What limits would you place on freedom?

[amicus]

Private Property...as a definition, is a relatively new concept in human history.

In Europe and most of the rest of the world, land belonged to the King or the Church or by those given land grants by the King or the Church. While 'custodial care' of that land could be inherited and passed on, it could not transfer without the approval of the powers that were.

The most fundamental aspect in thinking about 'private property' is the absolute ownership of ones own body. While it seems unthnkable that someone else might 'own' your body, that is precisely what 'slavery' was and was also the position of most nations prior to the United States. Your life, your body, was a property of the 'state' to dispose of. (The post above this implied the same)

"I think its prefectly reasonable for a clear and significant public good to sometimes mitigate individual property rights"

Aside from the actual physical body that you 'own' as property, it logically follows that is this is so, then so must be the means of 'survival' of that body, i.e, food, shelter, clothing and other necessities.

Those needs also become objects of 'private property' things which you own and can consume or dispose of as you see fit.

The quibbles over whom should determine what one does with a book or a painting or even an historical building, is easily solved if one views the right to 'own' property, private property, as a protected 'right' under a constitution.

We either have one, or we do not.

Property rights have become vastly more complex with a larger population and a finite amount of available land.

As several suggest, to protect a valuable object, book, painting or building, you can advocate the use of force by government, by the greater good, and replace private values by public ones. That is called Socialism. Last time I looked, we did not live under that system.

Air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, any infringement upon the property rights at the end of the other persons nose, can be adjudicated in a court of law if the laws of ownership and responsibility are clearly spelled out and not abrogaged by a need to violate some rights for the greater good of others.

Complexities abound, there are even 'sunshine rights' where in one may not build a structure the interferes with the natural sunlight on an adjacent property.

Individual rights and property rights, as one cannot exist without the other, are very similar in nature.

Again it relates to that basic premise, "...We hold these truths to be self evident..." Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit..."

I find the weekly sayings on a church signboard objectionable to my eyes as I pass by. I merely avert my eyes. I did however, petition to have the bells silenced.

amicus...

 

[shereads]

Poor people have their property expropriated in the name of eminent domain all of the time. Buildings are declared historical landmarks thereafter restricting what "improvements" or uses the property can be subjected to. I have much more of a problem with the former than the latter as this is usually at the behest of some private enterprise. As long as the expropriation is not from one private owner to another rich influencial private owner (as the Michigan Supreme Court recently addressed) I think its prefectly reasonable for a clear and significant public good to sometimes mitigate individual property rights.

Thank you. I wanted to say something about eminent domain but I couldn't think if the words. I also wanted to use a cool word, like 'mitigate.' But I couldn't think of one of those, either.

I agree. Private property is purchased at whatever the gov't determines to be fair market value all the time, when the "public good" means that a freeway overpass needs to be build through the center of whichever inner city neighborhood has the poorest representation on the city commission. It can't be less important to preserve than it is to tear down and pave over, can it?

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Yeah, Christians historically have been both literature and art's greatest enemies.

Having a formal education in religious history, I would have to disagree. Catholicism was a great encourager of both literature and art, certainly during the Renaissance and the Horum period.

 

[shereads]

Not sure if anyone is familar with this, but this thread reminded me of a book I read called Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey. It's a polemic book, and some would say a bit extreme. Some of what he writes I agree with, some I don't. One of the things he goes into is the building of the Glenn Canyon Dam, and what was destroyed when the canyon got flooded: namely native American pictographs and petroglyphs, ruins of earlier civilizations, not to mention all the flora and fauna. Interesting read.

Of course the dam was built in the name of progress -but much was lost in its building.

Dams are always in the name of progress, as are six-lane freeways. And progress typically seems to be defined as replacing something that seems useless, if pretty, with something made of concrete. Progress was the motive for the draining of the Everglades by the Army Corps of Engineers. Decades too late, we discover that we've destroyed the eco-system that created the need for farmland to be drained in the first place. We've altered the weather patterns in South Florida, and can no longer provide clean drinking water for all the people who were encouraged to move here by the aforementioned progress. Commercial fishermen and the scuba diving industry and the tourist industry - the one industry that the economy is most dependent upon - are now endangered by beach closures due to sewage contamination, and coral reefs smothered by the algae that thrives on fertilizer run-off from the land, and seafood populations suffering from an imbalance of fresh and salt water in Florida Bay, the enormous, shallow-water "nursery" for lobster and stone crabs and juvenile fish of all kinds that is south of the Everglades, at the bottom of what used to be a seasonal cycle of freshwater infusion.

We used to believe- and too many of us still do - that we were smarter than nature and separate from it. Now we're trying and failing to put the Everglades back as they were, and we don't have a clue how to re-make what made South Florida an appealing place to begin with. You don't have to be a tree-hugger to respect the wisdom of proceeding with caution before destroying what can't be replaced. In the case of the Everglades, it was discovered too late that the shallow pan of fresh water, moving imperceptibly toward the sea from halfway up the state, was a weather-making and water desalinization machine of incredible intricacy.

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

Having a formal education in religious history, I would have to disagree. Catholicism was a great encourager of both literature and art, certainly during the Renaissance and the Horum period.

You're right. Catholicism was a great encourager of both litertature and art that supported their beliefs but not those of pagans or other religions. Those were destroyed. Due to that ownership of conqueoring we've lost alot of art, literature and knowledge.

Perhaps laws can be enacted to protect historical property, outstanding works of art and literature. But who would make those decisions? Who will influence what our children see, read and hear of our history?

Interesting subject. But the first step is talking about it. Of course to history goes the conqueors.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Having a formal education in religious history, I would have to disagree. Catholicism was a great encourager of both literature and art, certainly during the Renaissance and the Horum period.

Of a sort yes. But with heavy caveats.

I meant it in the terms of overall books and libraries burned, temples razed, artifacts melted down and the constant censorship of most non-religious works. In these fields, they had a good lead on many.

The Inquisition and the purging of the vast wealth of knowledge and literature from the "Pagan" Hellenics by the Holy Roman Empire cost the world much. Publishing Dante's Divine Comedy and supporting the work of some gay neoclassicists does not make it up to the world in my eyes. Especially since many of these artists had to be very very careful about what they did.

Anyway, I fear this may be one place where we amicably agree to disagree.

 

[shereads]

Having a formal education in religious history, I would have to disagree. Catholicism was a great encourager of both literature and art, certainly during the Renaissance and the Horum period.

That's true, and we still haven't thanked the Church for saving us from the witches and the Jews!



Sorry, Joe. Couldn't resist the cheap shot. You're right about the Church having inspired and funded an enormous amount of art. The Vatican Museum website has gorgeous examples of illuminated manuscripts, if you're interested.

Of course it's also true that the art and architecture of earlier religions was destroyed where the Church was able to reach. Entire ancient libraries were destroyed because they contained ideas that were counter to what the Church thought it was useful for the rest of us to know.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

You're right. Catholicism was a great encourager of both litertature and art that supported their beliefs but not those of pagans or other religions. Those were destroyed. Due to that ownership of conqueoring we've lost alot of art, literature and knowledge.

Perhaps laws can be enacted to protect historical property, outstanding works of art and literature. But who would make those decisions? Who will influence what our children see, read and hear of our history?

Interesting subject. But the first step is talking about it. Of course to history goes the conqueors.

I think mostly we need to try and keep the works as long as we can in the hands of those that love them. And hope that some moneyed moron or some war doesn't come by and destroy them. (By in the hands of those who love, I'm talking about historical preservation societies, historically respectful governments, and museums)

Aye, it's hard to dictate what is the great literature and what art is worth seeing. The main thing is to keep it all alive to be seen. I'll never forget walking the Impressionist museum L'Orangerie in Paris. Or reading a Sophocles play for the first time. Or the first time I opened a book of old myths.

At the same time, I remember all I'll never see or will unlikely see unless I get very lucky.

It's also probably a good thing the web exists so that even if morons destroy something beautiful, at least we'll have a dead link to a place that had bad pictures of a virtual representation of the real thing. (i'm being tongue-in-cheek here)

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Oh, I'll never assert that the Church hasn't hurt the arts at times. But I cannot support or encourage the assertion of "Christianity is Art's greatest enemy". Notably, because its just not true.

Strictly speaking, perhaps "censorship" (which has been practiced by thousands of organizations, gorvernments, and agencies to varying degrees) is the "greatest enemy". Perhaps "cultural stasis" is the "greatest enemy". But, no, Christianity is hardly the big bad monster holding art back for ages.

I mean, c'mon...

What about Pol Pot? He had artists, intellectuals, and anyone with interest beyong strictly agrarian goals shot. Art was burned. Regardless of like or dislike. How is Christianity a greater enemy to the arts than that?

 

[shereads]

Amicus, the questions cannot be "quibbles" if it's impossible for even you to answer them. You seem to be saying that the courts should settle issues like pollution - provided that the courts do so with an understanding that a property owner's rights are absolute only until they interfere with another's property rights. How you establish ownership of the air you breathe is one question; an even more troubling question is, under your system each individual "owner" of a body of water that's no longer drinkable, or air that gives his children athsma, must go to court to prove his case, and must not only prove that the air is poisoned but must also single out one or more individual owners of factories or other sources as the pollutor who caused his particular problem. Otherwise, there would need to be a set of enforceable standards to prevent such things from happening in the first place. There would be regulations. And we'd be back to where we are now.

Most troublesome of all is that the less affluent would always be at the mercy of those with the wealth and power to influence the courts. Unless you're suggesting that public money be used to provide the poor property owner with legal representation qeual to his wealthy opponent?

Call these quibbles, but that doesn't mean you have a better way. it just means you're unable to navigate the grey areas.

Private Property...as a definition, is a relatively new concept in human history.

In Europe and most of the rest of the world, land belonged to the King or the Church or by those given land grants by the King or the Church. While 'custodial care' of that land could be inherited and passed on, it could not transfer without the approval of the powers that were.

The most fundamental aspect in thinking about 'private property' is the absolute ownership of ones own body. While it seems unthnkable that someone else might 'own' your body, that is precisely what 'slavery' was and was also the position of most nations prior to the United States. Your life, your body, was a property of the 'state' to dispose of. (The post above this implied the same)

"I think its prefectly reasonable for a clear and significant public good to sometimes mitigate individual property rights"

Aside from the actual physical body that you 'own' as property, it logically follows that is this is so, then so must be the means of 'survival' of that body, i.e, food, shelter, clothing and other necessities.

Those needs also become objects of 'private property' things which you own and can consume or dispose of as you see fit.

The quibbles over whom should determine what one does with a book or a painting or even an historical building, is easily solved if one views the right to 'own' property, private property, as a protected 'right' under a constitution.

We either have one, or we do not.

Property rights have become vastly more complex with a larger population and a finite amount of available land.

As several suggest, to protect a valuable object, book, painting or building, you can advocate the use of force by government, by the greater good, and replace private values by public ones. That is called Socialism. Last time I looked, we did not live under that system.

Air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, any infringement upon the property rights at the end of the other persons nose, can be adjudicated in a court of law if the laws of ownership and responsibility are clearly spelled out and not abrogaged by a need to violate some rights for the greater good of others.

Complexities abound, there are even 'sunshine rights' where in one may not build a structure the interferes with the natural sunlight on an adjacent property.

Individual rights and property rights, as one cannot exist without the other, are very similar in nature.

Again it relates to that basic premise, "...We hold these truths to be self evident..." Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit..."

I find the weekly sayings on a church signboard objectionable to my eyes as I pass by. I merely avert my eyes. I did however, petition to have the bells silenced.

amicus...

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Oh, I'll never assert that the Church hasn't hurt the arts at times. But I cannot support or encourage the assertion of "Christianity is Art's greatest enemy". Notably, because its just not true.

Strictly speaking, perhaps "censorship" (which has been practiced by thousands of organizations, gorvernments, and agencies to varying degrees) is the "greatest enemy". Perhaps "cultural stasis" is the "greatest enemy". But, no, Christianity is hardly the big bad monster holding art back for ages.

I mean, c'mon...

What about Pol Pot? He had artists, intellectuals, and anyone with interest beyong strictly agrarian goals shot. Art was burned. Regardless of like or dislike. How is Christianity a greater enemy to the arts than that?

Fair deal.

Allow me to change my assertation:

"Censorship and Fanatical Power-hungry Fanatics Wielding Way More Power Than Is Good For Them are art and literature's greatest enemies. Oh and nazis too. I hate nazis." (Ending statement credit given to Indiana Jones)

I still ascertain that the Catholic Church, as they ruled from the Holy Roman Empire to the days of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, was a fuck. Slightly more a fuck than Pol Pot and Mao's Cultural Revolution(oh and they're both fucks believe you me), because they lasted so damn long. And plus how can a science minded man get over the Inquisition. <shudder>

Allow me to quote Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: "That Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo."

 

[shereads]

It's not property rights that come into play there. A river moving through your land isn't yours, so you can't do things like that to it. I've lived in several places where incinerators were within a good home run of, if not playgrounds, places where children hung out and played or just passed the time of day.

In both situations, the regulations dealing with public health and safety trump your rights to do with your property as you see fit. If you could show that you had them securely stored away with no chance of leeching into ground water or irradiating the local surroundings, I wouldn't have a problem with a company stashing its toxic waste in a warehouse sitting between a preschool and a hospital. It's not the polluntants that make the problem...and have made problems throughout parts of this country...but the businesses that become polluters and think it's fine because it's their property, without taking into consideration the affect their land has on the land around it.

If the river isn't my property, the land on each side of the river is. i don't have to dump directly into the river to pollute it. I only have to store waste carelessly, as is my right - until those regulations come into play, in which case you're admitting that there is a greater public good.

Why does the greater good not come into play when the thing being contaminated is the scenery we look at every day? Or the art and artifacts and architecture that tell the story of our shared history?

Ever notice the difference between driving on the Florida turnpike and on a highway in Vermont or another state that regulates billboards? Those billboards are on private land, leased at a profit to the billboard company. If you've been in states that don't allow that kind of visual pollution of the environment, you know this is a quality-of-life issue that has a dramatic impact.

I have a relative who is a staunch anti-regulation conservative Republican. He delivers stern lectures about the abuses of private property rights by the environmental lobby - while sittiing on the deck of his home, which is surrounded on two sides by state-owned nature preserves that have been defended in court by the Sierra Club. He chose the neighborhood where he built his home because the presence of these beautiful nature preserves not only makes life more pleasant, but protects the value of his land. Without the preserves in public trust, he might someday face the intrusion of unlovely neighbors, like suburban tract houses or a shopping mall. Do you love the irony?

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

Oh, I'll never assert that the Church hasn't hurt the arts at times. But I cannot support or encourage the assertion of "Christianity is Art's greatest enemy". Notably, because its just not true.

Strictly speaking, perhaps "censorship" (which has been practiced by thousands of organizations, gorvernments, and agencies to varying degrees) is the "greatest enemy". Perhaps "cultural stasis" is the "greatest enemy". But, no, Christianity is hardly the big bad monster holding art back for ages.

I mean, c'mon...

What about Pol Pot? He had artists, intellectuals, and anyone with interest beyong strictly agrarian goals shot. Art was burned. Regardless of like or dislike. How is Christianity a greater enemy to the arts than that?

Pol Pot? One man in one country at one time in history. The Church? Many men, throughout the span of history placing their influence and destruction on arts, literature and science.

 

[shereads]

Yes, Pol Pot was a badass. So was Torquemada. Zealots of every stripe have historically done more harm than good.

 

[Guest]

Aside from what the Spanish and their ilk did in the Americas I have no idea what else was lost art-wise in what we think of as western culture, but I simply have to be grateful to 'the church' for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, the mystery plays which led to modern drama, the musical roots that led to opera, and Giotto and all who followed him until the church left off sponsoring artists. I don't see what good it might do to build a pie-chart trying to balance all this art against what was lost, and I've hardly skimmed the arts the RCC promulgated. Then there's China's "cultural" revolution.

Perdita

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Aside from what the Spanish and their ilk did in the Americas I have no idea what else was lost art-wise in what we think of as western culture, but I simply have to be grateful to 'the church' for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, the mystery plays which led to modern drama, the musical roots that led to opera, and Giotto and all who followed him until the church left off sponsoring artists. I don't see what good it might do to build a pie-chart trying to balance all this art against what was lost, and I've hardly skimmed the arts the RCC promulgated. Then there's China's "cultural" revolution.

Perdita

Um...musical roots, drama, etc. all originally came from the Hellenics whom the Holy Roman Empire tried to obliterate.

But it's okay, the Hellenics only get passing nods when people start talking philosophy and that whole democracy thing.

 

[rgraham666]

My limits to freedom are defined by that simple thought I try to keep in mind all the time: there's enough pain in the universe without me adding to the sum total.

 

[Guest]

Um...musical roots, drama, etc. all originally came from the Hellenics whom the Holy Roman Empire tried to obliterate.
But it's okay, the Hellenics only get passing nods when people start talking philosophy and that whole democracy thing.

No, it was the mystery plays that produced Shakespeare, not the Greeks. We all know of the ancient Greek tragedies and comedies, but it was the church that introduced popular drama to Europe. Just look at the centuries between the two eras.

The church did not intend to inspire artists to do more than educate the peasantry in its history and tenets but that's beside the point now.

Perdita

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

No, it was the mystery plays that produced Shakespeare, not the Greeks. We all know of the ancient Greek tragedies and comedies, but it was the church that introduced popular drama to Europe. Just look at the centuries between the two eras.

The church did not intend to inspire artists to do more than educate the peasantry in its history and tenets but that's beside the point now.

Perdita

Yes, there is a big reason for that giant gap. It could also be called, CHURCH DESTROYED AND THEN HOARDED THE HELLENIC TEXTS.

Hell, most of the so-called progress was reclaiming shit from the Church in the form of books or two that suddenly told people "hey, it's not humors that are killing us" or "huh, we can think for ourselves" or "hey, this design for a navigation tool would really help to stop our ships being forever lost in the big ocean."

I mean can you really imagine a world without Socrates, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Sophocles, and the thousand of other Hellenic artists and intellectuals who invented much of what has defined Western society?

It took ages for these texts to be released. Hell, just look at the rampant Greek terms and styles used by Shakespeare. His modifications to the twin forms of tragedy and comedy. His outright use of Greek myths (Romeo and Juliet is stolen and modernized from an old greek myth). The greek roots are not only obvious but glaring.

Besides, even without all that, Greeks were the first to tame theatre and give it the form it has followed to this day.

 

[Guest]

I mean can you really imagine a world without Socrates, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Sophocles, and the thousand of other Hellenic artists and intellectuals who invented much of what has defined Western society?
...
Besides, even without all that, Greeks were the first to tame theatre and give it the form it has followed to this day.

Jeezus, LC, I never asked anyone to imagine a world w/o the Greeks. I know all the primary texts Shakespeare used (or might have heard of) but what he produced went beyond the old forms. I can't believe you think you have the secret to what happened in the Dark Ages.

I'm more convinced now you're too fundamentalist to discuss something with let alone debate. Take care. P.

 

[shereads]

My limits to freedom are defined by that simple thought I try to keep in mind all the time: there's enough pain in the universe without me adding to the sum total.

As always, you say so much with so few words. Thank you, RG.

I'm a big believer in exploring the grey areas between absolute right and absolute wrong. But my own life philosophy is similar to yours. I'm not likely to leave the world better off than when I got here, but I'd like to leave it knowing that I did as little damage as possible. It doesn't sound very ambitous, but it's difficult. I can't imagine wanting more power than that.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Jeezus, LC, I never asked anyone to imagine a world w/o the Greeks. I know all the primary texts Shakespeare used (or might have heard of) but what he produced went beyond the old forms. I can't believe you think you have the secret to what happened in the Dark Ages.

I'm more convinced now you're too fundamentalist to discuss something with let alone debate. Take care. P.

Okay, we're shooting right past each other, so let me reign in a little here.

I'm not saying Shakespeare's works on the old forms was not valuable, far from it. Only that the original format and some of the stories were taken directly from the Hellenic sources. Shakespeare did amazing things with tragedy and comedy, not least of which was his poignant mixture of the two. His bringing of tragic moments at the darkest point of his comedies or his light hearted characters in his darkest tragedies. Believe me, as much as you would not dream of a world without the Hellenics, I'd not dream of a world without Shakespeare and Marlowe.

As far as the Dark Ages, some might say I had intimate knowledge of what occured.

The Church did commission some nice revivals of old Greek styles and traditions, but they wouldn't of had to if they hadn't destroyed those same styles and traditions before that.

If this is still too fundy for you, c'est la vie.

 

[McKenna]

~snip~ You don't have to be a tree-hugger to respect the wisdom of proceeding with caution before destroying what can't be replaced. In the case of the Everglades, it was discovered too late that the shallow pan of fresh water, moving imperceptibly toward the sea from halfway up the state, was a weather-making and water desalinization machine of incredible intricacy.

Agreed. One of the other things that came to mind with the flooding of Glenn Canyon was some of the natural geological phenomena that were lost. One was a natural bridge like those in Arches Nat'l Park -now buried under gallons of water.

As I understand it, though, Glenn Canyon Dam provides electricity for much of Arizon and California; without it, there'd be a lot of folks without power.

In this case, does the end justify the means?

Personally, I still say "no." Surely there could have been something more ecologically friendly to try? Solar power? Windmills? Something besides destroying one of Earth's most beautiful canyons -(not to mention Native American history?)

 

[shereads]

I know it seems as if there should always be cheap energy sources for as many people as want to live someplace, but it seems as if the more we build, the faster it's used up.

Every year it seems there's new construction on I-95. How many lanes can a freeway have? Should we just pave the peninsula, paint some stripes and get it over with?

Local government wants more people to move here, and new housing and power plants and freeways to attract them, not just because the developers are major campaign contributors, but because new people moving into the area broadens the tax base, and more taxes give the politicians more to play with.

Every filled wetland and zoning variance is sold to the public as a boon to the local economy - yet we never see any improvements in the quality of life. Instead, the money from newcomers doesn't even cover the cost of accommodating them; we all end up having to pay more for new schools, new sewage treatment plants, flood control - and rebuilding when it fails - in suburban neighborhoods build on filled wetlands that will flood every time there's a wet summer. Gridlock gets worse every day; no matter how many lanes and freeway extensions are added, it's never enough.

I know people have to live somewhere. But why encourage people to move to the places that can least support more development, where fresh water and a lack of space are issues that only get worse?

 

[amicus]

The greatest destruction of the products of the mind of man and the inhibition and prohibition of his thoughts and works, was brought about by those who promolgate the christian religion.

Quibbles, eh? Choose another word then. The criminality of some men notwithstanding, a clear codification of individual property rights and the best legal system we fallible humans can administer is not only the best means of protecting rights and property, it is the only means.

Name one tyranny that has done better.

We humans do learn by trial and error. Any large project, highway system, flood control or hydroelectric dam, intended at the outsef to do good, oftimes has unforesee side and collateral effects that few could predict.

So we are humans, sue us.

amicus...