{"id":9105,"date":"2011-07-04T09:50:01","date_gmt":"2011-07-04T16:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=9105"},"modified":"2011-07-04T09:24:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T16:24:29","slug":"private-ownership-of-the-land-is-the-source-not-just-of-our-freedom-but-of-our-civility-and-of-our-humanity-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9105\/private-ownership-of-the-land-is-the-source-not-just-of-our-freedom-but-of-our-civility-and-of-our-humanity-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Private ownership of the land is the source not just of our freedom but of our civility and of our humanity itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kicking this back to the top. Happy Independence Day! — GSS<\/em><\/p>\n

 
This from my Arizona Republic<\/i> real estate column (permanent link<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The “cap and trade” bill that passed in the House of Representatives last week contains within it the seeds of a national building code. It rarely rains in Phoenix and it rarely fails to rain in Portland, but both cities will build new structures according to the dictates of some Washington bureaucrat.<\/p>\n

Drive along 19th Avenue in Phoenix and you’ll pass block after block of condemned houses. They were taken by the city for the planned light rail expansion, now delayed. The neighbors are left to fight off the kind of vermin vacant homes attract while they worry what that blight is doing to their home values.<\/p>\n

In Glendale, the city government is doing everything it can to prevent the Tohono O’Odham tribe from developing its own sovereign land as a casino.<\/p>\n

The essence of the freedom we celebrate on Independence Day is the free ownership of the land. The Hoplite Greeks fought and died to protect their own lands. The Roman Legionnaires fought and died because their farms were their own property. A Cincinnatus — or a George Washington — lays down his arms because being a dictator is nothing when you can instead be a freeholder in the land.<\/p>\n

The essence of our freedom is the free ownership of the land, and yet everywhere we turn, private property is subjected to one law after another, and everything that is not forbidden is compulsory instead.<\/p>\n

This is a grievous error. The men who become Brownshirts or Klansmen or Khmer Rouge — the men who make up murderous mobs — are men without land. It is the husbandry of the land — each man to his own parcel — that most makes husbands of us, that sweeps away our willingness to live as brigands or rapists or thugs.<\/p>\n

By robbing the private ownership of the land of its meaning, the state is, by increments, robbing its citizens of their humanity. No one burns down his own home, nor his neighbor’s home. But when the time comes that we Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kicking this back to the top. Happy Independence Day! — GSS  This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): The “cap and trade” bill that passed in the House of Representatives last week contains within it the seeds of a national building code. It rarely rains in Phoenix and it rarely fails to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,24,212,29,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-flourishing","9":"category-group-therapy","10":"category-real-estate","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":393,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/393\/blogoff-post-16-ask-the-broker-why-are-the-lots-so-small\/","url_meta":{"origin":9105,"position":0},"title":"Blogoff Post #16: Ask the Broker: Why are the lots so small . . . ?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This question comes from my mother-in-law, Cathy's mother:Why do builders make yards so small?This is a question that applies to the Phoenix area, but I know it fits in many markets in the southwest. Phoenix was settled in sections, 640 acre square-mile parcels. A farm might be a section, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ask the Broker"","block_context":{"text":"Ask the Broker","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/ask-the-broker\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3193,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3193\/looking-for-the-bottom-real-estate-speculators-are-establishing-the-bottom-dollar-price-for-lender-owned-homes-in-phoenix\/","url_meta":{"origin":9105,"position":1},"title":"Looking for the bottom? Real estate speculators are establishing the bottom-dollar price for lender-owned homes in Phoenix","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0Looking for the bottom? Real estate speculators are establishing the bottom-dollar price for lender-owned homes in Phoenix If you're looking for the bottom of the real estate market in Phoenix, chances are it's right up the block.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investment"","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":280,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/280\/trends-are-changing-daily-is-that-real-estate-news-or-a-weather-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":9105,"position":2},"title":"“Trends are changing daily” — is that real estate news or a weather report?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Trends are changing daily,\" says Catherine Reagor in her column in the Arizona Republic. Was I a younger man, I might trouble myself to wonder about a \"trend\" that lasts less than a day. But I am older, by now, and wiser, and sick to death of picking on Catherine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":508,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/508\/hotpadscom-a-for-rent-by-owner-site-based-on-a-whimsical-map-mash-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":9105,"position":3},"title":"HotPads.com: A for-rent-by-owner site based on a whimsical map mash-up . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the map search screen from HotPads.com, a for-rent-by-owner site launching tonight: This is the most whimsical map mash-up I've seen yet, and the site is a treat if only for the cartoony graphics. In Phoenix, at least, they're aggregating listings from local property management companies, although landlords can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3528,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3528\/a-real-estate-sign-of-the-times-our-first-custom-yard-sign-printed-in-both-english-and-spanish\/","url_meta":{"origin":9105,"position":4},"title":"A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish We do things that other brokers in the Phoenix area don't do. We're not the busiest listing brokerage --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":489,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/489\/want-to-know-where-real-estate-corruption-comes-from-whatever-you-do-dont-look-in-the-newspaper\/","url_meta":{"origin":9105,"position":5},"title":"Want to know where real estate corruption comes from? Whatever you do, don’t look in the newspaper . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a bunch of Phoenix-area real estate news piling up in browser tabs, so I want to reference it now, before it blows away in the autumnal desert breezes. First, more fake good news downtown: \"Phoenix is putting in place the final building block in its plan to construct\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9105"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9106,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9105\/revisions\/9106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}