Is It, or Isn’t It, My Property?

I’m a huge supporter of private property rights. I’m an even bigger believer in owning what lawyers call “real property.”

You know—REAL ESTATE.

I come from a long line of real estate property owners. Both of my grandfathers started out dirt poor, but before it was all over they ended up owning a good deal of property, much of which our family still owns today. What property we don’t still own has benefited both of these fine gentlemen’s estates and has served to set an example for myself and my siblings, challenging us to be “owners” rather than “renters” in our own life experiences.

In addition to family land, I’ve been a homeowner for the past 20 years. I bought my first house when I was only 25 years old. From that modest investment I have managed to own either a place to live and/or investment property every single day since. Today I rent the place in which I live, but I’m also what is known as a “slumlord”—having a rental duplex and some vacant land in a nearby “fixer-upper” location.

It really bothers me how cavalier the government and the so-called “authorities” have become with regard to people’s right to the unfettered use of their property. For instance, if you have a gun at the wrong place or time, the “authorities” want to confiscate it, even if it is located in your own house. If you forget to shave, wear your old blue jeans, and happen to make the mistake of having a few thousand dollars in cash on your person that the “authorities” think you shouldn’t possess, the “authorities” could decide to call it drug money and as a result you’ll find yourself having to hire a lawyer and go to court to get it back. Good luck…

If all of that’s not bad enough, now the government and the “authorities” seem to think that they know best when it comes to deciding when you should be allowed to reside in or otherwise occupy your own property—the aforementioned “real estate.”

Take the hurricane evacuees, for instance.

Some of these poor slobs—ordinary law abiding citizens—have been forced out of their houses for a month now, and many have no hope of returning to THEIR PROPERTY in the foreseeable future because the “authorities” want to make sure they don’t step on a nail or cut their feet on broken glass in the process.

Meanwhile, the non-law abiding citizens (I call them criminals) are running amok, rummaging through strangers’ property, stealing someone’s grandma’s diamond broach pin and their coin collections. I think that anyone caught looting should be shot dead on sight.

When you wonder why more people don’t evacuate ahead of a hurricane, don’t you think that one of the reasons could be that they won’t leave because they are afraid that the “authorities” won’t let them come back in once the storm has passed?

I do… I say that this is a BIG PROBLEM. I personally worry about this exact issue each and every hurricane season.

Our government has come to think that they are running a kindergarten and, based on the behavior of the idiots in the New Orleans Superdome, I can somewhat see where they are coming from, BUT…the bad thing is that the truly self sufficient citizens out there are forced to take unnecessary chances with their lives in order to protect THEIR PROPERTY.

Legally I can see where they have to close the roads since the government owns them, but today in Louisiana the US Coast Guard set up a “road block” (or is it “boat block”) and stopped people from coming back into areas still flooded. I know that I would be losing my mind by now and want to see what happened to my house if a hurricane had hit where I live.

Suppose that I had a helicopter and wanted to fly past the police roadblocks and OVER the Coast Guard “boat blocks” to my property? Should I expect to be greeted by the FAA, the TSA, the FBI, and the CIA when I land in my back yard? Would the Air Force scramble F-15’s to shoot me down to protect me from my ill advised folly?

I just want to sit on my sofa and let my cat use his own litter box, and I say that the “authorities” should just butt the hell out of my business.