Government owning land

[DSEngere]

The statist argument is that because government owns all land, it has the right to do whatever it wants.

I agree with the premise that if you own land, it's "your land, your rules". If I have rules at my house that I want to "tax" people, or not allow drugs, etc. then that's fine, because it's my house and my rules.

 

However, I believe government does not own ANY land. But I need to make the solid historical case and my knowledge of history is not great. How can we prove, historically, that the government doesn't actually own anything? I want to make a rock solid case.

 

For instance, we can use the 13 original British Colonies as a case study. Because the settlers came on British ships on a British government charter, does that mean that the 13 colonies were government owned?

I have a few counter points, but I feel that they are not strong enough:

 

- Any land that government has claimed has already had inhabitants owning land already

 

-Obviously you cannot simply claim arbitrarily large tracts of land as your own property

 

-Government recognizes private property currently anyways (for instance, allodial land patents)

 

-You cannot sign up children (people who have been born into property) to abide by rules which they never agreed to (you have to give them the option to leave, and the entire country is way too big to leave)
 

[Laforge]

I think your counter points are pretty strong already.

You could expand on them,

#2: According to common sense common law, land needs to be enclosed. And i think the borders need to stay within line of sight if you stand in the center. (source?)

#4: No contract of any sort was voluntarily signed between land owner (gov't) and "renting party" (you). Plus who is going to enforce a contract where the land owner is contractually allowed to kidnap/initiate force on his customers? Let me guess, the land owners' private group of indoctrinated heavy guys (police).

[Magnetic Synthesizer]

That was my devil's advocacy for monarchy. Monarchy is moral.

edit:

 

I assume that communities evolved into the state. So the state never actually owned land that was originally bought or sold by a party that owns it legit according to ''-Obviously you cannot simply claim arbitrarily large tracts of land as your own property''

 

Every generation the gov simply inherits land that was 'illegal ownership' originaly.

[NumberSix]

The government does not actually exist. It is a legal fiction, like a corporation. Government only exists as a concept in peoples minds. Therefore, it can't own or do anything.