Understanding Property Rights in a Libertarian World

Over at B&D they have something a bee in their bonnet over freedom of speech, mainly down to them taking issue with how obsequious some folk are over Guido Fawkes which led to them getting booted off Anna Racoon's blog.

Now whilst inter-blog handbags are incredibly tedious, it does lead to the whole 'freedom of speech' vs 'property rights' question. Now it's not terribly hard, if property is public then it's beholden to the laws of the land, which in a Libertopia would be fairly slim. If property is private then it's down to the owner of the property to define the rules, with two important caveats:

• Activities must be between consenting adults
• Activities must remain on the owners property, or others property if previously agreed.

That means if I want to burn my house down, I can. Any smoke, flames, ash or anything else that exits my property I will be liable for however. It also means I cannot rape you, tie you and torture you or oppress you in any way, unless you've agreed to it.

It also means I can tell you what you can and cannot say. My property. My rules. You entered in full knowledge of that, voluntarily and willingly, you can request changes, point out where I may be wrong, but at the end of the day I get to be the final arbiter.

If you don't like that, well, bye now.

On your property, you set the rules. You can as free or as restrictive as you feel like, personally I favour freedom over restrictions, but that's just me.

It also works that way with businesses. If two shops offering the same service open, but have different rules, well that's fine - maybe they're after different demographics. If they're directly competing however, well the one with the house rules most attractive to customers will win.

I heartily approve of B&D's decision to be so open on their blog, but they need to respect others property rights who may have different views on what they find acceptable on their blog. It's the libertarian way.