More delusional non-sequiturs. "The right to property is the right to life." What utter hogwash. And then you have the audacity to bring in anti-slavery arguments to support your position. The ownership of other people has always been the ultimate capitalist transaction, fiercely defended by the original Cato institution in Rome, all the way to the powdered wig and silk stocking patriots in the American colonies, and disguised today as wage slavery and a variety of financial prisons and paper chains and bullwhips.

And land, who owns land? Who made land? What gives anyone the right to own land? Oh sure, you can buy and sell it, but who gave someone the right to be the first owner? The buying and selling of land may be carefully regulated, but its acquisition is based on violence, someone either took it from someone else, or they moved in and fortified it and prevented others from using it. Once again, those freedom-loving patriots with their knee breeches and buckle shoes: take the land from the savages (who don't know how to derive benefit from it) and bring in Africans to work it. My goodness, what proud philosophical forebears your libertarian principles spring from.

What about all the land we stole from the Mexicans, which they stole from the Indians, who stole it from each other? I realize we're stuck with the system we have now and have little choice but to legitimize it with law and custom, we can't go back to the stone age. But spare me the flags and the fifes and drums, and all the Victorian hypocrisy as well. Ownership of land is based on blood and violence and suffering. It always has been. Its the arrangement we're stuck with, not a gift from God.

The system of ownership we have today evolved from historical necessity and blind chance, it has nothing to do with principle, it isn't even all that old, it was the final compromise that resulted from centuries of struggle and war and, yes, revolution. Everything else has been created from scratch, by men working, not by owners owning.

Land ownership was always the prerogative of nobility. It wasn't until just a few hundred years ago that people who weren't aristocrats could even own land, and in 18th century America you couldn't even vote unless you owned property. No wonder you're always sucking up to the founding fathers. You really DO want to go back there.

Ownership of land is a relatively recent historical mechanism by which the middle classes eventually defeated the aristocracy, and when it is was introduced it was resisted as violently by the conservatives of that time as today's conservatives resist any threat to their hegemony.

And then comes the usual TB bleat about how everybody is out to loot his pile. Pal, I don't want any of your stuff. It turns out I'm doing quite well without you. But if you don't pay your mortgage, you'll find your "property" is forfeit just like if you don't pay your taxes. It's OK for some private outfit to throw your butt on the street if you don't make a payment, but the government can't do it? Tell me, how do you tell the difference? In either case, you have traded your ownership for some presumed benefit, whether it be government services, or a loan that allows you to move into your "property" before you really own it. We fought the British because we rejected taxation without representation, not because we rejected taxation.

Do you really think I like paying taxes? Do you imagine I enjoy giving my money away to the government any more than you do? Do you really think liberals are that stupid? Or did it occur to you that maybe they're just smart enough to realize nothing is free in a world dominated by owners. We live in a community, you may fancy yourself as a free-ranging Steppenwolf, but you're just a herbivore like the rest of us.

You see, Tom, we all pay our betters for the privilege of living on this planet. We pay through the nose. And it doesn't matter who we pay, we still pay. There is no difference between government and business. In both cases, we are engaged in transactions with them. The difference between you and me is I never saw myself as someone who's paying who deserves to be collecting. At least, the government repo man can be voted out of office, or dragged to the guillotine. The smiling creep in the business suit not only has his hand in your pocket, he expects you to kiss his ass, too, because you should be grateful for your freedom to be a capitalist just like him when you grow up.

"A right to loot but no right to property". What bilge. You have what right the MAN lets you have. Period. And those rights have been paid for on the picket line, and on strike, not by a bunch of 18th century rich planters and Gilded Age robber barons. You work here just like I do, you better get used to it. You're not a freeholder, or a capitalist, or a businessman, or self-employed; you're an employee. That is, if they need you.