Private Property is not recognized by the United States Government.

My opponent has offered an interesting position on private property. If I may paraphrase, the heart of it is that since the U.S. government has the option to if necessary invade and/or buy your property from you, that means that you are merely a temporary owner. I believe that this argument is flawed as well. In the final summary, my opponent states "Control over property is necessary for property to exist. Because private control of property exists at the whims of the state, it is not true control, and therefore, it is not private property. Therefore, the state does not recognize private property." Even using the definition of possession as the act of having and controlling property, there is a large hole in your argument. The U.S. government first of all cannot simply come in and invade or seize your property without probable cause or reasonable need. First let's address probable cause. If your house is subjected to a search warrant, it means that you have either done something or are accused of doing something that would endanger the lives and property of others. Let's say you have a rocket launcher in your home. The government is recognizing that you have control of your property, but your control over your property does not extend to having items that could harm others. In other words, until your actions infringe or have the extreme potential to infringe upon the private property of others, you have control over your property. Does this mean you have no control? No. As a property owner in the U.S., you are expected to adhere to the rules laid out by the U.S. Government, and should you break them, your rights may be temporarily or permanently forfeit. A good analogy would be purchasing a car outright. To drive it, it must be registered, and if you rack up too many DUI's, it can be confiscated, but since it was your failure to follow the rules that led to your loss of control, it cannot be said that until it was confiscated you did not have control over it. The Eminent Domain Clause is a bit trickier, but I still believe that I am correct in my original statement. However, I will provide further basis for my claim. So again you have a house that this time let's say is where a police station is going to go. In order for the government to recognize and protect the vast majority of properties in the area, it needs somewhere to go, and so it begins the legal process to obtain your property. You have the option of fighting it in court, where you could be successful, or acquiescing and taking the money. Either way however, your refusal to sell endangers the lives and properties of those who would be protected by the police station. Directly or indirectly your actions always infringe to a degree on the private properties of others, which leads to the state invading or taking your property. In essence: Private property is private, but its ownership does have restrictions just like everything in life. Should you violate those restrictions (which also violates the rights of others to having their private property) your claim can be forfeit. Now I'll address the argument about what I'll call the "survivor house". First of all, I don't believe this is a realistic scenario; how many houses are there with absolutely no connection to roads, police, etc. However, if you were in fact so far out that none of these things existed, you could certainly argue that the town's jurisdiction over you did not apply and you would not have to pay the taxes. But let's just say they tried to tax you anyway. How would they go about doing it? They'd have no way to serve court notices on you, unless they hiked or helicoptered in, and if you simply stashed all of your goods and money at your house, there'd be very little that they could do. However, I would reiterate that this is not, in my opinion, a realistic scenario, although if you can provide a source with an example I could perhaps revise my position. I believe I have successfully rebutted your arguments; I await the next round with anticipation. . .