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Far from damaging brains and killing seals, applying basic economics to the environment preserves it.The industrial revolution that began about 200 years ago has changed humanity’s relation to, and attitudes about, nature completely—and sometimes it has generated new views about God and nature, such as from the Transcendentalists of the 19th century.

Here are three easy questions for Libertarians, Socialists, and Economists to determine if a right is a monopoly or a property right. 1) Does the right arise because the person created something? Creation is the basis of all property rights.  The law is just recognizing the reality that the person is the creator and without that person the creation would not exist.  This is consistent with Locke’s Natural Rights and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. 2) If someone else was the creator would they have received the right in the creation? This ensures that the right does not arise from political favoritism.

It is sometimes suggested that the Founders did not consider property rights important because the term “property” was mentioned only once in the Constitution. The truth is that the Founders were concerned about a range of human values, but property rights were high on their list. Their Constitution and Bill of Rights protected property in many ways: * The Founders were worried that Congress might use the tax system to loot property owners in some states for the advantage of other states. Accordingly, they required that direct taxes (mostly importantly property and income taxes) be apportioned among the states (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 and Article I, Section 9, Clause 4). They also required that indirect taxes, such as import duties, be levied uniformly (I-8-1 and I-9-6). They flatly denied Congress power to tax exports (I-9-5).

They claimed the city chose to let their homes flood instead of fix the problem. The city admits no wrongdoing in the settlement.The residents across a two block region of the neighborhood said they would get a gush of water pouring into their home every time a severe storm hit.For Grace Stewart, it's a hassle she's been dealing with for decades."I'm mad, I'm very mad," she said. via Residents win $2.5M settlement after blaming Seattle for floods.

Discussion List—December 1, 2011

I originally wrote this during the heat of debate over the King County CAO amendments. It is still applicable as the rest of the state bears the brunt of their own CAOs and Shoreline Master Plans. There are two broad principals of law in the United States under which government may take or restrict the use of private property. Government may take private property for public benefit but must, in turn, compensate the owner of the property for its value. Government may also take or restrict the use of property via its police powers to regulate nuisances. Just as a property owner possesses rights to use his property, he also holds rights to prevent others from using their land in a manner that harms him or his property.

Anyone who has ever taken a multiple-choice exam has experience with distractors. Every question has one or more answers that look good, appear to be logical and just feel right. But they are wrong. Students that don’t really understand the question will choose them every time. Only those with in-depth knowledge of the subject can resist them and choose the correct answer. The teacher is thus able to minimize the chance that students will guess the correct answer. Politicians have traditionally been the grand masters of using distractors. They say one thing but do another while we are distracted by their rhetoric. Many people erroneously attribute the Law of Unintended Consequences to laws that really work just as intended but were promoted using good distractors thus leading people to think the distractor was actually signed into law.

As you listen to your favorite practitioner of the Great Green Lie extol the virtues of ever larger buffers on your 5 or 10 or 15 acres, please keep the following photos in mind. The buffer on the stream in unincorporated King County is 300 feet from the edge of the wetland that gets bigger every year.

King County’s Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES) has had a long-standing marketing program known unofficially as “1-800 Turn in Your Neighbor.” It has been a very effective way to bring in the funds necessary to make payroll each month, since DDES must finance its operations through fees and fines rather than tax dollars. They also periodically run a marketing program designed to get folks to turn in themselves. It is called “Amnesty.” A quick look at the law.com dictionary shows the following definition: