Let me preface this post by saying that I wouldn’t want to live in a society without forcefully maintained law and order.
Does it strike anybody else as a little odd that personal property rights vanish in the face of a criminal investigation? It seems like nobody ever disputes the reasonableness of searching someone’s home or taking a bloodstained shirt for evidence, but I think there’s a strong argument to be made for personal property being just that.
“Give us your bloody shirt.”
“Why?”
“So we can prove you killed that guy.”
“No.”
“Sorry buddy, we got a warrant.”
“…”
The shirt owner has no rights to protect his personal property at this point. In fact, he’s coerced into turning over evidence against himself, or having it taken by force. I agree this is a necessary power for the legal system to possess in order to pursue justice and the protection of society and still meet similar standards of rights for both suspects and victim (fair trial standards), but surely there’s an argument to be made that deprivation of personal property against an owner’s will is an injustice in itself. Yet this power goes unquestioned. I would think it would be a major sticking point of libertarian thought, but it seems everybody agrees that nobody really ‘owns’ evidence, at least not while it’s needed for an investigation. Theoretically, it doesn’t matter whether or not you’ll give me my shirt back when you’re done with it, or get me a new one, my shirt be-longs-to-me, and if I don’t want something done with it, nuts to you. The same applies with things that are even more clearly owned, like my blood and DNA. On one level it’s an incredibly useful power for the state to have where the protection of society is concerned, but on another level it seems fundamentally wrong to be legally able to take something out of my body against my will before I’ve been proven guilty of a crime. It’s needed so people CAN be proved guilty of crimes. Nobody who was guilty and wanted to keep their freedom would ever knowingly agree to turn over evidence against themselves, so in one sense I can understand why we agree to the use of forceful measures in obtaining of evidence as a society, but something still feels wrong about the whole idea.
Now, I know this entire like of thinking can be avoided by simply rejecting the ideas of freehold property, privacy and a right not to self-incriminate, so I suppose my question is to the libertarians and other people who don’t deny these things. How do we reconcile these principles of ownership with necessary collection of evidence for the protection of society as a whole? It just seems like a largely overlooked status quo that never gets seriously questioned.
Few rights are absolute. If any are. We might say that we have the right to control our bodies, but that would preclude jail, or any punishment at all. All rights are held against the state. But the state has rights, too. Rights conflict. Laws balance these rights against each other. That’s just how we roll.
unfortunately there is little conception of property rights. i agree that there should be, certainly. freedom depends on such rights, and on them being strong and absolute (but not unconditional, of course).
of course at the moment when we become able to legally possess property rights (age of adulthood) we also become legally responsible for our membership in society. we could leave or renounce citizenship if we wanted, once we are an adult. therefore, in that we do not do this, we are consenting to whatever laws we live under in society. this means that we consent to have property rights subordinated to the right of the State to conduct criminal investigations. police want your car because they think it ran over a blood smear on the highway and they want to examine it for evidence? tough luck for you, they take it by court order. now you cant get to work and you lose your job? tough shit. thats just how our society works. power moves on up the chain, and we lose more autonomy evey day that goes by.
basically you just dont have any rights anymore, as the “rights” which we do have are so conditional and weak that they are thrown out the window under pretty much any pressing need from government or any perceived “social ills”.
yes i too would love to live in an ideal Galt’s Gulch where absolute property rights are respected as long as you respect those rights of others; but unfortunately we will never get that chance. we are just too screwed up, and we have given birth to too huge of monsters (the state, the collective) and let them out of their cages, and now theres just no getting them back in again. were pretty much just fucked, and will be forced to live without such rights as property rights for as long as were alive. Galt’s Gulch is a wonderful concept, but pure fantasy. it can never happen. man is just too fucking immature and incompetent.
Order and law are opposites…Change is nature, and if natural, also just…The only way order can be maintained is with injustice, which is to say coercion…And if law is not justice, then it is not law… As Abalard said: Jus is the genus and lex a species of it…