LIBS: LAWSUITS 1ST, SAFETY 2ND by. D. Burlingame

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Communication problem: I was saying the same thing. I tend to think that the idea behind self-government was simply to allow people to govern themselves, the upper echelons of government being present to conduct them in clearly common goals and to keep them orderly. Again, I do not bother myself over the powers exercised by the municipal governments, for they are easily dislodged or reigned in if they overstep their boundaries or are dismissive of the will of the governed. It is a city's job to put in place a mass transit system for its populace if there is not one in place or likely to be put in place, for example, not the federal government's.

Aren't rights ultimately held by individuals.

Now, I agree with you that the ideal path for these things is to have localized democracy, however, that doesn't mean that I would agree with a democratically elected local government that banned Jews.

The fact that there is more ability to deal with a local democracy doesn't mean that its actions are always good.

Yes, but individuals can only govern themselves.

If the Jews felt that they were being discriminated against intolerably, they would have to appeal their case to the state government. It would be up to the state government to determine whether the municipality is out of line. If the Jews were still dissatisfied, they would have to appeal again to the federal government. Unfortunately, a government that is determined to repress or discriminate against a powerless minority group cannot be kept from doing so. Hopefully, the state government would realize right away that the Jews were being subjected to an injustice and that their individual liberty was violated.

Which is why we don't rely entirely upon directly representative democracy to determine what our individual rights are. At the state and federal level, I feel that the courts should have more authority in regard to issues relating to individual liberties. This principle was demonstrated by the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade.

Nope. Social liberties, at least the basis of them, should be ironclad, such as in a constitution.

Yes, but land is held to be ultimately a shared resource. All Americans are naturally held to have an equal share in it, which is really my main defense for environmental regulations. It's also adequate as a defense for a property tax on land: it ultimately works as a sort of rent paid to everyone else who has a share in the actual ownership of that land. Therefore, this tax can be philosophically justified. The reasoning may sound unusual, but it works, and it allows us to keep pollution levels from getting out of hand. You may not always agree with the environmental regulations we have in place, but the principle on which they are based is pretty sound.

No, land is held ultimately as a private resource.

Americans buy and sell land as they do other property and they have no inherent right to anything without a just claim.

but that argument you use is ultimately a collectivist rallying cry

In which case, taxation upon it would be morally unjustifiable, and environmental regulations would be nearly unworkable.

I didn't say it was their property, in proper terms, just because they own a share in it. I own one-hundred shares of Progress Energy, for example: this doesn't mean that I have license to invade the company's property willy nilly.

No, it isn't. Land is merely a permanently limited resource and impossible to move. You can't walk land away on a leash or put it in your pocket. You can't get into it and drive away, and you can't load it up onto the back of a truck to be taken elsewhere. You can't make more of it unless you somehow make the planet larger. Furthermore, the land has to be held to be under someone's "ownership" if there is no one who formally owns it. Besides, my reasoning is supported by American law most clearly (and often most unpleasantly) in the form of "imminent domain." It's not an unpopular or radical point of view.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport on Monday and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said.

The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m., airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

"They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way," said Omar Shahin, of Phoenix.

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, Calif., he said.

Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.

"I never felt bad in my life like that," he said. "I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed anger at the detentions.

"CAIR will be filing a complaint with relevant authorities in the morning over the treatment of the imams to determine whether the incident was caused by anti-Muslim hysteria by the passengers and/or the airline crew," Hooper said. "Because, unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it's one that we've been addressing for some time."

Yesterday I spoke with a passenger on that flight, who asked that she be only identified as “Pauline.” A copy of airport police report, which I also obtained, supports Pauline’s account - and includes shocking revelations of its own. In addition, U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader also confirmed much of what Pauline revealed…..

The passenger, who asked that she only be identified as “Pauline,” said she is afraid to give her full name or hometown. She is spending the night at “another location” because she does not feel safe at home. She credits reports that one imam is apparently linked to Hamas. “It is scary because these men could be dangerous.”

Pauline said she never wanted media attention. She wrote an email to U.S. Airways and cc:ed her daughter, who unexpectedly emailed it to her friends. As the letter took on an internet life of its own, it made its way to the inbox of a retired CNN executive producer. Then, to her dismay, the feeding frenzy began.

Pauline revealed to Pajamas Media that the six imams were doing things far more suspicious than praying - an Arabic-speaking passenger heard them repeatedly invoke “bin Laden,” and “terrorism,” a gate attendant told the captain that she did not want to fly with them, and that bomb-sniffing dogs were brought aboard. Other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. “It wasn’t that they were Muslim. It was all of the suspicious things they did,” Pauline said.

Here is her story, along with corroborating quotes from the U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader and the official report, another Pajamas Media exclusive.

Sitting in Minneapolis-St. Paul’s Airport Gate C9, she noticed one of the imams immediately. “He was pacing nervously, talking in Arabic,” she said.

She quickly noticed the others. “They didn’t look like holy men to me. They looked like guys heading out of town for a Vikings game.”

Pauline said she did not see or hear the imams pray at the gate (she was at dinner in a nearby airport eatery), but heard about the pre-flight prayers from other passengers hours later.

As the plane boarded, she said, no one refused to fly. The public prayers and Arabic phone call did not trigger any alarms - so much for the p.c. allegations that people were disturbed by Muslim prayers.

But a note from a passenger about suspicious movements of the imams got the crew’s attention. A copy of the passenger’s note appears in the police report.

To Pauline everything seemed normal. Then the captain - in classic laconic pilot-style - announced there had been a “mix up in our paperwork” and that the flight would be delayed.

In reality, the air crew was waiting for the FBI and local police to arrive.

Ninety minutes after the flight’s scheduled 5:15 p.m. departure, the captain announced yet another delay. Still, Pauline said, there was no sense of alarm.

Still, it seemed like just another annoying development, typical when flying the friendly skies.

The situation in cockpit was far more intense, according to a U.S. Airways spokeswoman and police reports.

Contrary to press accounts that a single note from a passenger triggered the imams’ removal, Captain John Howard Wood was weighing multiple factors - factors that have largely been ignored by the press.

Another passenger, not the note writer, was an Arabic speaker sitting near two of the imams in the plane’s tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside, and in a whisper, translated what the men were saying. They were invoking “bin Laden” and condemning America for “killing Saddam,” according to police reports.

Meanwhile an imam seated in first class asked for a seat-belt extension, even though according to both an on-duty flight attendant and another deadheading flight attendant, he looked too thin to need one. Hours later, when the passengers were being evacuated, the seat-belt extension was found on the floor near the imam’s seat, police reports confirm. The U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader said she did not dispute the report, but said the airline’s internal investigation cannot yet account for the seat-belt extension request or its subsequent use.

A seat-belt extension can easily be used as a weapon, by wrapping the open-end of the belt around your fist and swinging the heavy metal buckle.

Still, it seemed like just another annoying development, typical when flying the friendly skies. Days after the incident, the imam would claim that the steward helped him attach the device. Pauline said he is lying. Hours later, when the police was being evacuated, the steward asked Pauline to hand him the seat-belt extension, which the imam did not attach, but placed on the floor. “I know he is lying,” Pauline said, “I had it [seat belt extension] in my hand.”

A passenger in the third row of first class, Pauline said, told a member of the crew: “I don’t have a good feeling about this guy,” about the imam who wanted the seat-belt extension.

A married couple one row behind first-class, tried to strike up a conversation with the imam seated near them. He refused to talk or even look at the woman in the eye, according to Pauline. Instead, he stood up and moved to join the other imams in the back of the plane. Why would he leave the luxury end of the aircraft? Pauline wondered. The account of the married couple does not appear in the police report.

Finally, a gate attendant told the captain she thought the imams were acting suspiciously, according to police reports.

So the captain apparently made his decision to delay the flight based on many complaints, not one. And he consulted a federal air marshal, a U.S. Airways ground security coordinator and the airline’s security office in Phoenix. All thought the imams were acting suspiciously, Rader told me.

Other factors were also considered: All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers - even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.

And, Pauline said, they spread out just like the 9-11 hijackers. Two sat in first, two in the middle, and two back in the economy section. Pauline’s account is confirmed by the police report. The airline spokeswoman added that some seemed to be sitting in seats not assigned to them.

One thing that no one seemed to consider at the time, perhaps due to lack of familiarity with Islamic practice, is that the men prayed both at the gate and on the plane. Observant Muslims pray only once at sundown, not twice.

“It was almost as if they were intentionally trying to get kicked off the flight,” Pauline said.

A lone plain clothes FBI agent boarded the plane and briefly spoke to the imams. Later, uniformed police escorted them off.

Some press reports said the men were led off in handcuffs, which Pauline disputes. “I saw them. They were not handcuffed.”

Later, each imam was individually brought back on the aircraft to reclaim his belongings. They were still not handcuffed. They may have been handcuffed later.

At this point, the passengers became alarmed. “How do we know they got all their stuff off?” Pauline heard one man ask.

While the imams were soon released, Pauline is fuming: “We are the victims of these people. They need to be more sensitive to us. They were totally insensitive to us and then accused us of being insensitive to them. I mean, we were a lot more inconvenienced than them.”

The plane was delayed for some three and one-half hours.

Bomb-sniffing dogs were used to sweep the plane and every passenger was re-screened, the airline spokeswoman confirmed. Another detail omitted from press reports.

The reaction of the remaining passengers has also gone unreported. “We applauded and cheered for the crew,” she said.

“I think it was either a foiled attempt to take over the plane or it was a publicity stunt to accuse us of being insensitive,” Pauline said. “It had to be to intimidate U.S. Airways to ease up on security.”

So far, U.S. Airways refuses to be intimidated, even though the feds have launched an investigation. “We are absolutely backing this crew,” Rader said.

Tucked away in the police report is this little gem: one of the imams had complained to a passenger that some nations did not follow shariah law and his job in Bakersfield, Calif. was a cover for “representing Muslims here in the U.S.”

So what are the imams really up to? Something more than praying it seems.

I believe that government is morally unjustifiable if I followed your rule.

Except you buy progress energy shares, the land owners buy out the other possible shares in their land when they get it. There is no reason for people to not own their own land.

As are other quite a few other resources. However, there is still effort put in to develop these things.

I cannot move a house either if it resides happily on my land yet I still own that house.

You are right, if nobody owns land then it may be held by the people, however, people buy the land and therefore its ownership is given to another person.

I tend to be opposed to imminent domain on moral grounds so your argument from American law is not effective.

I don't see why.

No. Having the deed to a parcel of land only means that you own the rights to it. That's what you're buying when you purchase land. You're not buying the parcel itself because it's not something that you can pick up and carry away with you.

Yes. This is why you can purchase the rights to a parcel of land, develop it, and sell it away for ten times more than you paid for it. You own the increased value on the land because you put it there. It is liquid.

Incorrect. It is difficult, hazardous, and expensive, but it's not unprecedented for a building to be dug up and transported elsewhere.

No. Suppose you dwell between point A and point B, which puts you at point C. The direct route from point A to point B, AB, is equal to AC plus CB. If we're saying that all land between these points is not owned by an individual, then we're saying that route AB is owned by the people. This gives the government the right to bulldoze a road through your property if it were deemed necessary to do so, so part of your property can be taken away from you without your consent. All that you actually have ownership over is the value of the land, thus your reimbursement. As much as we may not like imminent domain, there are cases in which not having this law in place is simply unrealistic.

Imminent domain is necessary at times. If you want, though, I will try to work out other consequences of this premise. However, this is a tricky subject in the first place, and it would take me some time.

I mean not that I would be accepting the view on land but rather I do not accept the elements of government to be moral. Government doesn't own our labor by any bit yet it is taxed. Government does not own our agreements yet they are regulated. Government forces you into all dealings with it, and by its nature violates some of your rights.

I don't see why not being able to pick something up means you don't own it. Do I lose ownership of a car if it has no engine? Do I not own a house even if I built it myself brick by brick? The carrying idea of ownership is completely flawed and the control that you cede to government is a bit extreme.

But what if I don't WANT to sell that land? Should one man's desire for cash be held as more holy than another's desire for homestead? Let's just say that I have land and that land has been in my family for generations, how do I sell the emotional value of that land in order to create the liquidity? You still end up with the same

It still cannot be carried with you in your pocket.

By that argument though I could say that I can take my land with me by taking all of the dirt and rocks beneath it.

This is akin to the socialist cry that all property is theft.

Saying that I do not own the land is like saying I do not own my computer

I did not say that I am inflexible. I said that I was morally opposed to this. I can accept imminent domain as being necessary but not as being morally legitimate but rather as being an evil that one has to swallow.

This is the problem with trying to base your politics on moralistic philosophy (A stilted one, at that) instead of direct self-interest and common aesthetics (some legislations would leave a bad taste in your mouth, even if you would profit from them). Perhaps you should simply take the same approach to government as you do to the market. Look out for your own interests, and generally abide by your conscience.

These objects are still portable, though. When we're talking in terms of space, we're talking about something altogether different. Space is not substance.

Then you take the state to court, contesting that taking away part of your land isn't really completely necessary for development.

Or put on a leash and walked away, but you can still load it up on the back of a truck. The point is that it's an object, therefore, no matter how large, ultimately portable.

Man, you'd call anything that doesn't fit within your own narrow views socialism. The term you're looking for is "collectivist." Anarcho-collectivism is arguably like an extreme form of libertarianism in which the government barring one person from intruding upon the property of another person is considered a violation of individual liberty.

Nope. You can pick up your computer and carry it away. If it's small enough, you could even fit it into a large pocket.

"Eminent," and you're moralizing here.

I have been feeling very ideological recently.

The portability rule doesn't make any sense though.

You originally used that bad term as well when you first brought it up.

We are discussing underlying ethical principles though for goodness sake!! !! Of course there will be moralizing, what did you think we were discussing? If we were discussing pure pragmatics then the very shape of the arguments used would be quite different. The entire concept of rights IS moralistic by its nature! Now Griff, don't try redefining this entire argument on me as your entire conception of land rights was first based upon some ethical idea rather than a pure economic argument!