Lately my blog has had more comments from lefty trolls than it has from my regular posters. If you object to the term troll, here is the definition:
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
Here is a link from a post about an Alberta farmer facing 7 charges for trying to protect his property from thieves.
The comments start off calling me on my spelling, and go downhill from there. My solution to a troll infestation is comment moderation. Ardvark mentioned how my blog seems to attract trolls, and I told him I didn't want to go to comment moderation because it stops the flow of a good discussion. Well yesterdays comments were anything but a good discussion. It was childish and served only the purpose of the trolls to make the discussion irrelevant and off-topic.
Freedom of speech is next to our right to own property, and in Canada we have neither. Go to Rabble sometimes and post something Conservative, see how long you last until they boot you, they don't worry about free speech, the lefties only want speech that they agree with, anything else, they BAN you. Funny how lefties love to BAN everything. I guess they think if they BAN everything they disagree with, it will be a perfect world and conservative ideas will not exist anymore.
This is a perfect example of how property rights have been distorted by lefty organizations.
Home ownership is NOT a right! It is your right to protect your property, just not in Canada, where property rights are not in the constitution. If the city decides that the new LRT line is going through your property, you have no rights. They offer you "fair market" value, and you have to take it or get evicted.
So, I consider my blog, my property, and if I want to kick squatters off that property, I can and I will. SHOO!!!
18 comments:
Good move Hunter!
Your blog, your rules. And I think you'll find that the level of discussion will start to improve.
Whichever party makes property rights part of their election platform will get a majority.
It is fun to toy with the trolls though. Like ants and a magnifying glass on a hot summer
For my part, I apologize for straying off topic.day.....
The reason we were talking about spelling was simply because YOU WERE! YOU called CTV on their spelling, YOU told them to use spell check, and then YOU spelled vigilantes wrong in your headline. Are YOU missing the point completely? Stop being your basic whiny conservative, complaining about people picking on them.
treb - making constitutional reform part of an election platform is a false promise.
Do you really think a government is going to be able to amend the constitution without months, if not years, of lengthy negotiations with the provinces? It is not an easy fix, so any party that promises to do anything about that is probably just saying what they think voters want to hear.
Esque ... did you write CTV a note on their spelling? Do you ever post spelling errors on other blogs? Doubt it. Troll on then.
Thanks Hunter ... still reading, laughing at FNF, and thinking about your posts. Keep up the good work. Your blog is a benefit to my day.
SQ, Hunter is not being paid the big bucks to write, ctv is.
Gayle.....do you beleive in private property rights? If so, would you support these rights be enshrined within the Constitution?
E: Why do you ask?
So Eskimo, you want the right to squat in a property whether or not you have made your payments? That is what the ACORN rep is arguing for in the video. It's sort like Liberals being "Entitled to their entitlements". No?
Eskimo, what exactly would you have the Constitution say about property rights? Specifics please. I've heard this "put property rights in the Constitution" idea many times, yet I have never heard an explanation of what the Constitution would say, and I have never heard how it would affect anything. Do you think it would prevent government expropriation, or that such prevention would be a good thing?
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PropertyRights.html
One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that “property” rights too often take precedence over “human” rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities. Inequality exists in any society. But the purported conflict between property rights and human rights is a mirage. Property rights are human rights.
The rest can be read at the link suggested. The Canadian "charter" or "acts of Parliament" can / could adequately define property rights to include the right to ownership and usage.
Way to go, Hunter. This blog is your home and you get to say who enters and who does not. I, for one, do not mind continual comment moderation. We can all play catch-up to keep the discussion going. We can do without the trolls.
SQ - just because Hunter says something, it is not obligatory for you to jump in with something. Is it not possible for you to actually contribute something meaningful that is not personally insulting to Hunter? We can all read and we can all see some typos - big deal. We all make mistakes - as do you - and it is no big deal. It is not necessary for you to be petty for the sake of being petty.
Gayle: I'd simply like to know what your answer would be.
Scott & LS: In a nutshell, once I've bought it, it's mine. I can do with it what I want, defend it with force if necessary, and no one, including the government can take it from me, either by theft or appropriation. Did you know, LS, that the government doesn't need a reason, nor do they have to compensate you if they decide you have something of yours that they want. Don't believe the 'fair market value' schlock either.
Dippers have argued in the past that if property rights were declared as Constiututional, so should 'economic rights.' Give me a freakin' break, no one owes you a living.
Right behind one's right to life and liberty, which is essentially the 'ownership of one's self', I think the next logical right is to your 'stuff'. With these basics the individual can then persue whatever they choose in life. In return one is expected to be law abiding and that's about it.
There are no guarantees in life, so the 'right' to happiness and economics is only for those who do indeed believe they should be able to coast through life. If someone acquires something by either his or her own sweat or knowledge, it is theirs and no one else's. It's quite a basic right, IMO, so it should be 'in writing'.
Dippers have argued in the past that if property rights were declared as Constiututional, so should 'economic rights.' Give me a freakin' break, no one owes you a living.I've never heard that before. I don't follow NDP policy so I don't know what they really mean. Economic rights to me sounds like the right to make money. So it would be much like property rights as you describe, preventing the government from expropriating your business.
Would property rights extend to all property or just real property (land etc).
Would we not have the problem we have with natives, where they can't get mortgages on reserves because a mortgagee cannot enforce (i.e. foreclose) on the property?
How would property rights be balanced with taxation? Can the government still tax your property? Can they sell it if you don't pay the taxes?
I could see a property right being a way to get away from taxation based on the vagaries of the real estate market (Market Value Assessment). Why should I pay tax on the current market value unless I just bought the property. Why should the current market for my property have any bearing on the tax rate I pay?
I don't follow dipper policy either, LS but you can see how opinions differ when you are asked to define a 'right'.
For many of us on the right side of the spectrum, there should be few actual rights and they should be very basic. But these basic rights are very important. Life and liberty being numbers 1 and 2. In a sence, your basic freedoms.
You don't have the right to make money. It is incumbent upon yourself to make ends meet. Once again, no one owes you. I won't even get into the discussion of so called 'po folk, because that isn't the topic at hand (perhaps another time).
Vis a vis property taxes, market value accessment, default on taxes, etc....you're only muddying the waters. Granted this can complicate issues of property ownership, but if you owe taxes, won't pay and your only collateral is said property, well, no brainer there. If you own property, are the garden variety decent citizen who pays his bills and some shmuck from the highways department wants to bulloze your outhouse to make way for a new overpass, well then we have a problem.
As a democracy, somewhere along the lines we decided (as an electorate) that we would tax real property to pay for government services. A necessary evil some may argue. Perhaps a straight consumption tax is the answer, I don't know for sure.
I for one favor a flat rate income tax and consumption tax at point of purchase. It eliminates many layers of government red tape, regulation and cubicles. (read: union seat warmers).
Municipalities by and large jumped on the market value bandwagon when the economy was chugging along touting it as the 'only fair system'. now that thinks aren't so rosey, there will be plenty of crow to go around after the better part of a decade of huge accessments. It will be interesting times ahead indeed.
Getting back to you not having the right or guarnatee to make money, being that we are a democracy, that affords us the ability to elect people that will decide on our behalf to tax us. Don't forget you also have the ability to vote them out of office and replace him or her with someone more in line with your line of thinking. you can run for office yourself, if you're so inclined.
Once we start designating foolish things as 'rights' (ie. the right not to have your feelings hurt, the right to government funded 'gender reassignment surgery' (good grief), the right to happiness, etc). we've lost sight of what real basic human rights are.
Government should be small, efficient, accountable and not operate quid pro quo by promising certain groups certain things in exhange for thier 'support'. A republic would be a more desirable form for me because the government is limited to operate within the laws itself and not as the engine that powers society, such as we have become in Canada.
I don't want to take up too much of Hunter's space and I apologize if what I've written seems to be all over the map, which I'm sure it is. (and it's late and I have to be up at 0530 to go for a run!)
WOW! Joanne was so right! The tone today has been amazing, thank you everyone for stepping up the level of discussion.
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