“A History Lesson”
- Book review by Jigs Gardner
Progress and Property Rights: From the Greeks to Magna Carta
to the Constitution, Walter F. Todd (American Institute for
Economic Research 2009, 98 pp.)
The plain, cogent style of this account of the development
in practice of the idea of property rights in the West make this
“the book to read.”
Highly recommended.
“Inalienable Private Property Rights Being Revoked” - Book Review by Nathaniel R. Dickinson, PRFA, October
17, 2006)
During the Twentieth Century, private property rights, the
cornerstone of freedom, were greatly diminished in exchange for
government power under environmental law, regulatory takings,
rent control, scenic regulations, historic preservation, architectural
review, and eminent domain abuse. The radical left is winning.
“National Wildlife Federation Admits Piracy and
Pays $350,000 For Copyright Infringement” News
Release - March 2, 2005
The National Wildlife Federation has admitted
to pirating the copyrighted work, The First Forest, by children’s book author John Gile and has paid $350,000.00
to terminate civil copyright litigation in Federal Court.
January 2003
Richard Pombo Named Chairman of the House Resources Committee
— Nationwide Victory for the Private Property Rights and
Wise use Movement
full
press release
March 2001:
“Federal
Courts Put Napster in Line with Copyright Law”
January 2001:
“Oregon
Voters Protect Property Rights”
Additional Helpful
Organizations
American Institute of Economic Research
Charles E. Murray, President & CEO
(The American Institute of Economic Research
was founded in 1933 and publishes books, research reports and
newsletters on economic subjects, with information independent
of special interests, whether commercial or political.)
address & web site
American Association of Small
Property Owners
F. Patricia Callahan, President
(Connects hundreds of
associations of small landlords and property owners)
address
Cato Institute
(libertarian think
tank, defender of private property rights)
address
Competitive Enterprise Institute
(free enterprise think
tank, defender of private property rights, helps grassroots leaders)
address
Pacific Legal Foundation
(litigates important
private property cases)
address
& web site
Oregonians in Action
(Influential property
rights group, brought Dolan v. Tigard successfully)
address
Additional Resources
International Task
Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
A human rights group to meet the urgent need for individuals
and organizations who oppose euthanasia to work together to provide
information on euthanasia and related issues.
address
& web site
Essential Books
& Publications
The Noblest
Triumph - Private Property and Prosperity Through the Ages - By Tom Bethell (St. Martin’s,
1998)
Traces private property through history and shows that for almost
two centuries economists
increasingly ignored private property while approving socialism.
Demonstrates the triumph of private property in promoting prosperity,
and compares experiences throughout the world.
The Future of Freedom — Illiberal Democracy at
Home and Abroad — By Faread
Zakaria — Book Review by Nate Dickinson (PRFA, Apr. 29, 2003)
Nate Dickinson’s insight about the progress of democracy
and liberty. Is the future a single trend or separate paths?
Bernard H. Siegan,
Property Rights: From Magna Carta to the Fourteenth Amendment
(Social Philosophy & Policy Center/Transaction Publishers,
2002) Immediately acclaimed analysis of the importance of property
rights in the Anglo-American constitutional tradition. Full
Synopsis
Ordering
Information
James Bovard, Feeling
Your Pain (St. Martin’s Press, 2000)
The explosion and abuse of government power in the Clinton-Gore
years
(James Bovard,
Freedom in Chains (St. Martin’s Press, New York,
1999)
“James Bovard has become the roving inspector general
of the modern state...” - The Wall Street Journal
James Bovard, Lost
Rights
(St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1994)
Richard A. Epstein,
Takings—Private Property and the Power of Eminent
Domain (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1985)
Bernard H. Siegan,
Property and Freedom—The Constitution, The Courts,
and Land-Use Regulation (Transaction Publishers, New
Brunswick 1997)
Websites
SUANews.com
Chuck Diaz, President
The Speak Up America newspaper, so much appreciated by the property
rights movement, is now the Speak Up America web site, both in
English and Spanish.
For the first time or place, anyone in a Spanish-speaking country
will be able to read articles by Mona Charen, Walter Williams,
Thomas Sowell and Chuck Diaz.
www.suanews.com
address
Land Guard
Protecting the
property rights of farmers, ranchers, landowners. Enroll in LandGuard
for legal consultations and access to representation by a leading
property rights attorney.
www.landguard.org
address
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In-Depth Information
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 “A Word
about UNESCO” - By Ellen McClay, Author, Arizona; Eleventh
Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
Albany, N.Y., October 13, 2007)
Tracing her involvement back to the fifties, author Ellen
McClay refers to individuals, including Alger Hiss and Secretary
of State Dean Achenson, who were involved with UNESCO’s
role in changing textbooks in the United States to derogate Washington
and the founding fathers, as well as private property rights,
while substituting Marxist values.
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 “Invest for
Freedom-To Stop the Use of Capitalism Against Capitalism”
- By Thomas J. Borelli, Ph.D., Managing Partner and Portfolio
Manager, Free Enterprise Action Fund, Eleventh Annual National
Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y.,
October 13, 2007)
Environmental organizations are harnessing major corporations
like Pepsico, Caterpillar, General Electric and JP Morgan Chase
against their own corporate interests and capitalism itself to
promote universal government government-funded health care and
an economy centered on global warming-based regulation. Acting
as a shareholder activist, the Free Enterprise Action Fund successfully
sought a stockholder proxy at JP Morgan Chase against their support
for global warming regulation.
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 “The
Supreme Court’s Protection of Private Property Rights: The
Founders’ Dream, the Owner’s Nightmare” -
By Roger Pilon, J.D., Ph.D., Vice President for Legal Affairs
and Director, Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute,
Eleventh Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 13, 2007)
Roger Pilon presents an overview of private property rights,
beginning with first principles, including a discussion of the
history of the founding documents, followed by the police power
and eminent domain power; then four scenarios of government restrictions—government
actions that reduce the value of private property, regulation
to stop nuisance, regulatory takings, and full eminent domain;
and finally the four categories of eminent domain: transfer to
the public, transfer to a private owner for public utilities
and the like, condemnation for blight reduction, and transfer
to another private party for economic development. Highlights
of court rulings illustrate how the Progressive Era led to today’s
regulatory state.
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 “Our Stolen Legacy:
The Betrayal of the Declaration of Independence for the Cause
of Landscape Preservation” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, President,
PRFA, July 5, 2007
Government from distant places, fatiguing the people into
compliance; a multitude of new offices and swarms of officers
to harass the people…A government far from the vision
of justice based on all men being created equal, endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Landscape preservation from the
regional, state, federal and international level takes precedence,
eradicating freedom.
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- “Rancher
Frank Robbins Loses at the Supreme Court” - By Carol
W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse,
Vol. 11, No. 3 (PRFA Summer 2007.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a mercurial decision
in Robbins v. Wilkie reversing the jury verdict that Bureau
of Land Management officials violated the Fifth Amendment private
property rights of Frank Robbins by repeatedly harassing him
to retaliate because he refused to grant a free right-of-way
easement across his Wyoming ranch. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
held that Robbins’ property rights deserved protection.
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- “A Property
Rights Garden of Childlike Verses” - By Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, December 2006)
“Rub-a-dub, dub/ Three men in a tub/…Turn them out,
knaves all three.” Nursery rhymes, the language of
children, lay bare the traits of government today.
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 “Private
Property Rights—Freedom in the Balance” -Keynote
Address by John Fund, The Wall Street Journal, Tenth
Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
Albany, N.Y., October 14, 2006)
“Often the best template by which to judge a member of
Congress is not whether they have an R or D behind their name,
not whether they say they are a conservative or say they are
a liberal, but what their philosophical impulses are towards
Kelo.”
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 “Forward
for Private Property Rights”-by James S. Burling, Senior
Counsel, Pacific Legal Foundation, Speech to the Ninth Annual
National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany,
N.Y., October 22, 2005)
Go to the mirror to see the real enemy of property rights,
ourselves. Pacific Legal Foundation has won lawsuits such as
the Suitum and Palazzolo cases by looking at what
happens to real-life people hit by regulations. In the older
Nollan and Dolan cases, the property owner won
because of the nonsensical results of regulation. But an oil
company was not a sympathetic litigant in Chevron v. Lingle,
and the justices failed to grasp economic logic. The Endangered
Species Act Reform Act has important provisions to help landowners.
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 “Regulatory
Taking Compensation—The Successful Oregon Measure 37 Referendum”
- By Bill Moshofsky, President, Oregonians in Action, Tigard,
Oregon; Speech to the Ninth Annual Conference on Private Property
Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y. October 22, 2005)
The Oregon Measure 37 referendum created a solution to the
“regulatory overkill” that besets Oregon’s
property owners, under arguably the strictest land use planning
regulations in the country, excessive wetlands, endangered species
and forest practice regulation. Oregonians in Action is still
fighting against government’s attempt to nullify
the law.
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- “PRFA
Supports Property Owners at U.S. Supreme Court Where Airport
Navigational Use Made Land Unusable” - By Carol W. LaGrasse,
(PRFA, November 2004)
The Property Rights Foundation of America filed a “friend
of the court” (amicus curiae) brief in support of
John and William Breneman, who are petitioning the United States
Supreme Court to hear their appeal of their “takings”
claim against the Federal Aviation Administration for declaring
their property unusable “navigable airspace”
as a result of Tanner Hiller Airport in Massachusetts illegally
expanding its runway.
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 “Utah Property
Rights Ombudsman — A National Model” - By Craig
M. Call, Property Rights Ombudsman, State of Utah, Salt Lake
City, Utah; Speech to the Eighth Annual Conference on Private
Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y. October 23, 2004)
The first property rights ombudsman in the world is a powerful
negotiator for small property owners—mainly homeowners
— facing eminent domain, land use takings and land
use ordinances imposed by state and local government.
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 “Restoring
Constitutionality and Rationality to
Environmental Protection” - By Becky Norton Dunlop,
Vice President, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C.; Speech
to the Eighth Annual Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, Albany, N.Y. October 23, 2004)
Environmental policies that emanate from liberty are the most
successful. But constitutional principles of liberty, private
property, due process, speech trials, and just compensation have
been diminished in the name of environmental protection. We must
advance an ownership society. Communicating with Congress and
networking with potential allies are essential.
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 “Repealing
the Death Tax—Preserving Small Businesses” - By
Dick Patten, Executive Director, American Family Business Institute,
Washington, D.C.; Speech to the Eighth Annual Conference on
Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y. October 23, 2004)
Private property rights were held to be absolutely inalienable
in the American constitutional system. But the Communist Manifesto
of Marx and Engels began to have influence, calling for the abolition
of private property and inheritance. The 10% inheritance tax
of World War I rose to 77% by 1941, and is currently at 48%.
A close battle rages in the U.S. Senate for permanent repeal.
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 “Inverse
Condemnation—The Rationale for Compensation for Regulatory
Takings” - By Henry St. John FitzGerald, Attorney at
Law, Arlington, Virginia; Speech to the Eighth Annual Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y. October 23,
2004)
The Constitution is the biggest bulwark to protect our rights,
including private property rights. Government keeps trying to
expand its power, and important cases hold its power in check.
The cases protecting property owners from regulatory takings
began in 1922 with Pennsylvania Coal. “Inverse
condemnation” is when so many land rights have been
taken away that a Fifth Amendment Taking occurs.
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- “Property
Rights Foundation of America Asks U.S. Supreme Court for Fair
Hearing for Litigants” - PRFA, August 31, 2004
Chander and Ashima Kant’s house worth $199,000
was disposed of by Montgomery, Md., for $6,020 to pay a disputed
bill, but the courts haven’t allowed the Kants to
have a hearing on their claim of discrimination. PRFA has filed
a friend of the court brief before the U.S. Supreme Court because
the federal rules are meant to allow litigants to bring issues
before the court so that they are prevented from losing suits
where they would otherwise win.
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- “U.S.
Supreme Court Brings Reason to Punitive Damages - State Farm
Ruling Builds on the Record in 1996 BMW Case”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, May 31, 2003)
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy held for the majority of the Supreme
Court that a punitive damages award of $145 million was excessive
for an award of $1 million in compensatory damages in the case
of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell,
thereby strenthening the trend to bring punitive awards within
the bounds of reason that was widely applauded in the Court’s
1996 ruling in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore.
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 “The Noblest Triumph — Private Property,
The Historical Route to Prosperity” - by Tom Bethell,
Senior Editor, The American Spectator, Speech at the Sixth
Annual New York Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
November 16, 2002)
Private property has been neglected by economists, but is
the logical starting point of economic analysis. Mr. Bethell
points to the role of private property in the development of
Western civilization, contrasting it with the failed one-hundred
year “experiment” in Communism.
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 “Private
Property Rights of Farmers: Updates in Takings and Related Case
Law” - By Jeff Williams and Leah Hurtgen, New York State
Farm Bureau (Sixth Annual Conference on Private Property Rights,
PRFA - November 16, 2002)
A broad overview of significant recent cased that have occurred
in New York State and in other parts of this country, which affect
agriculture and other land-intensive business such as logging
and will touch individual property owners: Tahoe-Sierra Preservation
Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (122 S. Ct.
1465 (2002); the victorious Palazzolo v. Rhode Island
and related historic cases; Town of Lysander v. Hafner
(New York State Court of Appeals, October 18, 2001); the disappointing
Long Island Pine Barrens v. Town of Riverhead; the California
case Pronsolino v. EPA; and another Ninth Circuit case
Borden Ranch v. Army Corps of Engineers.
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- “Supreme
Court Rejects ‘Categorical’ Compensation for Temporary
Taking” — By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, April 27,
2002)
Justice Stevens writes that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
took only a “temporal slice” of the property
interest by imposing lengthy building moratoria. No compensation
to landowners is required. The troublesome ruling broadly affirmed
the justice of central planning, but left open room for “ad
hoc” appeals for compensation for temporary takings.
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 “Shaky Foundations
— The Exaggerated Basis for Environmental Land-Use Controls”
- Jay H. Lehr, Ph.D., President Environmental Education Enterprises,
Inc., Ostrander, Ohio, Reprinted from the Proceedings of the
Third Annual New York Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, 1998)
An environmental scientist for 44 years who helped write every
piece of federal environmental legislation between 1965 and 1987,
Jay Lehr states that today’s wetlands enforcement
is irrational; that the Endangered Species Act is one of “the
most terrible pieces of legislation in the whole environmental
arena”; that pollution of our air, water, soil, and
from solid waste has been greatly curtailed; and that some issues,
including radon and ozone, are a farce.
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 “Western
States Directions to Regain Land-Use Sovereignty” -
By Tom Rawles, Chairman, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors,
Phoenix, Arizona, Reprinted from Proceedings of the First
Annual New York Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
1995)
The federal and state governments, and Indian tribes own 87
% of the land in Arizona. State sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment
should be implemented. Protections for property rights to implement
the Nollan and Dolan decisions, to provide “Takings”
compensation, and to do “Takings” assessments
of legislation should be passed in each state.
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- “The
Arizona Property Rights Referendum” - Presented by Tom
Rawles, Chairman, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Phoenix,
Arizona, Reprinted from Proceedings of the First Annual New
York Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA, 1995)
“Takings” implications of proposed governmental
actions shall be assessed by the office of the Attorney General
and permit requirements shall minimize restrictions on private
property.
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- “State
Legislation to Protect Private Property Owners” - By
W. Christopher Doss, Virginia Department of Environmental
Quality, Reprinted from Proceedings of the First Annual Conference
on
Private Property Rights (PRFA, 1995)
Large corporations and developers are delighted with regulation,
because that helps cut down on competition. Chris Doss’s
important ideas include the first mention of “informed
consent for conservation easements” and “mandated
review property taxes” after regulation decreases
property value.
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 “Government, the New
Leviathan” - James Bovard, Author, Public Policy Analyst,
from Proceedings of the Second Annual New York Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA, 1996)
One of the most radical changes in American’s
lives in recent years is the proliferation of asset forfeiture
laws. Federal agents have confiscated over $5 billion in cash,
cars, homes, boats and other property from citizens in the last
10 years - in most cases, with no proof of criminal wrongdoing
by the owner.
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 “Social
Property and the New Feudalism” - John McClaughry, ret.
Vermont State Senator; President, Ethan Allen Institute, Concord,
Vt., from Proceedings of the Second Annual New York Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA, 1996)
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- “A View
Through the Grand Delusion” - James Bovard, Author,
Public Policy Analyst, Rockville, Maryland, from Proceedings
of the Fourth Annual New York Conference on Private Property
Rights (PRFA, 1999)
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