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American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

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Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#111

Post by BenjiWiebe »

whatever1 wrote: post #10
mothballed wrote: post #2

Property rights as conceived by Adam smith, John Locke, and even the most ruthless anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard does not acknowledge the right of ownership of land from merely seeing it and declaring everyone else is blocked from accessing the next place. In all such systems, ownership is first derived from developing or homesteading the land. People that own undeveloped land purely for the reason of bloc…

If you did not fight for it you don’t have ownership rights. The state owns the land. The rest of us are mere users of it. For the many downvoters do this thought experiment: the neighbor country attacks and takes over your country. What is your ownership title worth? Exactly 0. Hence it was not yours to begin with.

Doesn't that imply that ownership doesn't and can't exist?

What do you own that cannot be taken by force in some way or another?

Some non-physical stuff like happiness or sadness, maybe, except that if you were killed you wouldn't have those either.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#112

Post by silversmith »

bix6 wrote: post #97
BeetleB wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early 80's, Congress passed some laws that allow people to buy undeveloped land, and declare it to be undeveloped for perpetuity (no one can develop on it even if sold). The owner gets some tax benefits from doing so. It became a niche segment in the real estate. The idea is you find land that is cheap, but you have a feeling it has mineral wealth. You buy it cheap, get the survey done, and show that it was re…

I go back and forth on this. I love the idea of preserving land but this also seems to be a way for the wealthy to insulate their home eg buy 10 acres next to your house and declare it undeveloped. Now you get an amazing property in a pristine zone that nobody can touch all while getting a tax break you don’t need and boxing out the next generation.

All the while foxes, deer and birds can still develop their dwellings there. Blatant disregard of the law, I say.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#113

Post by SJC_Hacker »

stickfigure wrote: post #67
kjkjadksj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only can you kick people off in the US. You are allowed to kill them in some places. Castle doctrine.

Nonsense. The castle doctrine only lets you kill trespassers if they are threatening your life.

> Nonsense. The castle doctrine only lets you kill trespassers if they are threatening your life.

Depends on the state. In Texas using deadly force is permissible to stop crimes like robbery. https://legalclarity.org/in-texas-can-you-shoot-someone-on-y...

And there was a case where it wasn't even the homeowner, it was the neighbor who shot the burgulars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#114

Post by shayway »

pixelpoet wrote: post #70
jacobolus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit: this conversation is a waste of time. retracting my comment

It's not that I don't understand what they want to express and how they use the phrase. I'm arguing that it's a poor phrase for the job, when "one of the few" exactly and necessarily implies that, while "one of the few" doesn't necessarily. In fact it's even more vacuous ("nothingburger") because sometimes it's not even clear which way the person means it; if I say "I'm one of the only people to do a handstand on a T…

You can't respond to fresh comments in a back-and-forth on HN, there's a delay of a few minutes before the reply button shows up when many comments are being posted in quick succession. (or maybe it has to do with depth? unsure)

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#115

Post by conductr »

aftbit wrote: post #63
rafram wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two very, very different situations. The UK is a small, densely populated country without large areas of true wilderness. Over 90% of the country's land is private. The one area of the UK where there are large expanses of land without many inhabitants is Scotland (due to the Clearances), but the land there is still mostly owned by large land barons, and so Scotland has a more permissive law that allows non-destructiv…

I'm gonna roll to doubt this. I live in a planned suburb with lots of cul-de-sacs which leads to long car-centric paths without sidewalks to walk through. Most of my neighbors (and myself) are very comfortable with people cutting through or around their yards to bypass this. I've gotten explicit permission to cut through when I'm walking my dog from the neighbors that own the most valuable shortcuts, but I wish there…

The majority of new-ish master planned suburban communities I’ve seen do have walking paths, bikeways, and parks baked in. Usually with some large HOA maintained pool, theater, I’ve even seen man made beaches (100s of miles from a coast). Although, they still usually have fenced yards and cutting through someone’s fenced yard without explicit permission is highly frowned upon, I would actually say dangerous when combined with gun situation being what it is.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#116

Post by burkaman »

soperj wrote: post #108
burkaman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This segment is not as niche as it used to be and is frequently abused for enormous tax benefits now. There doesn't need to be any real economic or environmental value to the land, you can just pay someone to do a fake survey/appraisal and assign an astronomical value, and then not pay any taxes because you're now forgoing all that fake value with your conservation easement. > One example: the former Millstone Golf C…

Wouldn't that just be straight up fraud? They just bought the land for $5.4 million, that was clearly the actual value.

Probably, and the IRS does prosecute sometimes (https://www.irs.gov/compliance/criminal-investigation/two-ta...), but they've already been understaffed for years and it's obviously gotten a lot worse this year.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#117

Post by DennisP »

bix6 wrote: post #97
BeetleB wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early 80's, Congress passed some laws that allow people to buy undeveloped land, and declare it to be undeveloped for perpetuity (no one can develop on it even if sold). The owner gets some tax benefits from doing so. It became a niche segment in the real estate. The idea is you find land that is cheap, but you have a feeling it has mineral wealth. You buy it cheap, get the survey done, and show that it was re…

I go back and forth on this. I love the idea of preserving land but this also seems to be a way for the wealthy to insulate their home eg buy 10 acres next to your house and declare it undeveloped. Now you get an amazing property in a pristine zone that nobody can touch all while getting a tax break you don’t need and boxing out the next generation.

"Boxing out the next generation" is exactly what the law is for. I guess we have to decide whether we want more natural wilderness or more luxury homes with nice views.

The only way I can think of to preserve the wilderness without any isolated homes for the wealthy is for the government to buy up the land. I'd probably support that, if we could get it done, but it does mean that if the money for it comes out of the general fund, then you probably have average people paying for more of it, instead of mostly the wealthy.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#119

Post by bix6 »

DennisP wrote: post #117
bix6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go back and forth on this. I love the idea of preserving land but this also seems to be a way for the wealthy to insulate their home eg buy 10 acres next to your house and declare it undeveloped. Now you get an amazing property in a pristine zone that nobody can touch all while getting a tax break you don’t need and boxing out the next generation.

"Boxing out the next generation" is exactly what the law is for. I guess we have to decide whether we want more natural wilderness or more luxury homes with nice views. The only way I can think of to preserve the wilderness without any isolated homes for the wealthy is for the government to buy up the land. I'd probably support that, if we could get it done, but it does mean that if the money for it comes out of the…

See I’m more happy with the gov doing it and making it a park but when someone rich gets to carve out a special little haven for themselves it doesn’t seem as fair. If we increase the tax rate on HNWI then they will still mostly pay for it.

Re: American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana

#120

Post by bix6 »

mothballed wrote: post #103
bix6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go back and forth on this. I love the idea of preserving land but this also seems to be a way for the wealthy to insulate their home eg buy 10 acres next to your house and declare it undeveloped. Now you get an amazing property in a pristine zone that nobody can touch all while getting a tax break you don’t need and boxing out the next generation.

It reminds me of all the desert shithole land I looked at that had covenants created by a dead boomer back in the 80s that require something ridiculous like "we will only allow a mansion to be built next to our pigfarm." In theory it's possible to reverse but in practice it requires something like standing on one foot, holding your breath, and reciting the entire bible. People desperately need housing and even in bum…

Yep this is my concern. They get the (desirable) land / homes and nobody else ever gets to live there.
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