Written on September 10th, 2011
Say
a person is a sovereign individual, and not a citizen of the U.S..
Say he doesn't have a driver's license, and is operating a vehicle
that he purchased himself. Say he is driving on a public road, and is
not harming anyone (say he cannot be punished unless he harms another
person and/or damages their property).
Say
a police officer pulls him over. Does the sovereign individual have
the right to resist arrest? Does the fact that he is using roadways
which were paid for by the public mean that he must submit to the
officer, being that he is taking advantage of government-provided
services without contributing to their funding? Should he be
obligated to pay road tolls?
Through
the Takings Clause and eminent domain, the government has authority
to purchase private property for use and collective ownership by the
public. But what are "public" roads anyway; is "public"
use only intended for citizens? Why has the notion of "the
commons" been abstracted from the notion of the "public"?
How can we ensure that citizens and non-citizens alike have free
access to the same roads?
Is
the solution to privatize the roads, i.e., by having the government
sell off the roads to those who would bid to purchase them? Would the
profit incentive which results from such private ownership cause
quality to decrease (i.e., poor maintenance of roads)? Would the
quality of the roads decrease any more than it has under government
management, being that there is an incentive to profit because
citizens do not want their tax money tied to failing enterprises
which lose money?
Rather
than to privatize the roads (i.e., have the government sell the roads
to companies or other private entities which have exclusive,
monopolistic right to supervise who uses them), is the solution
instead to allow free competition (free competition being
antithetical to monopoly, rather than its inevitable result, as so
many are apt to claim)?
How
may such free competition arise, while ensuring that citizens and
non-citizens alike have free access to the same roads? Should the
government only sell the roads to enterprises which agree to allow
universal access to them, and also to fairly compete with other
road-building, road-maintenance, and road-supervision agencies?
Do
the users of roads have enough vital interest in the relative safety
and fiscal responsibility of such agencies as compared to one another
to ensure that (through contribution) the agency which has proven
itself most capable of being both safe and fiscally responsible is
also the agency which builds, maintains, and supervises more sections
of American roadways than its competitors?
For
more entries on Fifth Amendment property takings, please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/private-beachfront-property-takings.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/private-beachfront-property-takings.html
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/municipal-services-fifth-amendment-and.html
For
more entries on transportation, transit, travel, and the automobile
industry, please visit:
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