Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "‘This is my property. I’m putting something on it.’" video.

  1. ​ @charleswomack2166  "but the government has outlawed drugs for our own "protection" An example of laws imposed upon an unwilling, non compliant population, and proof that all rights are simply grants by the government.
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  2. Many neighbourhoods have limitations on how you maintain your property and what structures you can erect, especially in a historic area like that. If I lived in beautiful old town like that, I'd be dismayed if a neighbour erected garish "toy" statues like that. Listening to him talking about the FDA, he sound like a disrupter, and not in the good sense. Sounds like he has some interesting ideas but I wouldn't put one of his devices in my brain, especially since he thinks of transformation as stealing someone else's IP, and trashing his neighborhood. Here's hoping Universal sues him.
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  3. When what he does, devalues a historic neighborhood, damned right they have the right to be upset.
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  4. ​ @devinmartin3751  "Permits, permission, zoning, planing, these are the faces of unjust dominion and subjugation" They're nothing of the sort. They are the cost of living in a community. Nothing more. Using a "tip of the spear/slippery slope" argument is questionable. Yes, on one hand, you don't want to cede "rights" to authority (rights which incidentally, were only ever granted to you by that same authority), but on the other hand, you don't want to live in an anarchy. Finding an equitable point in between is our objective. You don't LIVE in a free society - NEVER have. From the first settlers, who coincidentally, came and imposed themselves on the previous residents, and who could themselves be displaced by those former residents, the second that people started living in communities to gain the benefits of doing so, they accepted that there some implicit limitations on their freedoms. "means that we as a society value conformity to authority over free property rights or the intrinsic value of the property itself." Regardless of WHY that may be the case, the fact is, it IS the case. If having douchebag neighbour devalues my property value, I have every right to take issue. We can debate whether a degree of conformity is both healthy and necessary in communities if you like. I'd suggest that it is. True freedom comes only when you live apart from society and refuse to accept ANY impositions placed upon you. Good luck with that.
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  5.  @Jimraynor45  You've flipped my comments 180 and equivocating into the bargain. Devin was the one talking about "rights" in the sense you used it. I never claimed it was their right to prevent these sculptures. The sense of the word I used in my first comment was "reasonable emotional response." I did however, talk about legally agreed upon behaviour, and about the social contract. At no point did i suggest that living in a community should subject you to the WHIMS of your neighbours. If there was no residency agreement, then they have no case, and I hope that they surround his property with the nastiest, ugliest, most unpleasant crap imaginable, because no agreement right? "To say we don't live in a free society is tantamount to surrendering your rights" No, it's to acknowledge reality. I could name a dozen ways you are not free off the top of my head: You are not free to ignore the law of the land, you are not free to wander onto your neighbour's property or jaywalk down the middle of a freeway, you are not free to build wherever you like, or walk into schools with guns, or set up a meth lab, or create your own explosives factory, or marry a 10 year old, or even to import pharmaceuticals from Canada. Any rights you have are an artificial construct granted to you by the people in power. Your "freedom" extends only so far as their willingness to grant it, or your willingness to take it by force or guile. As for voluntary resolution, what if your neighbour is simply not INTERESTED in voluntary resolution, or despises you, or their desire to make a point is more powerful than their desire to get along with you?
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  6.  @charleswomack2166  "driving down my SPECULATIVE home value is the slippery slope argument" There's nothing speculative about it, and it's definitely NOT a slippery slope argument. House prices in any given area have a value range according to land prices, availability of homes, neighbourhood desirability, or the price of other houses sold in the area. That's not speculative - it's quantifiable. As for it being a slippery slope argument, no it's not. I'm not saying that having transformer statues leads to mickey mouse statues leads to spongebob statues, nor that this leads to an inexorable sequence of events that crashes housing prices. This one specific pair of statues has a tangible, quantifiable effect on adjacent house values.
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  7.  @charleswomack2166  No, but you'd certainly care if terrorists lived next door!
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