You are again insulting my intelligence, instead of attacking my statements. Your whole demeanor is arrogant in the extreme.

How hard is it to understand that you cannot imprison someone with private property rights? How hard is to understand that a government cannot stop someone from traveling without using force?

You ignore all simple logic and tie yourself in knots trying to justify your statist point of view.

What we have is not open immigration. Suggesting that it is and condemning it as such is at best an error, and more likely intentionally deceitful. Either way, rational thought has nothing to do with it.

California has made its own bed, but America is following the same path.

Yes.

And that is why Ayn Rand rejected the 'job protectionist' anti-immigrationists, who now package-deal immigrants with an invasion taking over the country. She properly supported the right of normal, decent people to immigrate and make a better life for themselves, not mass illiterates coming for welfare and voting to further collectivize the country as they are invited by Obama to do.

Clearly government employees cannot whimsically utilize resources that they have management of, although truth be told they often do. That still doesn't mean the government doesn't own it, just that what government officials are allowed to do with government property is limited

Keep in mind, I am not saying that Government should be able to act independently of their charter as a free individual might.

The key thing is that you can point to any rock and say "who owns that rock"? And some entity does. If you want that rock, only that entity can give it to you. Sometimes it's the government.

What the Government can do with it's rocks is limited. And it should have no more than necessary to fulfil it's function.