Saturday 25 February 2012

What, exactly, are property rights?

Dick Puddlecote posts an interesting video, one that repeats the question of the heading to this post. Is it not right that the owner of a property or business should decide what can and cannot take place within the confines of which the government - and the law - maintain is 'theirs'?

From this post three years ago and the 2005 'manifesto' (page 67) of the Labour Party:
"The legislation will ensure that all restaurants will be smoke-free; all pubs and bars preparing and serving food will be smoke-free; and other pubs and bars will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free. In membership clubs the members will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free." (Emphasis mine)
Yet another manifesto 'promise' that became but ASH(es) as a result of a government funded pressure group - but I digress. Neither will I delve into the Conservative Party opposition towards this policy.....

Anyways, back to the video that DP posted and the question posed therein.


This subject, as with so many others, begs the question whether 'government' has the right to impose a blanket policy on the country, or should not - within the policy of devolution and invoking the belief in 'Big Society', assuming of course they actually believe in those policies - decisions such as this be left to local people to decide?

With regard to the last paragraph, I suppose my message to our politicians is if they believe in direct democracy - which they must do if they wish to devolve power and believe in a 'Big Society' - either implement it or stop talking about it!


6 comments:

PeterCharles said...

"I suppose my message to our politicians is if they believe in direct democracy - which they must do if they wish to devolve power and believe in a 'Big Society' - either implement it or stop talking about it!"

Let's not be silly now, WfW. They have no intention of devolving power to the people, the intention is to devolve power to middle feeders in the political class so that they are in charge on the one hand but with a hefty firewall to hide behind so that they can deny responsibility for their failures and have the bonus that no matter how the people complain they can't change anything.

Mark Wadsworth said...

What Peter Charles just said.

Anonymous said...

What Mark Wadsworth just said.

TomTom said...

Once government tells you whom you must do business with it can decide how you do business with them

TomTom said...

Politics is about Power. As Mao said "Political Power comes from the barrel of a gun"

Who has the guns ?

ReefKnot said...

ASH are funded by the taxpayer not the Government. And the taxpayer is forced to fund them under pain of fines / imprisonment for non-payment of taxes, i.e the taxpayer is not given any choice in the matter. ASH are one of the many remaining fake charities that I thought this Government would de-fund. How very stupid of me.