Free Keene

Comment by Jeremy Couch

September 6, 2008 @ 10:54 am

I’m upset that I was up early, but forgot and only caught the last half hour of the show so I didn’t have a chance to call in.

How revealing this call was as to the mindset of the brainwashed masses. How difficult is it to understand the difference between violent and voluntary interactions?

One thing that is really disgusting is when people call in afterword and talk about getting back to “reality” and they all have a good laugh. I’m not sure what’s so funny about this current reality. The reality is there are a lot of sick, demented, violent thugs who would rather use the guns of the state to impose their will than have to provide an actual service that people would voluntarily pay for.

Comment by Patrick Shields

September 6, 2008 @ 12:49 pm

Right, and we’re not saying that the majority can’t take land from the minority–they have the power to do that. We are (or at least, I am) trying to point out that the enforcement of imminent domain is immoral. You can say “the people have a right to take the land”, but that’s glossing over the dirty truth that “the majority have the power to relocate a person using force, according to the majority’s best interests.”

A voluntary society will be more difficult than our current system, because it will take more understanding and communication between people. On the bright side, though, we will truly be free, as opposed to the illusion of freedom that we currently have.

Comment by RWW

September 6, 2008 @ 8:42 pm

Ian: “So then therefore I don’t actually own the property that I have always believed is actually mine?”

Hosts: Silence. “Er uh well…”

Comment by Curt Springer

September 6, 2008 @ 10:54 pm

You folks need to learn about property law.

From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_simple

Fee simple is an estate in land in common law. It is the most common way real estate is owned in common law countries, and is ordinarily the most complete ownership interest that can be had in real property short of allodial title, which is often reserved for governments. Fee simple ownership represents absolute ownership of real property but it is limited by the four basic government powers of taxation, eminent domain, police power, and escheat and could also be limited by certain encumbrances or a condition in the deed. How ownership is limited by these government powers often involves the shift from allodial title to fee simple such as when uniting with other property owners acceding to property restrictions or municipal regulation.

————–

All of my land was granted by the town of Kingston in 1719, as the 200 acre grants, each 3 miles east-west and 600 feet north-south.

Here is the record of land distribution in Keene in 1732:
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/scripts/data/database.cgi?file=Data&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0017355

All land in NH was granted subject to the right of taxation by the government.

Comment by severin

September 7, 2008 @ 9:12 am

Curt, we are not the ones who need to learn about property law. We understand the law. The point of these calls is to educate the rest of the uninformed public that the property they believe they own is not actually theirs and convince those people that that is something that ought to change. That ownership should mean ownership, and we should not be surfs any longer.

Great calls guys, it was funny to hear the gals really get tripped up.

Comment by RWW

September 7, 2008 @ 9:37 am

All of my land was granted by the town of Kingston in 1719…

And how, pray tell, did the “town of Kingston” come to own it?

Comment by Jeff

September 7, 2008 @ 10:55 am

Here is a suggestion:

People often ask well has this free society ever existed anywhere?

Ian always conceeds that it hasn’t as he did on this call.

I think this is the most important question we can be asked because it really gives us an opportunity to prove how absurd it is that government still exists.

I always answer that question with a resounding “yes!” and then go on to point out the billions of goods and services we all need to survive and prosper that are delivered on a voluntary basis.

I then say: “The reason why I advocate freedom is because it has several hundred years of proven success with billions of goods and services.”

“Tyranny has 100,000 years of proven failure.”

“There is nothing unique about any of the services govt provides that prevent them from being better delivered through the free market.”

“And just about every govt service has already successfully been delivered through the free market: schools, roads, health care, police and courts, garbage collection, etc.”

What do you think?

Comment by bile

September 7, 2008 @ 2:07 pm

Curt: 1719 was obviously before separation from Britain and before their first constitution. If The Crown, directly or indirectly, granted the land how is that common law and why is it that when purchasing property the idea of fee simple land ownership is not clearly communicated? Why is it assumed and why is that OK? Is it not deceptive to claim someone owns something if they can not do with it what they please? One can utter the sentence “I own this laptop, it’s my property” or “I own this plot of land, it’s my property” and according to you, implicitly, ‘own’ and ‘property’ have different meanings as a result of the subject. I don’t find that to be a common happening in the language nor if it were would I consider it legitimate that it’s left out of the agreement when transferring supposed ownership.

Comment by bile

September 7, 2008 @ 2:42 pm

Looking over the Wikipedia article on fee simple.

Real estate owned as a condominium is usually similarly owned in fee simple, but typically subject to rules in the declaration of condominium or created by the condominium association, such as paying required monthly fees for maintaining the property’s common areas.

The difference however is that the condominium clearly and explicitly contracts with the ‘owner’ whereas the township does not. In truth the ownership is cooperative. Owning a share of the building and living in one particular unit inside it. You’ve explicitly agreed to conditions of those who co-own it prior to becoming yourself a co-owner.

If you don’t have “exclusive right of possessing, enjoying, and disposing of a thing” you aren’t an owner. Taxation, eminent domain, etc. negate “exclusive right.” Fee simple is simply a one time cost rental with relatively minor restrictions on usage (depending on where you are.)

Comment by Curt Springer

September 8, 2008 @ 1:14 am

To respond to several points as succinctly as I can:

Kingston split off from Hampton, one of the 4 original NH towns (the others being Portsmouth, Exeter, and Dover) in 1694. Presumably the new town was granted any land not already granted by Hampton within its boundaries. How exactly Hampton got title is not exactly clear (to me). There were competing claims between the grant to John Mason in 1623, and the Massachusetts Puritans invaded. We’ve been calling them Massholes since then. But the main point is that all of our land titles came through government action. Basically the government of England, in its own right, or through authorized agents, took control of the land from the indigenous peoples who were here first. Our land titles today are based on those actions. So you can abjure what you call government violence, but simply by claiming a land title today you are complicit in that.

Regarding constitutions, the 1784 NH Constitution did not change any laws in force, statute or common law, that were not repugnant to it. There was also a temporary 1776 constitution enacted when Gov. John Wentworth fled the province and left it with no effective government. It was as of the 1784 constitution that the government could not take land without compensation. One of the shameful episodes of our NH history was when the Tories were kicked out and their land stolen for not going along with the revolution. The 1784 constitution had an escape clause to ensure that the property did not have to be returned under the new terms:

“[Art.] 90. [Existing Laws Continued if Not Repugnant.] All the laws which have heretofore been adopted, used, and approved, in the province, colony, or state of New Hampshire, and usually practiced on in the courts of law, shall remain and be in full force, until altered and repealed by the legislature; such parts thereof only excepted, as are repugnant to the rights and liberties contained in this constitution: Provided that nothing herein contained, when compared with the twenty-third article in the bill of rights, shall be construed to affect the laws already made respecting the persons, or estates of absentees.”

Regarding the meaning of “ownership”, this has always been understood to be a bundle of rights, and the “owner” is the person who has all the rights not specifically held by others. Such reserved rights could be an easement for utilities or a right of way for somebody to traverse your land to get to theirs. Not all rights are documented in deeds. Rights can accrue by usage over time.

Deeds used to be clearer about the complexity of ownership. Nowadays a deed says that the seller “grants” real estate to a buyer. Until 1951 the words were ”give, bargain, sell, alien, enfeoff, convey and confirm” for a warranty deed or the words “remise, release and forever quitclaim.” for a quitclaim deed.

Similarly deeds now simply say “with warranty covenants” or “with quitclaim covenants”. It used to be with warranty deeds that the necessary language was “The grantor covenants, for himself, heirs, executors and administrators, that, at the time of the delivery of such deed, the grantor was lawfully seized in fee simple of the granted premises, that the said premises were free from all incumbrances, except as stated, that the grantor had good right to sell and convey the same to the grantee, heirs, successors and assigns, and that the grantor will, and the heirs, executors, and administrators shall, warrant and defend the same to the grantee and heirs, successors and assigns, against the lawful claims and demands of all persons.”

Until 1981, a deed was presumed to be for a life estate only, reverting to the grantor or heirs on the death of the grantee, unless these words appeared after the name of the grantee: “his heirs, executors, administrators and assigns”.

I don’t think your various interactions with talk show hosts, judges, or town officials have been effective in getting your points across. And whether or not people can cite the legal bases, I think 99.9% of people understand that they are subject to taxation and some degree of regulation, and that they are OK with the concept of having some taxation or regulation, even if they object to specific amounts or measures. I think you take the benefits of our legal system for granted as you call for its destruction or for people not to use it.

Comment by RWW

September 8, 2008 @ 6:59 am

You misunderstand, Curt. We don’t much care if others want to have a coercive government for themselves. We just want people like you to stop advocating harm to us for not participating.

Comment by bile

September 8, 2008 @ 7:07 am

According to Wikipedia and from what I’ve read in Murray Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty, page 225, Hampton was settled/chartered by orthodox Puritans in 1638 by the General Court of Massachusetts, being shortly after Mason died in 1635 and the existing settlers ignored inheritance of New Hampshire to his heirs.

So you can abjure what you call government violence, but simply by claiming a land title today you are complicit in that.

In many cases back then lands were bought from the natives. I’ve not seen any evidence that what is now Keene was but not all land was taken violently though often the land bought was expanded violently or terms abused. In any case, I believe it’s an incorrect logical jump to say claiming a land title today means you are complicit in what occurred back then. Rothbardian’s (which i’m not claiming those here are) believe that the original owner still has rights to the land but the practicality of it all negates being very proactive about it. The person who ignorantly receives stolen property isn’t guilty of theft nor performing an illegitimate act by purchasing the property, knowing or not knowing it was stolen. Either way however he does not hold legitimate claim to the land. If the original owner or heirs who are verifiable were to request reparations for damages done they should be. Though ideally it should be those most closely related to the crime originally committed. Given the situation that’s likely improbable if not impossible.

I understand the early constitutions adopted the previous governments laws ‘adopted, used, and approved.’ However, that doesn’t make the land legitimately owned. I doubt anyone here would claim that the transfer of illegitimately chartered land from the Crown to the newly independent colonies magically gave them legitimacy.

Not all rights are documented in deeds. Rights can accrue by usage over time.

That seemingly goes against the ideas of general contract. If someone was to enter a condominium (which I understand is a fairly recent US property idea) without being told the rules, what their dues are, etc., the general public would be outraged should that person be kicked out without compensation for not living up to those assumed responcibilities. If the existing common law real property system works in that way why is it that the condo contract/deed clearly defines the requirements and the deed to one’s plot of land does not? Simply because people ‘understand’ that they are subject to taxation and regulation does not legitimize it. Should I understand that if I leave my HDTV on my front porch someone will steal it doesn’t mean I condone the action of its theft. I may be stupid but I’m still a victim of aggression. Without explicit knowledge of a rules, written or spoken, society generally will rule against those who have been deceptive. A cell phone contract may have lots of small print and they may be sneaky but it’s all their in black and white. The belief that any random person performing a purchase of land understands common law real property ownership and knows the real differences from personal property would be very naive. There are many theories about property. Communists usually differentiate between personal property and private property. Capitalists generally don’t. I think it’s safe to say many libertarians / anarcho capitalists / voluntarists / etc. believe real property, personal property and private property are one in the same. (Though some don’t left libertarians, geolibertarians, libertarian socialists and communists, etc.) I think your average home owner would have a difficult time defining the difference in supposed rights between personal property and real property. That alone shows me that there is a deficiency in the land transfer systems, education systems, contract enforcement systems currently employed.

Comment by bile

September 8, 2008 @ 7:16 am

Seems my last comment was marked as spam. Ian, could you moderate it? I apologize for the spelling and grammer mistakes. Perhaps FreeKeene.com could use MCEComments? Proof reading in the small textarea is difficult.

Comment by Ian

September 8, 2008 @ 8:06 am

It was marked as spam because it had a certain number of links, sorry - posted.

Comment by bile

September 8, 2008 @ 8:21 am

I figured as much. I’ve found Akismet does a better job catching spam than the blanket 3 links rule that defaults in WP. Due to posts about such topics often requiring lots of sources I changed it to a very high number on my blog. In any case, thanks.

Comment by The_Central_Scrutinizer

September 8, 2008 @ 11:07 am

I’m very proud of you Curt for knowing all the trite little factoids and happenings that comprise the veil of legitimacy government has. What you seem to be missing is that a collective cannot own anything unless voluntarily agreed upon. I don’t have ownership of some state park for simply living in a certain geographic area. If you want to actually discover any thoughts or emotions worth having, delve outside of this neat little box of laws (read: lies) that carve up the world into slices of fiction and see the world for what it really is. And don’t try and exalt the glorious justice system as you seemed to be earlier. There is nothing just about kidnapping people for smoking a plant, or refusing to be extorted. Don’t think taxes is democratized extortion? Stop kidding yourself.

Comment by Curt Springer

September 8, 2008 @ 9:09 pm

To Bile,
Thanks for your thoughtful response.

I know there were some deeds and some treaties but my impression is that overall the transactions were not between a willing buyer and a willing seller, the phrase that is used for real estate assessments. While one might not be complicit in a moral sense in occupying property today, a buyer of real estate today is deriving advantage of the actions of 300 years ago. The creation of private property for white people was a government project and subject to government conditions. Perhaps I feel more complicit than others because I know who many of my ancestors were who arrived in the 17th century and even where some of them lived. AFAIK there were only 2 who did not arrive of their own free will.

Regarding rights that accrue by usage, this is known as “prescription” and applies to both public and private rights. You might know that there is a legal procedure to lay out new roads. But in the oldest part of Portsmouth, none of the roads were laid out and there is no written record of how they came to be. The general public just created and used pathways as a matter of common convenience, and these became public rights of way.

In a similar fashion, when land was granted in large lots and then subdivided, people created paths and trails through each other’s property to get to their land. It was a mutually beneficial thing. Sometimes rights of way were mentioned in deeds, more often not.

Before town roads were built to the property lines of my wood lots, I traveled over other people’s land to get to my land as a matter of right. Now there are still people who travel over my land to get to their camps on a lake. I have no right to stop them.

Most of the land under the roads in our state is actually privately owned. The public has an easement to travel over the road, but the adjoining land owners have “fee simple” ownership of the land under the road up to the center line, even if their deeds or plot plans describe the boundary as being along the edge of the road.

To “the central scrutinizer”:
I mostly get beat up on NH web sites for stating that NH law mostly does not allow people in a single town to gang up on their fellow citizens in the same town, that majority rule mostly only applies at the state level so that even the minority can find support among like-minded people in other towns.

Yes I’m not pleased about some of the majority rules. I’d like to grow pot if I feel like it. I’d like to travel to Cuba. But by and large we have a good system and I don’t think you are going to accomplish anything better.

Comment by bile

September 9, 2008 @ 9:49 am

Curt: Don’t you think explicit language would have preempted this entire issue? Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that people have different definitions of property and property rights and simply advocate clear, explicit, concise language in deeds and contracts? I think that would definitely make things better.

Nonviolence is better, understanding is better. That can all be placed on top of the current system.

Comment by Curt Springer

September 9, 2008 @ 6:12 pm

Sure,
I agree that explicit language would be good. But some of the statutory simplifications were passed because in the past somebody would make a minor error, leave out the work “enfeoff” or something, and somebody would try to claim rights on that basis.

Here’s a deed I might write if I were going to sell you one of my woodlots:

I, Curt Springer, of Danville grant to Bile of freekeene.com, his heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, a certain tract of unimproved land in Danville, bounded and described as follows:
(description)
(chain of title to me)
Being a segment of the 19th lot in number of the 200 Acre Grants, so called, granted to ?? by the Town of Kingston on month day, 1719.

Subject to all governmental rights that were reserved by the Town of Kingston and Province of New Hampshire, including but not limited to taxation and regulation.

Subject to the right of certain abutters to travel on an old woods road through the premises herein conveyed in order to use their properties.

Subject to a conservation easement given to the Rockingham Land Trust.

The grantor covenants, for himself, heirs, executors and administrators, that, at the time of the delivery of such deed, the grantor was lawfully seized in fee simple of the granted premises, that the said premises were free from all incumbrances, except as stated, that the grantor had good right to sell and convey the same to the grantee, heirs, successors and assigns, and that the grantor will, and the heirs, executors, and administrators shall, warrant and defend the same to the grantee and heirs, successors and assigns, against the lawful claims and demands of all persons.

—————————

FWIW, I think we spent way too much time in school learning about statute law (how a bill becomes law), and not enough about the common law. It is the common law that actually affects us more in our daily lives. If we all understood the common law better, we wouldn’t be as dependent on lawyers.

Also FWIW, I have always said that regulations depend on voluntary compliance (by most people).

Comment by The Central Scrutinizer

September 10, 2008 @ 11:19 am

To reply to Curt:

I definitely can, could and will come up with something better. To illustrate how simple justice really can be, I’ll give you a perhaps simplistic view of it as they teach it in Kindergarten - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So simple is just human interaction that a child can understand it. I do think it’s interesting, as pure history, the facts you gave about land grants and so forth. The only point we are making in the Free State Project, the liberty movement in general - the voluntaryist, anarcho-capitalist, free marketeer ilk - is that there is the world as it IS and as it OUGHT to be. We believe in the dynamic human spirit of unrestrained creativity and vigor that took our species from the caves to the skyscrapers. No “government” did that. It was individuals working (often collectively) toward a common goal. Are the Pyramids of Giza as awe inspiring when you realize they were built by the forced labor of enslaved men as tribute to the “undying spirit” of their rulers? We do not recognize the “state” as anything but a fictitious entity like any goblin, ogre, or closet beastie. We refuse to sit idly by while this (not our country but our HOME) is reduced to the graveyard that became the USSR. It’s about evolving beyond the superstitions and conventions of the past and into a future OF OUR CHOOSING. Reality and justice are not pieces of paper, they exist in the hearts and minds of free men who think and act on their own volition. We live on our terms, and our terms are a man’s right to exist for his own sake, by his own means, toward whatever ends and goals he deems worthy of his time, his effort, and his labor - that is his LIFE. This goes well beyond pieces of paper granting permission to sit on a plot of land for a determined amount of time at a fixed rate of extortion. What guides this movement is not simply the buzzwords of “freedom” and “liberty”. What guides this movement is a realization of man’s nature, of reality and his place in it. All men are only equal in potential toward excellence, and I guarantee you civilization will only exist more peacefully, more productive and more EQUALLY in a voluntary society.

Comment by RidleyReport

September 14, 2008 @ 12:09 am

lol i remember the days when i was the only free stater who would call keene radio…actually dan mitchell said i was the first free stater call he ever got.

i never imagined there would come a time when it was an almost organized process….free staters pouring onto the air at kbk

it’s an awesome thing…