From: amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Terraforming needs to begin now
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:23:41 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

>  This keeps cropping up among the uniformed.

I'm not uninformed. I just happen to believe in absolute property  
rights held under clear titles.

> Let me see if I can  phrase this succinctly. Parts of OZ are
> privately owned, the rest is crown land.

I'm saying it should ALL be privately owned by whoever has the  
clearest title. In practice that means the original inhabitants own  
most of it, and those parts that have been developed and in use by  
new comers should be granted clear title to their land. Ie, Melbourne  
can not be handed over to non-residents.

> That means it is owned by _all_ Australians, not just by a minority  
> group.

Socialist ownership of land went out of fashion with the USSR. More  
seriously: when land is held in commons, it is exploited, abused and  
ruined because no one has a real stake in protecting it. US range  
lands and national lands are prime examples.

> The Aboriginies do _not_ , except in their imaginations, own
> Australia any more. They ceased to own it some 200 odd years ago.

At which time it was taken from them at gunpoint. No, you cannot turn
back the clock and give them the continent anymore than you could do  
so in the United States. Ireland isn't big enough to hold all the  
claimants to Irish ancestry in the two places :-) But that does not  
also mean that the "Crown" holds clear title to other lands. It holds  
it only by right of the gun, not by clear title traced back through  
the original owners.

> They are one small part of a multi-cultural society, and they're 

> going to have to accept this fact and learn to love it.

That's because they didn't have a good enough education system to  
properly aculturate all the alien immigrants into the being proper  
Australian citizens :-) Waving multi-cultural has nothing whatever to  
do with title to land.

> Guilt trips over events which happened hundreds of years ago,
> under far different conditions than any of us can understand,
> serve no useful purpose.
> 


I can understand the conditions perfectly. People with more firepower  
came in and raped, killed, stole and otherwise exploited the people  
who lived there. The same thing happened in my country (the USA).  
Less so in Canada and more so in Central and South America. These are  
rather nonlibertarian activities. I am suggesting that the crown  
lands are not the property of "the crown" but are the property of the  
original residents. Would you suggest that if I came to your home  
with an AK-47 and told you that it was now my house and that you were  
going to work for me or move elsewhere that your children or  
grandchildren would not come back and try to recover the stolen  
property? Hell, the it's going on in the courts in Eastern European  
countries right now. They are trying to sort out title to properties  
that were likewise stolen at gunpoint: first by the Nazi's and then  
by the Communists. I really don't see any difference at all. In fact,  
I don't even see any difference when "western" governments steal land  
under "eminent domain" except that they pay you "fair market value".  
What is the fair market value of a home in which three or four or  
five generations of your family have lived and that you had no  
intention of EVER selling? Hmmm?  Armed robbery is still armed  
robbery no matter what pretty legalistic terms you put on it.

It goes for the US and Canada and Israel and anywhere else where  
property is stolen at gunpoint. As I said, it can never be put back  
as it was. But much property can be returned to its rightful owners.  
That is a matter for courts, preferably international ones that are  
beyond the power of local special interests. They can then sell,  
sublet, develop, preserve, subdivide or whatever they wish to do with  
it.

I might add that there is more to the problems of the aborigines than  
just land rights. They still seem to accidentally hang themselves a  
lot in New South Wales after they get arrested for drinking a bit too  
much or some other trumped up charge. Funny thing that. Just another  
nigger huh? :-(

Nuff said in this forum...

A comment on the original thesis. I believe that Israel has done some  
work with salt ponds covered by black plastic for heat storage and  
water collection. Someone else might have the details at hand. (It's  
fine with me so long as you do it with permission of the land owners  
:-)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.aeronautics