Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Who Owns the Land?

In the United States, 60% of the land is privately owned, 28% is owned by the federal government and 9% is owned by state and local governments. 2% is Indian trust land.

In Canada, 89% of the land is owned by the federal (41%) or provincial (48%) government. The remaining 11% is privately owned.

It's really hard to be free when wherever you're standing, the ground is owned by someone. And if you happen to "own" that land, then chances are you're going to feel threatened if someone should want to occupy it or take it from you. This could even lead to bloodshed.

the causes of social inequality are three in number:

1. Gratuitous appropriation of collective wealth;
2. Inequality in exchange;
3. The right of profit or increase.

And since this threefold method of extortion is the very essence of the domain of property, I denied the legitimacy of property, and proclaimed its identity with robbery.
~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property
This Earth was here long before any humans ever arrived on the scene and will continue to exist long after the last human has breathed his terminal breath. There have been, and are today, countless creatures occupying its surface. This whole fallacious notion of ownership of the land and of living beings is due in no small part to the Bible, specifically Gen 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
We may believe we own. We may believe God created us and all the animals and plants on this planet and deny the reality of evolution. Our beliefs are immaterial. For regardless of what we believe, the truth about nature exists whether we know it or not. (To believe means to have a fairly good grasp of how or why something is the way it is based upon the evidence available to us. To believe something simply because you are told to, or out of tradition, is not a belief...it is merely being obedient)

The land, air and water belongs to all the creatures who reside on this planet. We ought not be so selfish in thinking and acting as though only we, as a group or as an individual, have a right to it. This land is your land, this land is my land and together we can share with all the other lifeforms here and call it...Our Land.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:07 AM

    ever heard of the evolutionary principle of "survival of the fittest"?

    the land belongs to human beings because no other species can usurp our title to the land.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @anonymous
    so, you're suggesting that might makes right?

    ReplyDelete