[diggers350] Hengist's rights

[binty at lycosmail.com]

Dear Hengist,

> The problem is your liberal use of the word 'we' 
> and the association of the whole idea with force.

I give a very bad impression. I am arguing on the 
American Georgist email list that landowners are 
entitled to full compensation, so I am not so 
anti-establishment.

It is simply a matter of your rights. Putting a fence 
round something does not make it your property. 
Furthermore, when you buy land the only person signing 
a contract saying it is yours, is the seller himself. 
The rest of us have promised nothing, so ignoring land 
rights by trespassing or refusing to pay rent is not 
breaking a contract. We never said we would respect 
their land rights.

We would all get a regular income if we were sharing 
the rent from land. Georgists say we could abolish income 
tax. We aren't getting our share and no adequate 
explanation can be produced.

> Now for the history lesson. Since man first stood 
> on two legs he has banded together as tribes, there 
> are all sorts of reasons for this but one common
> thing with all tribes is a hierachical social structure.  
> The strong dominate the weak. Its sad but the natural 
> order of things.

That is not quite how it happened in Scotland though, is 
it? Devious types brought up Scottish Cheiftans as English, 
taught them that they owned the land and made them want all 
the things only money could buy. Then they offered them 
money to sell "their" land. Then we burned the villages and 
drove the people from their land. That is how their rightful 
ownership of your land was established and you must still 
think it is a rightful claim, because you are still happy to 
be deprived of your share of Scotland's rent to respect 
their right to keep it.

So let's not dress it up as human nature, or some sort of 
noble Darwinian competition. These devious little criminals 
who stole Scotland were not the Great Architects of 
civilisation, they were devious little punks with no respect 
for common decency or the law. They decided they owned it 
forever. Does that make it their property?


> Why should your revolution be any different from 
> any of the others? One brand of tyranny is always 
> ultimately replaced by another. Id fully like to
> see the social structure of this country turned on 
> it's head but I cant see it. When it does appear to 
> happen it is an illusion (witness the three
> english civil wars that resulted in the restoration 
> of the monarchy).

I want a compensation package for landowners. It would 
include various offers like, we give them less than it 
is worth, if they promise to leave it to us when they 
die and other non-coercive offers to get it back cheap. 
In the background there may be a deadline - a date after 
which no-one can sell or give land to anyone ever again. 
Then when the current owner dies it becomes Commonwealth 
land. That will pressure them into selling early and low, 
because its value will diminish as the deadline approaches. 
That is coercive to landowners but I am trying to be fair 
to both sides.

Would you like a to see a scheme to acquire all the land 
in Scotland, to be owned by everyone in common?

Stephen Bint



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