Were you ever taught that property rights are moral absolutes?
No?
What is a moral absolute?
A moral absolute is a principle that when upheld, has universal lasting moral value to our lives, and that upholding it, as an absolute, is moral.
Upholding property rights is a moral necessity once you understand their value to human survival—assuming you have a will to live.
If you have a will to live, you’d value all tools that could contribute to your health and happiness. Property rights, if one studies history, have greatly benefitted Westerners with superior living standards and greater longevity. The average Westerner lives longer and better than men centuries ago, and he has more security and opportunity than those men trapped on continents that suffocate the human spirit.
Property rights are tools for healthy living. They liberate the individual to make with his life that which measures up to his health and happiness. Property rights solve disputes peacefully by reference to a common and just principle.
Surely, you would die if any thug could seize your home, if any homeless vagrant could invade your food pantry, if any brute could strip you of your clothes and leave you naked in the frozen winter. If this wanton destruction of your property could take place without recourse, what hope do you have to survive?
If we have a will to live, we must regard such wanton plunder as wrong, as bad for our lives. We must regard stealing as wrong.
If stealing is wrong, then respect for property is right.
If respect for property is right, then property rights are right.
They are moral absolutes because our lives truly depend on them. We can access innumerable values, such as medical innovations. But for those innovations, and the rights which make them accessible, we would die needlessly and prematurely. If we have a will to live, we must value property rights as moral values and uphold them as absolutes. Not to hold them as absolutes threatens our access to the values we need for our health and happiness. That is why I hold that property rights are moral absolutes.
Why do I hold that property rights are moral absolutes? Because I do have a will to live.
If the proposition that “property rights are moral absolutes” was taught from sea to shining sea, if people were encouraged to have a will to live and grasp those tools that have proven to maximize human health and happiness, we could say good-bye to crime and plunder by the lowest order that resides in governments only to drive taxpayers to an early grave.
Remember that when you are forced to pay YOUR taxes this April 15th.
—Lorenz Kraus.
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