Slashdot Mirror
The Case for Lunar Property Rights
longacre writes "Who owns the moon? In a thought provoking piece, Instapundit blogger/law professor Glenn Reynolds gives us a brief history of earthlings' discourse on lunar property rights, a topic which has stagnated since the 1979 Moon Treaty. Is it possible to claim good title on land that is not under the dominion of a nation? He goes on to plead his case for the creation of lunar real estate legislation. From the article: 'Property rights attract private capital and, with government space programs stagnating, a lunar land rush may be just what we need to get things going again.'"
I think if anyone can actually get to the moon, they'll have a valid claim on it.
The US Space Marines have been there for years.
09-f9-11-02-9* (G^GCA_++{>. RV>>>>+++ NO CARRIER
Let's be real, the moon is never going to be like Florida, even if it's really sunny and the reduced gravity helps even feeble elderly people play golf (those big craters come really handy there!) Even if it could be, the powers that be cannot really allow private property in the moon, or private developments in space. Just read a bit of SF. The Earth sits in the bottom of a gravity well. It cannot allow people outside (or almost outside) of that gravity well, with the possibility of throwing down big stones, and no fear of reprisals. Only big changes in technology could change that reality.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
In other words, property rights are unenforcable, and none of the existing governments on earth have any real say. What government is going to spend 10 billion on space hardware to settle a legal property ownership/squatting claim?
In yet other words, possession is 9/10 of the law. Go ahead and argue about the other 1/10, because you don't matter.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
The real question I see here is who actually decides the ruling on this situation, there isn't any kind of universal agency made to deal with this. So until there is I think most people would be satisfied with: "I own this land because I can defend it against you"
As a human born on planet Earth, I have a right to a plot of land for sustenance and shelter, in reasonable proximity to where I was born. This should supersede property rights of the mega-rich, even if my parents bargained away the rights. At most, the land can be loaned from humanity for an exclusive use of one person for a limited time. Lets not start the same heartless trend on Moon or even try to live there until we can behave decently on Earth.
Humiliated by the Americans beating them to the moon, the Soviets developed plans to send a massive unmanned rocket to the moon, laden with red paint. On impact, the paint would cover the entire bright side of the moon. A second, manned mission would immediately follow. The cargo - white paint, to make a bright hammer and crescent symbol against the red background.
American intelligence learned of these plans. A great opportunity arose to foil them. But instead the American President, "Tricky Dick" Nixon, demurred. "Let them go ahead and paint the moon," he said.
"But Mr. President, surely the image of the Soviet Empire covering the moon..."
"After they've painted it red," said Nixon, "we'll paint the logo of Coca Cola."
No entity can grant property rights they cannot enforce.
This is a Heinlein question--read The Man Who Sold the Moon, he has a lot of fun with it.
I've had my base on the dark side for years, nobody's bothered me yet. The existence of rights on the moon is determined by who wields power on the moon, not some piece of paper on earth. Unless nations on earth are willing to use violence to enforce these land deeds, then the deeds are worthless. I wonder how hard it is to launch moon rocks at earth.
Of course some don't even bother with a fence. They just draw it on a map... a big splotch that says "MINE!"
I suggest you read Slashdot
http://www.lunarrepublic.com/ Or just do a google search for lunar property for a retailor in your area.
There was a show on this on the UK Channel Four a few months ago. The UN passed a resolution saying no country can stake a claim to the moon, but some joker realised it said nothing about individuals, and claimed it for himself. He has been selling lots on the moon for years, raking in millions.
They interviews people who have bought it, some of them are quite serious. One said she couldn't afford land for her kids on earth, but she got them something on the moon, for the future.
You can see the outcome of this kind of "property-is-theft" attitude in china. There land in the countryside for farming is state owned and city land is privately owned. The net result is that the poor in the cities have some hope of social mobility as there is availability of collateral to raise capital, fund enterprise and create jobs. In the country, farmers have no way to raise funds to start their own businesses or improve their farms, leaving them dependent on the state to improve their lot. Somewhat predictably the state favours uncompensated land-grabs, turning the land to more profitable (for the state) uses. All courtesy of the people.
In short, property rights are helpful for development and reducing poverty, even though it's not immediately obvious. That does depend on the value of land use being higher than the costs, something that's not true everywhere on Earth, let alone the moon.
> 'Property rights attract private capital and, with government space programs stagnating, a lunar land rush may be just what we need to get things going again.
Great. Spammers on the Moon.
Wish humanity would spend more time developing genuinely useful technology and less time on stupid law tricks like this.
Reynolds missed the 1959 Antartica Treaty. I thought he was some sorta law professor guy?? Seems to me the perfect model for a remote place that all nations might want to make claims on...
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
The question is not whether lunar rights are good, but whether any 'property' rights in land are. The arguments against property in land are strong. When someone creates something - adds value to raw material - it's reasonable that that person should have strong rights to the object created; they've put the work in. No-one (except the Dutch) creates land. People argue that 'improving' land gives the improver the right to it, but
Property rights in land all date back ultimately to theft: through the appropriation of a resource which was common to the whole community, and making it private to one individual. Mostly, that theft has been accomplished with the aid of serious violence, often genocide. It's a basic principle of the rule of law that you can never have good title to stolen property; so you can never have good title to land.
Property in land creates persistent inequity in societies over generations, leading to highly stratified class systems and drastically reduced social mobility. It creates kakocratic societies, which reward the most dishonest and dishonourable; and it prevents communities from making efficient planning choices about their lands.
Extending what has done such drastic harm to the Earth to other planets is the opposite of good sense.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Who owns anything? The person with the biggest stick.
Deleted
> Who owns anything? The person with the biggest stick.
Good point. 'Ownership' is an abstract concept. Works nicely for people who 'own' the stuff and not for people who don't.
First Ug the caveman told Ooba "You can't use this because I own it", and later Ug's grandson "Even though this land is huge I can't use all of it, I 'own' it because Ug said he owned it. You can't use this without my permission." Now taken to extreme by IP lawyers saying "My client 'owns' this thought, and you can't own it without paying me lots'".
Fortunately 'Ownership' breaks down when they oppressed rise up and smite the greedy. We're talking about you RIAA.
...shame the historical facts squarely contradict it. Google "tragedy of the commons," or for a more concrete and squalid example look up the history of the Cabrini Green project in Chicago.
Fact is, ownership of land has zip to do with any kind of ethereal moral justification. People want it because it makes them feel safe. Other people allow it because experience shows that when people are allowed to own land they take care of it better, preserve its resources better for the future, are more agreeable to allowing others temporary and conditional use of it (instead of defending it fanatically), et cetera and so forth.
When land is held "in common" that just tends to mean a free for all where everyone grabs as much as he can of what's valuable about it as fast as he can before someone else beats him to it, with zero thought for the future. Sad fact o' life. All the lovely theories about how things ought to work, with, say, some other species, whose actions were driven strictly by pure logic, are quite nice -- but useless in practise.
They would claim vast swaths of land after just looking at it. However, whole areas frequently drifted from one country's dominion to another. What made the final difference? Force of arms.
If you want to claim the moon, you have to put a fort up there. Because who cares if Joe Shmoe in Pasadena California bought the Danjon Crater for $2,500, when the Chinese put a guy up there with bazooka? Bazooka wins, end of story.
Want to claim parts of the moon? Put force of arms up there. No other way about it. Don't like this fact? Take it up with human nature and human history. This is the only way this process has ever worked
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We laugh now, but there's a bigger question at stake here. The moon is a pretty uninspiring ball of rock, but property rights on the moon would set a precedent for property rights on other planets. I figure we should just follow the same model we always have. Take the case of Holland vs England, for Australia. Dirk Hartog, and numerous other Dutch, landed on the west coast, and named the place "New Holland". Then along comes James Cook, to the east coast, and says it's "New South Wales". The dutch didn't do anything about it. In more recent events, America planted a flag on the moon, but they haven't actually colonized it yet. Whoever sets up shop first probably has rights to a reasonable plot of land around his facilities.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Yes, but no nation in their right mind would like to be declared war on by the whales. If you read the treaty again after knowing this possibility, you would realize it all make sense.
Given that any kind of military response would have to involve the costs of not only getting out of a gravity well, but then attempting to establish a beachhead where every square foot of surface is already occupied by buildings, defended by rock-throwers and whatever other systems have been cooked up (surface-to-orbit missiles, ground-based lasers, enough co-ordinated crap in orbit to make anyone waste all their fuel on evasive manouvers), and swarming with invasion-eating nanobots, I can't see anyone bothering to make a physical attempt. They'd probably try angling for gaining control of part or all of the hyperstructure by digital attacks, espionage, or legal/diplomatic pressure.
Especially if it can be found out who (if anyone) is in charge of it.
Really, at some point you'd pretty much need to have a human population up there that considered the Moon to be a single legal/international entity and themselves to be citizens of it over and above any similar ties to any Earth-based country.
Alternatively, have chunks of the Moon operating independently of one another. They might be their own states; they might be extensions of Earth-based states. Their alleigances could well be all over the place, and the Moon would just be another economic and legal frontier battleground.
Both companies are counting on the ability to own part of this and mars. The underlying belief is that it will lead to emigration. But as to the moon, The prime real estate will be at the poles and where uranium/thorium is found. The reason is that the poles offer full and zero sun at the same time. In addition, both have some deep and steep caverans that allow for placing a ba-330 or better. The uranium is because that will allow for exploration of the moon, fast travel to mars, and of course, power on mars. Everybody speaks of he3, but it is the uranium that will suddenly become worth a great deal over the next 30 years. Keep in mind that most nations will come under fire for launching more than RTGs into space. With this on the moon, we can send it all over. In fact, we could easily put up a breeder and then send LONG lived plutonium to power all sorts of probes.
No doubt about it; Bigelow and Spacex will be pushing private ownership hard.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's a reasonable argument, but you seem to be assuming the only purpose of land is to live on. Hardly. There's a reason that range land in NM is $40 an acre and Manhattan real estate is probably roughly a million times more. It's what you can do there that matters.
So what can you do on the Moon that would make it so fabulously valuable? Beats me. The only unique resources the Moon has (exceedingly low temperatures in the shade, unbelievably good vacuum) you can also get in orbit, where you don't have to worry about any gravity at all, and can build eight-mile wide factories out of gossamer and shoe strings, if you want.
But it could happen. Suppose it turns out 1/6 gee allows you (don't ask me how) to grow perfect crystals of membrane-bound proteins fast and easy, something nearly impossible to do on Earth. That could lead to the possibility of rational design of fantastically valuable drugs, e.g. genuine cancer cures and the like. What would that be worth? Very likely far more than $100 billion. (The cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor will have earned its inventors about $65 billion by the time its patent expires in 2010.)
I've always thought of buildings as creating surface area, and that a two story building doubles the land and so forth up. I think land was based on theft, but then so were all things before we got decent rule of law. Now the person who lays claim to land is (usually) the person willing to pay the most, who are those who can make the most money from it. The 1880's are over, the working man won, we have the most egalitarian meritocracy in the world, things don't work like that any more.
The Moon stays constantly over a slice of Earth bounded by latitude twenty-nine north and the same distance south; if one man owned all that belt of Earthâ"itâ(TM)s roughly the tropical zone-then heâ(TM)d own the Moon, too, wouldnâ(TM)t he? By all the theories of real property ownership that our courts pay any attention to. :P
[I think all those airlines who had to pay indemnities for flying over settlements etc. were done in by this very logic ]
From the Man Who Sold The Moon ( Heinlein )
Just another way for government to tax something they have no right to tax.
I won it while gambling Buzz Aldrin, who stole it from Neil Armstrong while he was sleeping.
just put the moon in the same basket with international waters and that's it: problem solved. No more poperty dispute since no one can own something.
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
Put aside all the theories, bar-room lawyers, treaties that aren't worth a dam' and the fools who are willing to hand over money here on terra-firma. All that will go out of the window (or would that be viewing port) as soon as someone finds a resource there that can turn a profit. Once that happens you've got a very slow gold rush on your hands. All the people back on earth who paid for a "claim" can yell all they want, they'll be drowned out by everyone else laughing.
However the chances of anyone, or country, raising the capital to go there and set up a commercial enterprise are very small. The chances of them being able to turn whatever they find back into ca$h are even smaller and the chances of making more than the hundreds of billions they spend are infinitesimal.
That's the reason so few people live in the Gobi Desert. It's thousands of times more hospitable than the moon (or mars, for that matter) and millions of times cheaper to get to. However there's nothing there worth having.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You see the outcome of this "Jesus-is-Lord" attitude in the case of the Fundamentalists Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. There,the patriarchal norms set down in the Bible are manifest in polygamous relationships eventually ending up in incest.
In short, Christianity has clearly failed even though it's not immediately obvious.
You can come up with irrelevant analogies all you like, that does nothing to prove that people do not have a HUMAN RIGHT to a home. This is a simple biological fact. Human beings, with the exception of perhaps Ron Jeremy do not have a furry exterior coat to protect them from the elements. Even if they did have fur to protect them, it is clear from observations of the natural world that even furry animals typically require a burrow to sustain their lives. Making creative analogies does not change that FACT.
they first went there in 1945.
And in 2018, they are coming back.
Summation 2
I think Bill Hicks said it best: "Stop putting a fucking dollar sign on everything." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo Hey, how about keeping the moon the collective property of all humanity? Why do these rich pricks always have to own everything? They already own the property you are in and the land beneath your feet that you keep paying for every month. Not only that, but they can create money out of thin air with the wonderful fractional reserve banking system imposed on us. Bah, I've already rambled enough for now. Also, if you work in marketing, kill yourselves.
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
All you need is 10 meters (yards, retards) of fence. Put it up, and create a home in what others would call "outside" the fence but you call inside the fence because that is where your home is. The tiny spot is left for others.
Bert
Who'd hate to see the moon mined for He3. We're already wrecking a planet, we should have learned something from that.
I find it astounding that people will fight to the death arguing AGAINST people's right to have a home to live in and yet there are thousands of such individuals in every web forum you go to.
... but in reality, he's just a lunatic.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Not on your fucking life!
I own the moon. Me and Danny Glover. Problem solved.
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
Oh God! That's all we need.
Rockets flying really slow with one of their blinkers on all the way. Those big fuel guzzling RV rockets with the little shuttles on the back. Old guys pontificating how in their day, they held their breath on the Moon - and loved it, none of this space suit crap that makes today's youth so soft! How he could have bought the Sea of Tranquility for $5.00 and look how rich he could be - especially with the malls going up, golf course and everything.
Oh please, I hope the Moon doesn't become like FL!
Not to be extremely silly, but the system of property exchange typically works best if you have these characteristics:
1. Some unique characteristics of each plot of land that relate to specific advantages of that land (so people will bid for the land, with the hopes of future returns to compensate for that bid, future returns being realised through an investment strategy)
2. Someone previously owning the land (so a price is set at what the bidder will pay the seller)
In this case, what form of propety allocation system would they use?
- Whoever stakes a claim owns it? In that case, use a robotic buggy to drive all over the moon and "claim" in a ten mile diameter every morning. Not workable.
- You own precisely the pieces of land that is below what you have built on the moon? In that case the right to this propety is completely irrelevant, because for the forseeable future the amount of building will never come close to covering the moon's surface. This means that the "right to own" becomes an irrelevance in the consideration of whether to go to the moon or not, because there's no "early bird" reward and no penalty for being late.
- Some form of authority auctions out plots of land? Obviously meaningless, because no plot of land is any better than any other, so there's no incentive to bid more than the minimum price on every piece of the moon and pull the remaining bids as soon as you win one.
- Some form of authority gives a set price for plots of land? Will lead to a lot of mess and throwing of shit, because there will always be people going "it's too cheap". Besides, this require the deeding of the moon to this authority in the first place. If you don't trust, say, the UN Security Council, then why would you as a country on earth agree that the prime real estate above your head is auctioned off for their benefit?
discussing about solar system property rights...
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
'Property rights attract private capital and, with government space programs stagnating, a lunar land rush may be just what we need to get things going again.'"
you mean "may be just what the doctor ordered". Learn to write like a hack, dammit. Read The Economist. Mix metaphors. Be vague. Why use big words like "property rights" when you can just say "ownership"? Why say "capital" when you mean "cash"? Why say "stagnating" when you can mix another metaphor in there, preferably one that has nothing to do with going to space and hurts your brain to read in one sentence with it -- how about "With government space programs left high and dry after fund cuts"? "Lunar land rush?" How about "moon craze"?
In sum: Be a hack. Be vague. Make the brain hurt. It's all right here, just remember that their examples are PRESCRIPTIONS, not, as you might think, things to avoid.
if the moon would be used for anything I'm sure it would be used as a weapons platform when the tech becomes available, that in and of itself may actually happen.
Pretty cynical. If we can divide up Antarctica in a peaceful and orderly fashion for the benefit of science and mankind, we should be able to do the same with the moon. I know Antarctica is a work in progress, but still.
Yeah, just because a land rush on the south pole might be just what we need to get things going again. Damn libertarians.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Hey, I have a great idea, let's repeat all our mistakes on this planet on every other one we visit! First, what we do is we start right back up on the next planet with this idea of parceling land out to people as if they weren't all interconnected by being on the same planet.
I have a better idea, let's try some other models which are intended to produce a stable system instead of making life a less-than-zero-sum game, like for example when you buy property you buy property to a certain value of property; if you devalue the property you lose that value, and you're not allowed to own property again until you revalue it or something else?
You think environmental issues are irrelevant on the moon? Right now it's an ideal environment for certain things because it has no atmosphere. Start putting up a lot of heavy industry, and it will gain one. Here, we're worried about negative effects on an existing atmosphere; there we'll be worried about creating one.
Meanwhile, on Mars we'll be wanting to encourage people to emit certain gases, and perhaps to fix others. (See Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy for way more exposition than you ever wanted.) But all that depends on us actually going there. Let's go mine some asteroids. Forget about the moon.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would like to say we already own the Moon. If you Earthlings think you can push us Lunatics around like the Europeans did to the Earth's Western Hemisphere you are crazy. We are currently calculating the cost of cleaning up the space junk Earthlings have left on our Moon and will be sending out a bill shortly.
I can't believe no one has mentioned these guys yet: http://www.lunarembassy.com/
He will sale you a deed to a chunk of moon real estate.
Why is Glenn Reynolds rattling on about some ridiculous liberal myth? And look at that picture, is he really trying to subvert the Defense of Marriage Act?
The moon has *huge* mineral resources in the form of Helium 3 amassed from solar winds, that could fulfill the world's overall energy consumption for a 100 years at least, and whoever would own that source, would basically control the world during that time. NASA and a Russian agency (can't remember which) are competing to enable that exploitation by 2020. And to enable the miners to excavate the helium, they are looking at discoveries such as transforming moon dust into water at 800 degrees Celsius!! All this was detailed in a documentary on ARTE yesterday evening, here in France. So it is much more than $30 an acre, I presume.
If you can get there, stake a plot of land, and defend it against others, it's effectively yours. After a few years, your claim would likely be legally recognized as well.
What people actually mean when they say that they want "property rights" is that they want to divide up the moon among people who then want to lean back and let other people do the hard work of exploring. In fact, that's quite analogous to patents, where people patent an application without implementing anything, and then wait for others to do the hard work. Those kinds of "property rights" don't advance technology, they retard it.
If you don't like the "defending" bit in moon property rights, then maybe we can codify something like: "every person that has resided for 1 year on the moon can claim 100 sq miles as their own" (of course, that land might be traded for the cost of getting to the moon in the first place). But nothing less will do.
Moon already taken long time back by "poets and lovers inc"
and are bitter video gamers go first
Project Earth's political map on to the moon - problem solved :D
Very few of the people interested in "property" on the moon actually have plans to do anything with it. It's like any resource that for the moment appears to be unclaimed or free. People rarely turn down anything that appears to be free or almost free, regardless of whether or not it currently has value. Look at the people selling stars.
The speculators here are only interested in somehow laying claim to land so that they can sell it. I don't recall the principle that was used to populate the US, but wasn't it homestead or something? You were basically given the land but had to develop it for a certain period of time, after which it was yours. That's how any new land should work. You aren't just given it to sell to someone else, you have to put some value INTO it before it's yours to sell.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Yet theft can only occur with something that is subject to property rights, making this argument a perfect circle!
This article is dripping with bullshit neoliberal mythology about the nature of property. Its seen as some kind of holy grail to attract all-powerful capitalist wizards that make things happen.
The fact is, no profit based enterprise has ever sent men beyond sub-orbital hops. Most attempts at private exploration fail hilariously. There is no evidence, beyond the blind faith in the 'invisible hand' that capital can drive space exploration. Even if states are failing, the solution is not to place matters in the hands of corporations who are largely structured in the same way as government agencies and have the added disadvantage of being enslaved to the profit motive.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Let's employ some simple logic here.
Private property is natural. It arises out of necessity, not selfishness. Clearly, private property would exist irrespective of government. Even the Amish practice the basic, self-evident rules of private property. Yes, even with land. This doesn't mean they wage war over land. It simply means that they respect their neighbor's home and farm, and expect to be respected in return.
But, in order to eliminate what comes naturally (private property), you need coercion. Physical force. Guns. Bloodshed. War. Opression.
In order to eliminate private property, you need to bypass morality.
Now, do you honestly not realize that even if you did manage to "eliminate" private property, the result of your plan would be to concentrate that property into the hands of the power elite who control government? You know, the people who employ guns, bloodshed, war, and oppression. The people holding that special "right" to employ physical force as their means.
You see, communism/socialism doesn't truly "eliminate" private property -- it only reduces the number of owners, concentrating the wealth into the hands of the elite few. You can't avoid this, because government by definition requires a special class which holds special rights over the rest. If that class didn't exist, then government couldn't exist.
The one who claims property of the moon must assume responsibilties in case of damagages generated by Moon. As Moon is responsible of level of the seas (when she's close to earth), why not asking them to pay for coast drowned and houses destruction ? Moreover they must be asked to pay annual taxes for this property, but who should get the taxes, UNO ?
y'all can argue about it all you want. meanwhile the chinese are going to BE there, digging, mining, building factories and habitats.
What the fuck?
A Circletimessquare post containing paragraphs? Using capitals? Other punctuation? Linear arguments? No shrill accusations of intellectual dishonesty? No seemingly-random stream-of-consciousness?
Well done kid, you finally grew up.
That's when the guns will come out. At the moment, there's bugger all in the Antartic apart from some interesting science to be done. And that's easy to share.
Am I hearing this right? There are people that actually think we need to divy up planets and objects in space? This has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. First of all let's say the U.S. is given ownership and let's say Russia doesn't like that. We have a war on our hands that could have been avoided if people weren't so damn greedy. Can't we just live in peace and share things?
That's partly the reason we (as a human race) haven't gotten anywhere in space. Everyone is trying to compete against one another and not help each other and pool the resources. Traveling to space should be a joint effort and not one where countries are trying to out do one another.
you will see one of these two:
1. a proper turf war a la the falklands war between nationalist forces. perhaps argentina versus china. it would of course wind up with heavily armed turfs eyeing each other warily, then violent breakouts. something like the spratly islands, our current model of oil-discovery fueled international brinkmanship
2. what you want. which is worse. why? well, if the international community agrees that the oil should be shared, there is still the small problem of who will dig it up. which will of course be outsourced to one of the international oil cartels. go ahead, pick one. bp. shell. exxon. congratulations, you've just made history by reintriducing the dutch east india company unto the world: the corporatocracy, land owned by and administered by a corporation. citizen 1295, you are capital of the corporation to be spent as we command
so perhaps for the moon, the company they pick will be weyland-yutani?
uggh. the future. citizens ruled by corporations. no thanks
give me a proper bloody nationalist chest thumping turf war instead of that any day, please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
are belong to us
The moon is part of the Common Heritage of Mankind.
See
http://www.ciel.org/Publications/olp3iv2.html
There is also a (failed) Moon Treaty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Treaty
However there is a 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space.
Art. II of the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
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Cupidity is the American dream.
Such arrogance. If someone goes up to the moon, or where-ever, and homesteads a plot of land by transforming it, then they own it. Period. This is the only legitimate way that unowned things can come to be owned. Not by legislative decree. I can make a lot of decrees too, so what.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
...if he ever manages to finish writing his name on it.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
This is just socialist crap.
Prior to appropriation (homesteading) of property, it wasn't "owned" by the community at large, unless they had actually worked the land. Walking over it and maybe picking berries once in a while doesn't count. At most, if some group of people have been walking a path, they have an easement right, but not a property rights in it.
But when some smart individual decides to stop living off of what nature gives him, and grow his own food, he clears an area, plants crop, tends to it, grows it. And that plot of land, along with all its produce, is rightfully his property. So what if it was available to all before? They didn't homestead it.
It is only by swallowing the biggest load of a socialist bullshit-sandwich, that you can claim that someone who homesteads land, a "thief".
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You, Americans, have a pretty weak claim on your own country's land (Native American genocide and such), and you expect someone to respect your stupid attempts to exclude others from celestial bodies that you can't even reach?
Seriously, WTF?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Land on the moon, stake a claim on what you perceive to be your territory, be prepared to defend it. Do that, and it's yours.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
... only in the name of money and investing and making a buck?
I think it's paramount that the Moon belongs to all people on earth, equally.
Not to mention, it is total bullshit to say that there is "no change" that is unequivocally an improvement. A person transforming land is obviously transforming it for the better, for their purposes...and most likely the purposes of anyone else too. And to say that the improvements aren't a significant proportion of the value of the underlying land is non-sense. Prior to farming, for example, land can't produce nearly as much food.
It doesn't matter that you didn't "create" the underlying land; you're the first one to homestead it, hence legitimate claim to it. You also didn't "create" your body (your parents did); of course that doesn't mean you don't own yourself, or that your parents own you.
If we never homesteaded any land and exercised property rights in it, we would not have civilization as we now know it; we would have various tribes, nomads roaming across vast swaths of land to find enough food to sustain themselves.
The Spanish "Anarchists" tried your bullshit idea...they executed all of the rulers, and chased those greedy evil capitalist pigs out of Spain. And ya know what happened after they got rid of all the evil capitalist overlords? People wanted to own property, their own property, and land too. Imagine that. So they had to force "anarchist" socialism or syndicalism on them. Go figure.
Absent coercion, in a society that eliminates centralized forms of aggression and theft (e.g., the State), people naturally want to own property, including land. See Ancient Iceland and Ireland.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Methods like homestead act, the land grabs of the late 1800's and such. Squaters rights pretty much.
For that matter I shall claim I personally own the sun and now everyone in the world must pay me a tariff on the light, warmth and energy my sun produces for them.
Without some sort of limit on what we say we own, this is how ridiculously absurd the whole cockup could be.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Let's apply homesteading rules to solar system real-estate. If you live on a piece of land for a year, making improvements (ie: buildings), then you can claim it. Not the whole planet/moon/ring/whatever, just the part that's lived on.
OK OK - there's really no reason to go to the Moon other than to mark it like some pooch making happy with a fire hydrant. But a fella can dream, can't he?
RS
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Why only speak of who owns the moon? What about all the space in between? What about the whole universe?
We are a nest of ants under one paving stone, asking which of us owns the other paving stones.
It's just that simple.
Mod this guy up, as I don't have any more points.
Pure and simple, whoever can say "It's mine", do with it as they wish, and stop others from doing the same.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I dont think it is fair for anyone to actually own the moon. It should be the property of all countries, like antartica. No nuclear activities should be allowed on it. It should be used purely as a research facility. No permenent damage should be done to it (eg: buildings with foundations, mining). Just because the USA were the first to land on it, does not mean that she owns it. We should learn from the mistakes we have made here on earth (deforistation, global warming, wars etc....) and move on.
Right now, lunar land probably has a rental value of pennies per square mile. Have the UN charge that, with competitive bidding available. If someone wants a piece of prime, unimproved real estate rented by someone else, they just bid a higher price.
Add things like paying replacement cost for improvements and charging for any reduction in rent in surrounding property, and you would be all set.
It still amazes me how completely ignorant people can be. Taking ECON101 is a requirement in order to get a Bachelor's degree from any university, but slashdotters are usually to busy hitting the bong and playing WOW, which explains why most of them turn into ignorant and violent communists. All you have to do on this site to get moderated as insightful or interesting is to spew out some Marx or Mao.
There is only one valid and logical claim to property:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_property
Waiting to be modded as a troll...
When the landers landed, it was estimated that the dust that they kicked up, actually, went around the ENTIRE moon. That was because there was no atmosphere and gravity to slow it down. So no, an accident is the last thing that you want up there.
But it really does not matter. There are lava tubes up there, so it is easy enough to bury one or more of these, and then isolate it. If an accident occurs, than all contamination is contained.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
1.Refer to the exhibit
*1786
2.Refer to the exhibit
*An external ospf route will not increment in cost.
3.Refer to the exhibit
What three parameters must be identical?
*area ID, Hello Interval, Network Type
4.What does odpf use to reduce the number of exchanges
*Designated router, backup router.
5.What does ospf use to calculate
*Bandwidth
6.A fully converged 5 router ospf network
*Directly connected networks that are
7.Refer to the exhibit Router A is correctly configured
*B(config-Router)#network 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.3 area 0
8.Refer to the exhbit Which network command or set of commands
*0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
9.What does the 2 stand for in router ospf 2 statement
*The router 2 indentifies a particular
10.Refer to the exhibit
*The highest router ID was most likely
11.Refer to the exhibit
*Router ospf 1
*Router-ID 192.168.1.5
12.Refer to the exhibit
*6
13.What is the default AD for ospf
*110
14.Rfer to the exhibit
*D will remain DR,C will remain BDR
15.refer to the exhibit
*1787
16.What range of networks will be advertised
*192.168.0.0/242.168.15.0/24
17.Network administrator wants to set the router id
*Nothing the router-ID router 1
18.refer to the exhibit when ospf is
*a FULL adjacency is formed
19.Refer to the exhibit
*DR for network 192.168.1.200
*BDR for Network 192.168.1.204
20.Refer to the exhibit
*OSPF Hello or dead timers do not match.
21.Refer to the exhibit
*IP route 0.0.0.0. 0.0.0.0 172.168.6.6
*Router ospf 10
22.Refer to the exhibit
*There is no change in the Dr or Bdr until either current
23.What 2 statements
*Elections are required
*Elections are sometimes
24.Refer to the exhibit
*Router A will be DR
*HQ will be BDR
*Remote will be DR
25.Refer to the exhibit
*Hello packets
In reading over this discussion I really think that very few people consider the realities of doing anything that involves the moon because of it departures from our normal ways of thinking. First of all, space travel is exceeding dangerous and expensive. There have only been a few fatal missions but the number of failures involved in the unmanned space program is great enough to indicate that we can expect a fair number of spectacular and deadly failed launches should more frequent trips to the moon be attempted. We've had a few amateurs go into space but my understanding of space travel is that our bodies simply are not built for the conditions of outerspace. Genetic progression has had billions of years to come up with a physiological form that works well. Changing pressures and gravity don't do good things to the body. Further, the moon is not a nice place. Because of the bombardment of the surface by meteors over the ages, the entire surface is covered in a rather nasty dust. Every point and sharp edge that was created when various materials fractured on impact is still there because no weathering exists so this stuff is abrasive and sharp.
There may end up being something commercial that can be done on the moon whose product can be returned to Earth for outrageous selling prices but the cost to get a fab there is going to be unreal.
Land claims are only as good as your defense.
If you live in a country with enforced land-ownership laws, you can use the courts and ultimately the police to defend your property rights.
If you claim land in a lawless country or on land not controlled by any country, then you'll have to defend it yourself. When someone else comes in with a bigger gun, don't expect anyone to come running to your aid and don't expect any help from the county courthouse.
If you dare to claim land in a place where a major power has declared that nobody can own the land, don't be surprised if that country enforces its declaration and evicts you or, if they are an evil country, simply kills you to set an example.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think this time we should consider the indigenous people of the moon first. They have no land registers and property laws but that does not mean they have no rights to the land! The historical precedence in America and Australia are to bad to repeat.
Darn spell checker. Thats not what I meant.
Low gravity — can't get that here at any cost?.. I can see retirement homes being built there — many people, who are too frail to walk on Earth, will still be comfortably mobile over there.
These will be very luxury at first (20-30 years from now) — just getting the elderly to the Moon safely will be quite a challenge, but, eventually, it will become common place.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Putting up your opinion as a fact. You have made a case that you are a self important idiot, that is all.
Housing is not a right.
Neither is food or water.
Neither is medical care.
These are all things that adult humans have to work for. Children should get theirs via their parents work.
Don't like that fact? Starve on the street for all I care. See if anybody gives you a house.
Otherwise 'Get a Job'. A job isn't a right ether.
Lets list a few real 'rights'.
Free speech...
Self defense...
To own property...
Due process of law...
Note one thing they have in common. They impose no particular burden on others.
Your 'right' to a house turns into somebody else's responsibility to give you one. That is Nonsense.
Recent rewrites of 'human rights' to include the kitchen sink are ludicrous.
The 'right to life' is basic. But it doesn't mean that anybody else has to support you in ANY way. It just means we can't kill you arbitrarily. That is without the same due process required to deprive you of other rights such as property.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I've even got a map around here someplace with an x marking the spot...
The percentage of income in America dedicated to food is absurdly small. When earth was all agrarian societies, it was close to 100%, as people developed tools and skills to trade, that amount has steadly declined. In 2005, Americans spend 9% of their income on food... even with the major run-ups and inflationary pressures, it's maybe 13% or 14%? Before the energy runup, energy usage was down to 4% of income (compared to around 10% or 12% before the oil crisis), which is why the first doubling of energy didn't wipe out economic growth, just cut the economy back by a few percentage points.
Organic is based on the fact that if an "Average American" spends 10% of their income on food, then the yuppies with 4x that income could either spend 2.5% of their income on food, or pay twice as much for "organic" and still only be spending 5% of their income on food.
That said, we have some organic produce in my house... for certain vegetables, they are simply much more flavorful than the regular produce... not because of organic magic, but because the produce doesn't have to be picked as early to be shipped by agribusiness, and therefore is fresher. However, you can't demonstrate "fresher" in the commodity market, but you can demonstrate organic.
But it's definitely WAY less productive... but it's an affordable luxury to an increasingly affluent American upper middle class.
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Seems like Glenn Reynolds is not much of a law Professor. Of course, I wouldn't expect any less from the Neo-Con right, of which Reynolds is a shining example, than to ignore the supreme law of the land in order to make a few bucks.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Remember? http://roboeco.com/
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
So if somebody will die without shelter or food, we refuse to give them either, and they die, did we kill them arbitrarily?
What if the reason that they don't have shelter or food is that individuals with considerably greater resources than they have made the cost of those things higher than they can afford, and refuse to pay them enough to make up the difference?
Just saying "I didn't do it, and I couldn't have fixed it" doesn't relieve you from responsibility for human death and suffering in the name of corporate profit because you DID do it when you agreed that it is okay to place the right to property above all others.
Capitalism was designed to achieve the greatest amount and fairest distribution of goods to everyone. As it turns out, there are some serious oversights to it, and that the greatest amount actually comes at the cost of the fairest distribution. Perhaps communism isn't the answer, but that doesn't mean their isn't a problem. Personally, I'm afraid that if we don't fix what's clearly broken soon that we may have to face the Revolution that Marx spoke of, the one where the underclass (by the way, we really do have one of those) rises up and simply kills their oppressors, and I'm pretty sure I'm not on the underclass side of that equation. I doubt that Utopia will follow from that, but I don't doubt that bloodshed will. This needs to change, and if you oppose that, know that you're only hastening the likelihood of your own violent demise.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Thanks for your opinion. . . for what it's worth. In my estimation, that's not much given your level of argumentation but you're welcome to continue playing. I'm in no hurry.
Let me frame this in another way for you. See, this wholly unrelated side argument, often called a red herring, about rights versus needs is misleading. The topic of this article is about the human relationship to the surface of planetary bodies and, by the extension put forth in the earlier well received comment to which I was initially replying, the right of creatures on those planets including humans to have a place to live.
See, this side argument that you dear debate lovers want to get into is merely a matter of opinion because it's not specific. It's a purely rhetorical debate about opinions on what is right and what is wrong. This is also what is known as a normative debate. You seem to be obsessed with what is right and wrong, but that's not the topic at hand. What we're dealing with here is this thing called an empirical debate: do creatures require a place to live? I have stated that yes, they do and this is a fact that I have presented evidence to prove. Do you have evidence to the contrary to disprove that fact.
That fact, whether land is a basic requirement for animal life, is the topic as the thread has defined it. It's not relevant to discuss your opinion about what defines a right because that's simply your opinion. Let's stick with facts. Do you have facts to the contrary that creatures need a place to live? Go ahead and present them, but don't waste everybody's time getting lost in side arguments about right and wrong. That's just your opinion and your opinion is no better or worse than anybody else's and adds little or nothing to the debate.
So, go ahead and inform us about how the creatures of the Earth and Moon do not need housing. I'm completely fascinated to learn these new facts. Please give specific examples as I have been kind enough to do. You may even notice I was able to give an example including the name of a famous porn star. This is a helpful technique you might try to get extra points from the mods which will then lend authority to your weak red herring arguments.
Also coal and uranium. If it makes a good fuel, Antarctica's got it!
And soon, the real needs of Humanity will outweigh the religious zealotry which has kept Antarctica undeveloped cold and crappy. a proper turf war a la the falklands war between nationalist forces. perhaps argentina versus china. That's funny. Argentina may have claims on Antarctica, but would last about two months against China, and the Chicoms are not nice people like the British: Argentina proper will end up Chinese territory if they dare challenge China over something vital as oil. small problem of who will dig it up. which will of course be outsourced to one of the international oil cartels. go ahead, pick one. bp. shell. exxon. Likely each section of the oilfields will be leased to the company or combination of companies best able to produce that particular section. They often prove their intent by outbidding their competitors.
If you think these companies are cartels, you can buy a piece of the action. If you think they misbehave, you can buy shares and vote to correct them.
Which is much, much better than dealing with a real fucking cartel, OPEC, which is aligned with questionable and even downright evil governments like Iran and Venezuela. uggh. the future. citizens ruled by corporations. no thanks Typical.
The same type of people who owned land on Earth during the Frontier days. Whoever got their first that had the biggest guns, or had someone with big guns backing them. The schmoes down here can waste the money on all the moon land they want, but if China plops a moon base on it what are they going to do then?
"Hey thanks my land!"
"OK. Come and claim it"
The battle for moon real estate will be between countries. Individuals are totally out of the picture, at least within our lifetimes.
-R
No one...
Do you want to own the moon? simple:
1) go there
2) claim you own it
3) take some guns to defend your new property investment
3.1) (if you find oil, tell no one)
4) if someone comes and tries to take it, use guns
5) if they have bigger guns, they now own it
6) go to next nearest planet or moon and repeat.
i believe this is roughly how earth was conquered.
The moon belongs to Canada. We won it from the Russians in the '72 Summit Series. I have no idea how they got it from the Americans.
Do people require a place to live?
Everybody is somewhere at any given time. That's obvious and trivial. They don't need a home. Most would like one.
Thinking that allows someone to just take land owned by someone else is simply nonsense. Those people will run up against the current owners property rights (and weapons).
You want to take a fact that living people are someplace and turn it into a requirement that people be given a place to live.
Quit trying to move the goal posts. You claim the 'a place to live' is a right (your opinion). You should study more history.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So if somebody will die without shelter or food, we refuse to give them either, and they die, did we kill them arbitrarily?
WE didn't kill them at all.
Their incompetence at life lead them to a bad end.
All other rights rest on property rights, property rights are primary.
If 'they' can arbitrarily take away your property then your other rights mean nothing.
And capitalism was never 'designed to to achieve the greatest amount and fairest distribution of goods to everyone.'
That is not even a desirable outcome. Why should the slack jaw, no effort people come out even?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Is a space real estate with very good value. It is a little more than a volume of space as emission rights come with them.
The International Telecommunication Union manage the satellites. http://www.itu.int/net/about/index.aspx. Some states may reserve the usage of some slot but they have to use the frequency not to block other nation to use it. e.g. even they were very late in thei rproject, the Gallileo project had to launch test satelite to use the frequence at a certain date or they would have lost the frequency.
If you were just selling the frequency, some big pocket state/people would buy them and would not have anymore money left to use the frequency. 3G in europe anyone?
When we will have commercial space flight and I talk here real space flight (reaching LEO orbit) then we may need a body like that for the moon. Up to then, any development will be centered on a few location choosen by the big space agencies who will ibnstall the basic infrastructure like an 'oxygen extraction plan'.
PS: If you could buy the moon! who would collect the money? To do what?
The UN to help poor countries go to the moon?
...i claim mare imbrium!..
So if the moon landings were faked, why did they keep going back up over and over and over after people mostly stopped paying attention? NASA fed in-flight programming of Apollo 13 to all 3 TV networks and it was politely ignored (of course, shortly afterwards shit went sour and suddenly it was news again). This after only having landed there twice before (though there were also two non-landing lunar orbit manned missions before Apollo 11).
I just don't see how the same administration that couldn't keep Watergate hushed up could at the same time fake something so momentous and public and that involved so many people, and successfully keep the secret for, what, just shy of 40 years now? It's just far more likely that it really did happen.
Self defense...
To own property...
Due process of law...
Note one thing they have in common. They impose no particular burden on others. You got to be kidding. If you own all the land around me, let it lie idle and do not let me use it to save myself from starvation, you do not burden me? Am I able to exercise the right to free speech on your private property, when any place I go it is your private property?
You've got legs.
Next crazy hypothetical please.
Suggesting a monopoly on land ownership is silly.
Where do you think this situation exists?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
He argues that property derives from labor. For example, fruit that falls to the ground belongs to no one. If you come and pick it up, you are performing labor and so it belongs to you.
So until someone actually goes to the moon and does something to improve on its natural state, they have no claim to property rights. If someone goes to the moon and creates a base and roads or mines for instance, they would have a good argument in my book for owning that property. Also it makes sense that they could not just go and claim the southern hemisphere for instance, only the area which they could improve.
Oh man, that's better than trading carbon credits here on Earth! I'm rich! I'm rich! I'm a happy Viser.
You're catching on. You are correct. It is my opinion that a home is a human right and you disagree with that opinion. Great, we're one-for-one on that regard. And neither of us has convinced the other to change their opinions on this point. Isn't that great how everybody can have their own opinion.
Now, in addition, you have agreed with me that all creatures do require a place to live.
Great. We agree on the facts and the facts are that all the creatures on the planet Earth and in the future any creatures lucky enough to live on the surface of the moon do require a place to live.
We both agree that this is a fact. For me, this is a satisfactory resolution. At least I have convinced you to state publicly that all creatures do require a place to live. I will take that as a personal victory and enjoy it because in my opinion that is good enough.
I hope that someday you will be wise enough to realize that this is not, as you have stated, a trivial fact.
I've heard it several times before and it's always seemed to have some obvious failings to me.
Logical
If property rights are stipulated to not exist, then how can they be based on theft? The slogan "property rights are theft" has always struck me as as begging the question. If no one owns something, how can it be stealing to take it?
There was a time before property rights
True, just as all life today has its roots in death. Nothing today has existed before exactly as it does now. In cultures and religions this common conundrum is the basis for origin myths. Why should property rights be held to a more perfectly static standard?
Land cannot be created
Farmable land--true. Livable land--not true. Any time a building with more than one story is built, the livable "land" is increased. For example the Sears Tower has somewhere on the order of 50 times the livable surface that its footprint covers. That is clearly a benefit to everyone since it increases a needed resource, which is clearly reflected in the real estate value. The acres of land under the Sears Tower are many multiples less valuable by themselves than the aggregate of all the real estate values throughout the tower.
Property rights lead to violence and inequality
Property rights are generally non-existent among animals, yet there is plenty of violence and inequality. In this case I think people mistake correlation for causation.
Property rights are unfair
Fairness is at least as fantastic a human invention as property rights. In nature red in tooth and claw, nothing is owed to anyone. The best we can get is opportunity. A plant whose seed lands in fertile soil has only an opportunity to grow, be healthy, and reproduce--not a right. Within structured human societies, private ownership provides the best opportunity for an individual.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Such change is unequivocally an improvement to the person that made it. And the second statement is outright wrong. The value of land to human society is almost completely dependent on what you can put on it or extract from it. I don't care to discuss the rest of your argument except to note that this sort of error is typical when the foundations of the argument are deeply flawed.
While it's true that it belongs to whoever is willing to and can defend it, that's not exactly the most preferred way to settle a property dispute, especially not lately. Also, generally you make the assumption that the value of the land, whether economic or symbolic, is worth more than the cost of the war. It hasn't even been shown that the cost of just getting to the moon is worthwhile, much less fighting over it.
A more sensible proposition is whoever can utilize the property is the rightful owner. Of course, this gets competitive and could easily still lead to conflict, but at least it's not initially predicated on conflict.
One of the important things to remember in the absence of a lunar authority backed up by force is that there are still earthly authorities backed up by force. Conflicts between parties from the same political entity on earth can be judged under their laws, or the parties involved risk losing rights on earth. Conflicts between parties from different political entities on earth can negotiate compromises. They don't necessarily have to, but if they don't they risk the conflict in space working its way back to earth.
All you have to do is deny supplies and any moonbase will die.
Deleted
Don't think it will hold up in court, but the company does have an interesting view on why it should.
My wife and I are looking forward to retiring there on our nice acre of lunar land.
www.lunarembassy.com
Nobody.
Seriously, the notion that land can be owned is ridiculous.
Now get off my lawn.
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
> Who'd hate to see the moon mined for He3. We're already wrecking a planet, we should have learned something from that.
The moon is dead. It has no life and there's no evidence it ever did. There's no environment there for us to wreck.
Just can't resist to comment on this, but on 1953 a Chilean citizen called Jenaro Gajardo Vera register it, and even U.S.A. president Richard Nixon , request autorization to land on that satelite. if you ask if he had paid land taxes, the answer is no, why, he always said "ok, go over there, measure it, and when you had the exact size, i will pay" ;)
some links
http://chilefriki.blogspot.com/2006/05/el-dueo-de-la-luna.html
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Despropositario/Due%C3%B1o_de_la_Luna
here are a link in english
http://www.lunarregistry.com/info/embassy.shtml
Sorry if someone already post it, but...
Royce: That's the miracle of the franchise. You get all the equipment
and know-how you need, plus a familiar brand-name people trust.
You'll be on a rocket-ride to the moon! And while you're there,
would you pick up some of that nice, green moon money for me --
Royce McCutcheon!
Homer: No deal, McCutcheon, that moon money is mine!
One of the useful idiots who backs the Republicans' plans while pretending to be a libertarian.
But the point is that responsibility is a limitation of freedom; and freedom is touted as the sufficient and necessary requirement for capitalism.
And the basic assumption behind capitalism is that growth is always possible, always right; responsibility, on the other hand, says that there must be a limit, that we can't just spend all the resources and move on. Which goes against consumerism as well - we can't simply keep spending more and more, because we can't keep creating more and more 'value'. What we take away is gone, basically.
All the rights you mentioned require organized, collective and cooperative effort to enforce, just like the ones you derided.
You need someone to protect your right to free speech, and to protect your property and ensure that others recognize it. You need someone to ensure your due process of law and carry it out.
Health care, food, water, and housing are the same way. You might feel that people aren't entitled to them, but that doesn't make them totally alien from your "real rights".
There are no rights that don't impose a burden on society.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.