invest now in TetherBalls!
Why should the lawn owner have to go out of his way to avoid damaging the ball? If the lawn owner is riding across his lawn on a big rider lawnmower, and the ball rolls in front of the lawnmower and the lawnmower destroys the ball, under your ethic, the lawn owner has (unwittingly) destroyed someone else’s property. But how could the lawn owner, in this instance, possibly be required to compensate the ball-owner for the ball-owner’s own negligent action?
What if it is on the edge of his lawn where I can pick it up without touching the land? How far does it have to go until I lose ownership?
How can it be your property?
Property is that which is owned.
Ownership means that other humans ought to consider you to be in a position of ultimate jurisdiction over what happens to the owned thing.
How on earth is it a meaningful concept for humans to consider you to be in a position of ultimate jurisdiction over what happens to a thing over which you have no level of physical control and have no ethical claim against others to deliver it into your control?
I have stated over and over that I automatically owe for all damages cause by my accident.
If you can repossess it without violating his property, you still maintain a level of control over it, and thus it’s still yours. So, yes, you can legitimately pick up the ball if it merely rolls onto the edge of his lawn. If, however, you happen to cause any damage to his property while retrieving the ball, you owe him compensation for that damage.
I know. I was responding to nirgrahamUK there.
I’ve convinced you are not capable of doing anything more repeating the same assertion.
So, let me point out a contradiction in your argument and call it quits.
You have seen a conflict in ownership and decided that is in irreconcilable. You claim that since its impossible for the car owner to reach his car without trespassing, he loses completely his property in his car. So lets turn the scenario around, lets assume that car enters the neighbor’s property due to the neighbor’s actions, through no fault of the car’s owner. The neighbor can no longer keep the car owner off his property as crossing his land is required for him to reclaim his car, do you propose that the neighbor loses complete ownership of his land?
I kick the ball and it ends up on the edge. I have not lost ownership, as I can grab it without touching his lawn.
I kick the ball and it ends up further in. I have not lost ownership, as I can grab my leaf blower and move it.
I kick the ball and it ends up in the middle. What do you know, I have a jetpack!
Now if I did not have arms, a leaf blower, or a jetpack, why would it change whether I still own the ball or now?
Of course not. If the neighbor steals the car, the neighbor forfeits his property rights to the extent necessary for you to repossess the car plus compensation for damages and lost time.
Because if you could not repossess it without violating the lawn owner’s property rights, then it is meaningless to call it your property.
Property is a natural right. Not something that can be revoked because my arms are too short.
If you have legitimate title to something then it is your property. If you don’t, it is not. Easy.
If you have ‘physical control’ of something to which you have no legitimate title, then you are a thief.
Now, the ball example is silly in my opinion because balls are worth almost nothing. OTOH if somebody accidentally gets ‘physical control’ over an item and refuses to hand it over to the real owner, then he better be able to prove he has a title to it, but, oops, he doesn’t.
Property is a natural right, but, as you yourself rightly stated earlier, it is merely a mental construct. There is nothing in the physical makeup of the ball that makes it your property. There is nothing in the physical makeup of the ball that changes when it goes from unowned to owned, or vice versa.
The idea of “property” is just that–an idea. However, an idea must be useful to meaningful. The idea that you “own” something over which you have no level of physical control and which you have no ethical claim on others to deliver it into your control is not a useful idea–it is meaningless. It is meaningless to call such a thing your “property.”
there seems to be two ways to go, either the lawnmowing landowner can owe restitution to the ball owner for damage to the ball. or the landowner can not and property that is ‘lost’ into others property is considered ‘abandoned’ by the loser.
private/produced market law could probably market codes of law that look to market prices to estimate value of property and suggest to individuals that they sign up to conventional law codes that obligate the return of ‘lost’ #valuable# to the losers and otherwise oblige the loser to abandon claims to #less valauable# goods that get ‘lost’ onto other properties.
i would probably sign up to such a code given the choice.
And if the car should enter the neighbor’s property due to the owner’s negligence, he loses his property right to the extent necessary to return it.
Obviously, you never cared to look into liens.
When the property has been abandoned, anyone may become a salvor and if the owner later wants to reclaim his property, he would take it subject to a lien for the salvage claim.
The whole concept of a “title” over something becomes meaningless if you have no physical control over that something and have no ethical claim against others to deliver it into your control.
Physical control is only half of it. The other half is an ethical claim against others to let you have it/give it back to you if they stole it from you.
Or at least a half decent jockstrap.
I don’t care what laws the state has instituted in times past. I’m talking about ethical law that is deduced from timeless axioms.
That won’t be neccessary. Finders-Keepers isn’t sound law.