The Abolition of Private Property has Begun

By Mark Ferran - EcoLogic

Right now, Ken Brunno, the prominent District Attorney of Rensselaer County, and the New York State Police, are attempting to exploit an ambiguity in the NY Penal Law, so that they can practically abolish the Institution of Private Property (in "open lands").

They seek to abolish the legal right of a landowner to use non-deadly force (e.g., pushing and shoving or threatening a defiant intruder) to defend a lawful possession of "open land" (i.e., unfenced lands).

They have argued that the traditional "right to defend" open land (even conspicuously posted land, and unfenced back-yards) against defiant intruders is an "outdated" notion that "today's court's" would not deem "reasonable." Specificially, they suggest that the popular desire of many landless people to use the POSTED private lands of others for recreational uses (ATVs) outwieghs the traditional property rights of taxpaying landowners.

These state authorities are advising landowners to refrain from initiating any "confrontation" with defiant intruders. These authorities are trying to intimidate landowners and to manipulate the Courts to enable the State Police to freely enter POSTED private land to assure the complete safety of the intruders. The State Police alone will decide whether and how the intrusion should be terminated.

The following news article is typical of the experience of many landowners in this part of New York State:

[Pittstown, Rensselaer County, NY] "Phil Kelly ... finds himself constantly chasing off and being threatened by illegal hunters and all-terrain vehicle riders on his posted property. ... [T]he landowner said ATV riders began cutting through and even stealing gates off of one section of his property ... They destroyed around $6,000 worth of gates .... 'I've had neighbors and people at the Country Store threaten to burn me out and put a bullet in me,' Kelly said. 'Little did I know how serious they were. It's like something out of Deliverance.... the State Police ... make me feel like the criminal instead of the victim."

Rumor has it that members of the State Police desired to hunt on this man's land. Other Rumors have it that the Rensselaer County District Attorney is, or was an ATV-rider. The DA's father is NY state's most prominent State Legislator. This DA has asserted that the traditional right of a landowner to defend "his private property is 'outdated' and unreasonable and is not protected by NY statutes as interpreted by his office." The NY State Police and this DA have repeatedly confiscated (unloaded) guns from landowners who had merely "displayed" them lawfully to stop and/or arrest timber theives and other defiant trespassers. The County has become a Haven for Timber Theives and other offenders against "open lands" such as trespassing Hunters and ATV-riders. See about the ATV-Trespass Problem.

In some aspects, the assertions made by the DA and State Police that, even conspicuously Posted "open land" is not worthy of forcible defense by a landowner, are strikingly similar to the views of Adolf Hilter and the NAZIs, and Marx and echo what modern Communists/Socialists have been saying with respect to Land.

Adolf Hitler said:

"What we need, if we are to have a real People's State, is a land reform.... And land [Grund und Boden], we must insist, cannot be private property. Further, there must be a reform in our law. Our present law regards only the rights of the individual. It does not regard the protection of the race, the protection of the community of the people. ... A law which is so far removed from the conception of the community of the people is in need of reform." (MUNICH, SPEECH OF APRIL 27, 1923).

Adolf Hitler knew that the Abolition of Private Property was the key to concentrating Power. Our American Founding Fathers knew this as well, and so they emphatically proclaimed that Liberty Depended upon respect for Private Property:

"Our founders knew that private property was the cornerstone of all civil liberties. The concept is not complicated. If the people of a nation own its property, which is the foundation of all wealth, then the government must come to the people for the money to operate. A government that must ask its citizens for its operating budget is a government that is going to pay attention to what the citizens have to say."

John Adams stated:

"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." (John Adams "Discourses on Davila," 1790)

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." (John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787)

Jefferson wrote:

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property, and in their management." To which he added - "the defense of private property is the standard by which 'every provision' of law, past and present, shall be judged." (Bergh, Albert Ellery, ed. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 2d ed. rev. Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907, p. 15:32.)

In The Federalist (number 79, by Alexander Hamilton) it is written that: "In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence [i.e., property] amounts to a power over his will." (Emphasis Hamilton's)

It is not likely that the DA and State Police are avowed Communists or Socialists, but they certainly are ZEALOTs in their pursuit of submission by NY landowners, and to make private lands perfectly safe for defiant trespassers.

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." (Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 479 (1928))

"Property is more than just the physical thing - the land, the bricks, the mortar - it is also the sum of all the rights and powers incident to ownership of the physical thing. [t]he right to use the physical thing to the exclusion of others is the most essential and beneficial. Without this right all other elements would be of little value." (Dickman v. Commissioner, 465 U.S. 330, 336 (1984)).

"Each of us has a natural right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property." ( Frederic Bastiat)

As Justice Bryon White noted:

"A man's right to defend his property has long been recognized at common law...[P]erhaps a government edict barring one from resisting the loss of property is the constitutional equivalent of taking such property in the first place..." (Christy v. Hodel cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1114 (1989))

In Cross v. State, 370 P.2d 371, 376, 377 (Wyo 1962) the Court found that the "Due Process of Law clause in state constitution guaranteed 'the inherent and inalienable right to protect property."

NY law purports to authorize the use of "force" upon a criminal trespasser "in defense of premises." NY Law also purports to provide alternatives to personal confrontation "in defense of premises" against defiant trespassers. The highest Court of New York has declared that landowners have a common law privilege to use necessay non-deadly force upon a defiant trespasser AND/OR to damage or "destroy" the "instrument of trespass" (e.g., vehicle) used by "defiant trespassers." (People v. Kane, 142 N.Y. 366, 37 N.E. 104 and 131 N.Y. 111)

("The ownership and possession of property confer a certain right to defend that possession, [including] a defense of it which results in an assault and battery, and that which results in the destruction of the means used to invade and interfere with that possession.")

The DA and NY State have declared in writting dated June 26, 2002, that this entire traditional "right to defend" private property is "outdated" and "unreasonable" and they are seeking to practically abolish it through intimidation and coercion and prosecutions of landowners. THIS IS THE PRACTICAL ABOLITION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. If it can happen sucessfully in Rensselaer County, NY, (Hillary country) under the administration of a "Republican" DA and a "Republican" Governor, and a "Republican" President it can happen anywhere. Pursuant to instructions in Marx's Communist Manifesto, the Abolition of Private Property Rights always begins with Land, then the Abolition is extended to property of other sorts.