Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Property Rights Blues

"The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not."

That quote is from Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, a book which the judges who sit on Manitoba's Court of Appeal clearly never read.

Otherwise they never would have rendered such an astonishingly bad ruling.

5 comments:

rob said...

How odd that the judges would apply the law of their jurisdiction rather than the writings of Hayek.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

I think you are aiming at the wrong target Gerry. The issue here is not whether there should be property rights are not, until they are written in law, the courts have no choice but to grant the government the right to take property. Otherwise argue to the politicians to change the rules.

Anonymous said...

The judges aren't there to give you the result that pleases you. They're there to determine the facts and apply the law.

To insult a judge because you don't like the consequence of his decision is simple childishness. You haven't given a single reason to believe that this decision is in any way wrong. If it isn't wrong, you have no grounds at all to attack the judges. Shame on you.

Anonymous said...

“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand, that caused men to make laws in the first place.” -Fredric Bastiat

Unknown said...

Did you ever read about the Lost Liberty Hotel? I've always thought that was a particularly ingenious plan.

As for arguing with the politicians to change the rules, I seem to remember voting for a guy who promised us property rights. Silly me.