While individuals from across the political spectrum generally pay lip service to individual rights, property rights suffer from widespread hostility. Virtually everyone is willing to sacrifice property rights for some “higher cause.”
As the 2020 election unfolds, those on the political Left are stumbling over themselves to offer free values in exchange for votes. They argue that individuals should be provided with a “living wage,” free health care, and a free education. And these values should be provided to those who have not taken the actions necessary to create or earn them. Which means, those who have taken the requisite actions are to provide those values to those who have not, regardless of the producers’ desires, judgement, and interests.
On the other hand, conservatives want to restrict the freedom of individuals to trade with those born in other nations. They want to build a border wall to enforce this restriction, and they are willing to seize private property through eminent domain to do so. They support regulations to prohibit social media companies (such as Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube) from establishing terms and conditions that conservatives don’t like.
That this assault on property rights comes from the two major political ideologies is not surprising. Both accept the same basic premise—the individual is subservient to some “higher cause,” whether society, God, or something else. Both believe that it is proper to initiate force against individuals who disagree with them.
If we wish to have the society that the Founding Fathers envisioned, then we must protect individual rights, including property rights, without exception. If we wish to have a society in which individuals can be virtuous, then we must protect property rights. To do otherwise is to prohibit virtue and promote vice. And when vice is promoted, misery and suffering is the result.