Excellent!

The government does not have property rights. It does not act by right. It controls property that it must use to for limited functions it must perform. It cannot buy, sell and use property any way it wants. It's "ownership" is not by right of property ownership. Governments do not have rights. Only individuals can have rights.

It's not only an unlikely scenario, it is irrelevant fiction that does not characterize the fact that the "free market" does not act by itself to instantaneously solve all serious problems that may or may not be caused by vindictive individuals. That does not mean the strawman of "allowing government to control access rights for all private property in the nation".

Government control or jurisdiction, in regard to property, is not the same as individual property rights. Government employees cannot properly exercise their individual property rights in the function of their governmental responsibilities like employees or shareholders of a corporation. Those employees and officials are only tasked with protecting those rights, not exercising them.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo included all the territory, although it wasn't enthusiastically adhered to. For example in California people with land grants had a limited time to prove clear title from either Spain or Mexico. It wasn't automatic.

I disagree with drug use outside of medicine entirely. I grew up in a house of 60's flower children...its not worth it. If drugs become legal, fine. But I don't want any responsibility, even through taxes, in paying for their choices AND I don't want to listen to anything about their "troubles" when (not if) the sh*t hits the fan and their health is in the toilet.

Nice rebuttal, db.

You can read a detailed history in Rothbard's Conceived in Liberty.

It was a matter of protecting the rights of individuals who lived in Texas, not the authority of Mexico. We won the war.

really? I thought when one said "besides..." one was saying something beside the point. I thought we were talking about breaking the power of the Mexican Drug Cartels.

The strained polemics at the hostile "ariwatch" trying to make a case for the opposite of her views on immigration are irrelevant. This is not the place to try to put over "ariwatch" as a basis for what Ayn Rand thought and meant.

I know what she said. She was responding to a question on limiting immigration on the grounds of "self interest" against economic competition from foreigners, which she rejected. She did not use the term "open borders", did not endorse anyone wandering across the border at any time for any motive, and was not talking about today's political situation of importing welfare illiterates for Obama's agenda of "fundamental change" of American culture, let alone endorsing it.

I saw and heard her explain it. It was during the question period at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston. It was not a mere "verbal utterance". She was never "unprepared" to explain her ideas. She was was not groping for an "unprepared" answer in an "off the cuff" response. It was not the first time she had ever thought about the question of immigration. She was not "confused", let alone "beyond confused". She did not answer as an "isolated snap remark" "under time pressure", and it was not a "hostile audience" -- It was an extremely friendly and supportive audience, overflowing the hall after waiting on line for hours and which attended year after year. She knew what she was talking about, answered immediately, and meant it. The bozo at "ariwatch" does not know what he is talking about but his motives and methods are obvious.

The usual "ARIwatch" snide polemics are trying to dismiss what she said while posturing as an objective account. They are laced with the author's own interpretations and speculations interleaved with rambling side stories all trying to make a "case" that her statements were ill considered and "pernicious" and not really what she would think if she "correctly" applied her own principles. The polemics at "ariwatch" are not a credible source. Please do not try to foist them on us here again.

of course subsidized tax dollars, Ocare (or some rendition) or defaulting on the bill...thats my point.

Is it then your opinion that the government can absolutely own nothing? Not a building, a desk, a pencil? Nothing?

If you believe that the government has some purpose, and Rand definitely did, then there must be some facilities that are owned by the government.

I guess it would be theoretically possible for a person to (1) buy a landlocked piece of property with no legal access in or out, (2) negotiate with an adjacent landowner for access into the landlocked property (but no access for a return trip), (3) enter the landlocked property without any food or water, (4) negotiate with adjacent property owners for permission to exit your property through theirs, and (5) starve to death when negotiations fail. But is this unlikely scenario grounds for allowing government to control access rights for all private property in the nation?

AJA, who pays for that medical intervention? edited to make sure to address the correct post.

Personally, I could care less about political correctness and most of the Objectivists I know express much the same. While you may question ARI, cherry picking AR's writings and excluding her extemporaneous statements directly on point are not acceptable to me and is the height of sophistry and hubris.

It appears that your referenced site includes those that directly challenge her and discredit her direct statements in apparent effort to support more conservative Nationalism, Pragmatism, and Relativism than those that study her reasoning, metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and philosophy.

I seldom if ever quote AR directly. I prefer to apply my own reasoning power rather than just regurgitate what she said, but her reply to a questioner quoted on your referenced site, addressing the exact topic of this post is meaningful:

“I have never advocated that anyone has the right to pursue his self-interest by law or by force. If you close the border to forbid immigration on grounds that it lowers your standard of living – which certainly is not true, but even assuming it were true – you have no right to bar others. Therefore to claim it’s your self-interest is an irrational claim.You are not entitled to any self-interest which injures others, and the rights of others, and which you cannot prove in fact, in reality to be valid. You cannot claim that anything that others may do – not directly to you but simply through competition let us say – is against your self interest and therefore you want to stop competition dead. That is the kind of self-interest you are not entitled to. It is a contradiction in terms and cannot be defended."

It strikes me that all free men would better serve their self interest through ridding our government of the collectivist and statist programs that are the true causes of this country's difficulties.

The article specifically address the time of war issue, although not in detail, because I thought the general principle for this discussion was clear.

It is interesting that you consider logic insulting

The Massachusetts Bay Company was a joint stock trading company chartered by the English crown in 1629 to colonize a vast area in New England extending from 3 mi (4.8 km) miles north of the Merrimack River to 3 mi miles south of the Charles River. It was quickly taken over by a group of Puritans, under the leadership of John Winthrop, who wished to establish a religious community in the New World......http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/m...

Your point was that Government "owning property" is analogous to a corporation owning property. It is not the same due to the nature of government explained above. By equating the two, you are incorrectly implying that government has the "right to own property".

Property rights cannot used to enslave someone. As a result, there has to be a way to travel to and from your property. You can have private property rights in a road, but that cannot be used to stop people from traveling freely. Either there has to be alternate routes or the owner has to let all people who pay the toll to travel over the road.

The government does not own the public thoroughfare and now one may maintain it. However, you can never have property rights that enslave someone that would be a violation of the whole idea of rights.

I didn't say government officials had any authority other than that delegated by the citizens.

I understand a government is not a voluntary association. But either you have anarchy or you have a government constituted in some manner. That government will carry out its duties in line with the guidance of someone.

Either that someone is it's citizens or it's random groups of people around the planet, but someone has to be responsible for directing the actions of the government. As you say, government officials have no right to act on their own. Who tells the government what to do?

Ayn Rand explicitly favored immigration, citing in particular what would have happened to her if she could not have immigrated. She was opposed to arbitrary quotas and did not on the grounds of "jobs protectionism" want to keep people out who were willing to work. She did not, however, use the phrase "open borders". She was not an anarchist. When she publicly discussed this there was not yet the controversy over the kind of problems we have today with international terrorists, welfare immigration, and a political strategy of importing illiterates to culturally and politically take over the country and destroy what is left of capitalism. She knew the difference between immigration and invasion.

A corporation is a voluntary association of individuals jointly owning property and acting in accordance with their rights. Government is not a corporation. Government is limited in what it can and must do because it is set up as a monopoly to use physical force to defend the rights of the individual. Government officials who act by "right" are tyrants. Citizens of a nation are not "shareholders". Your arbitrary package deals ignoring essential distinctions between ownership rights and government control are not convincing.