I had a dream last night. I was hanging out or having a discussion with or working for, the dream was not clear on this, a judge, now deceased, who in life I detested. Typical absurd setting for a dream, no? But the subject we were discussing, I think it was the kernel of a case before the judge, was the philosophy of private property rights, a philosophy that is as closed to judicial review as any imaginable. The case was briefed literally on first principles. "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth." And so we were asking ourselves questions no judge and lawyer have ever asked, "How did the notion of private property come about?" The discussion was a bit like Louis CK's skit on what God said when he came back, viz:

The physical characteristics of Earth, the land masses, the oceans, the mountains, the minerals, the rivers, were created first and then God created people to live amidst it. In this line of "reasoning" it is absolutely critical that the Earth be there first and the people second. In that case how dare individual people claim personal primacy over a speck that God created for the use of all creatures. If it was the other way around like with Chinese creating islands from ocean sediment people would have a right to that which they created. But we're going to stick with the standard KJV story, Earth first, people second. And damn if there isn't some thinking (not among judges and lawyers I hasten to re-emphasize) out there along these lines. 

My friend and I went to lunch one day and to get to and from where we were eating we had to cross a river, forded for our convenience by a draw bridge. The fucking draw bridge went up coming and going. Now I, Benjamin Harris, am not a sea-faring critter, I am firmly anchored on terra firma. Of course, I have been out on boats but the water does not call me as it does many, including my friend that day. As I grumbled in the passenger seat he said, "The river's been here longer than people have." In this way of thinking you have to accommodate yourself to the natural environment. Now of course we don't do that. We fucking obliterate Nature whenever the fuck we want and reap the benefits and, increasingly, the costs. 

But back to private property rights. When people were hunter-gatherers they behaved more like in Louis CK's skit, just picking food off the floor and eating it. God was a beneficent provider. Food was all the fuck around us. If the pickins got slim or we wanted to sample the fare a few miles yonder we just ambled over there. There was no such thing as "That's my apple, that’s my deer," such an assertion would have been incomprehensible. But then, we had to settle down. It became inconvenient to constantly pick up and wander. We learned to farm. And with that came the first nascent claims to private party. "Hey! Get out of my field!" This was a big problem between the Pilgrims and the Indians hoo doggie. To the Indians not only was the land there first but among people, they were there ahead of these fucking holy-rollers from England. Now, not to white-wash history, the fucking Indians were vicious territorial motherfuckers, even if they were roamers. If they ran afield into the hunting grounds of another tribe there was a flood of blood. The Indians had very firm principles on communal property rights and if you weren't a member of the tribe, you got scalped and disemboweled.

But it must also be said that the most extreme form, individual property rights, are really a creation of Europeans. And you can make a strong argument that in the extreme individual property rights are draconian and ludicrous. Say I buy a small parcel of land on which to build my house. Simple enough real estate transaction as these things go in modern times. Do I own the mineral rights underneath the ground I built my house on? What if there's a vein of gold right underneath my house that I am unaware of? Or, more commonly, a seam of coal? Can another private person (corporation) mine the mineral and likely undermine my house? Yes, if I don't own the mineral rights. I would be compensated if my house was damaged; No, if I do, which is far less common. 

What if the land I buy for my house has a nice little fishing stream running through it which people from time immemorial have fished at their leisure? Can I claim the river as it runs through my property "private"? What if the water is not a nice little stream but the Mississippi River? (It's all in balancing "social goods")

Do I have a right to the air in addition to the land? In this example I am pretty sure not. What if I buy a house on a prospect overlooking the sea or some verdant valley. And then Holiday Inn comes in and buys the land right in front of mine and puts up a hotel which blocks my view? I'm pretty sure the answer is "too bad, so sad."

I enjoyed my dream. Lotta naval contemplation but I don't mind that time and again. I'm retired anyway.