In praise of property

Re: Our freedom given form, John Robson, April 19.

John Robson is correct on the supreme value of freedom to human dignity and prosperity. Property ownership is an integral part of that human project of happiness, advancement and being fully alive while living.

However, lest we forget, property ownership doesn’t exist in a vacuum. To enjoy the benefits of one ‘ s own property, labour and business success, an extensive network of social conditions must be at work and present to do all that.

Most of them are the function of a properly instituted political state.

Chief among them is a functioning infrastructure of all kinds, state protection in the form of law and order, laws in case of disputes, political stability, and a functioning social contract.

Otherwise, all property privileges, freedom and happiness will be a hostage to political conditions.

The general theory of relativity functions in the cosmos of the space as well as in our political sphere.

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah, Ottawa

Columnist John Robson wrote: “The core of property rights is ownership of ourselves. … Would anyone deny it, and make us slaves?” Does this mean that most aboriginal people who live with communal property on reserves are slaves?

Further Robson wrote: “In societies where property rights are trampled, the politically powerful live obscenely well anyway.” The residents of Kashechewan First Nation might share this attitude as they are forced from their community, yet again, by spring flooding.

D. B. Wilson, Port Moody, B. C.