With pride in his voice, my friend Quincy shared some news this week: his son Joshua had been accepted to the University of Washington on a drinking scholarship.
Our colleague from Japan, Ichiro, politely shared that he found it interesting that American universities grant scholarships for drinking and other recreational pastimes. He noted that, if you think about it, a “drinking scholarship” is an oxymoron. He wondered how this might affect America’s future global competitiveness.
Quincy responded that drinking provides the individual with many skills that contribute to a successful life: a sense of camaraderie, a competitive urge associated with drinking games, and increased ability in uninhibited expression of opinions. I wondered if it contributed some negative ones, too: tribalism due to the fanning of rivalries with drinkers from other colleges, and even between fraternities on the same campus. And college drinking seems to encourage fighting. Could our college and high school drinking culture be part of the reason that America seems to view international relations as simply an opportunity to fight other tribes?
I asked Quincy if he was worried about the health aspects of college drinking. Studies seem to point to brain injuries caused by repeated bouts of binge drinking. And, at least from what I see on TV, many college drinkers are grossly overweight. Maybe, I speculated, drinking has overtaken baseball as our national pastime because it’s a sport where it’s OK to be fat. And it seems college drinkers are also more likely to engage in other dangerous activities, such as taking drugs and playing football.
Quincy replied that many aspects of life have risks. At least Joshua was going to college. And Joshua himself admitted that it was drinking that got him through high school.
The scholarship requires Joshua to show up on campus early--in the middle of summer, in fact. When I saw him later that week, I asked him if he looked forward to checking out the library and talking to professors before classes began. He gave me a vacant stare and mumbled, “Whatever, man, I’m just lookin’ forward to hanging out with the other members of the drinking team."
Of Course We Have Property Rights
The City of Damascus, Oregon, was incorporated in 2004, but in over seven years it has been unable to adopt a comprehensive plan. The problem, pundits agree, is a division in the community over the issues of property rights and environmental protection. But these issues aren’t mutually exclusive; they aren’t even related.
The “property” that the founders of our nation wanted to protect included far more than land. It encompassed other forms of wealth and possessions, including in those days slaves. But today, in land use disputes, “property” has come to mean land.
Why do we even need to have this debate? Of course you have a right to your property. You can do anything you want on your land. You own it; it’s yours to do with whatever you please.
But you don’t have a right to the property owned by other people, including the right to property owned in common by other people. This means you have no right to connect your property to a municipal water or sewer system, or to use public streets to get access to your property. Those services and privileges have nothing to do with your right to your property. If you want them, you’ll have to bargain for them, as you would whenever you want someone else’s property. That bargain might include some limits in how you use your property, but the choice is yours as to whether to take it or leave it.
You have a right to do whatever you want on your property, but you don’t have a right to alter or harm other people’s property. This means you don’t have a right to burn stuff, or do anything that makes dust, if the dust or smoke particulates drift off your property line. You don’t have a right to add silt or anything else to a river or creek that runs through your property, since that clearly flows onto someone else’s property. You don’t have a right to use a septic tank, since the drain field affects ground water that eventually makes its way off your property onto someone else’s. You certainly don’t have a right to dam or alter the flow of any streams on your property, since that obviously affects the property rights of the people who own property downstream.
You don’t have a right to use a well, since the water you would draw from is connected, underground, to other properties. You might be able to collect and use the rain water that falls from the sky, but there is some question as to whether you really own it. You don’t own rain when it’s in the sky; do you get title to it when it hits the ground? The same applies to the other living things on your property—animals, plants, birds, insects. Do you own them? What if the birds or insects are born on someone else’s property and simply wander onto yours? If you kill them, have you taken someone else’s property?
Some day in the future, private ownership of a piece of God’s earth will seem as strange as the concept of owning another human being. But we’re not there yet. For now, you are free to use your land however you want…as long as you don’t affect in any way the property rights of anyone else.
The “property” that the founders of our nation wanted to protect included far more than land. It encompassed other forms of wealth and possessions, including in those days slaves. But today, in land use disputes, “property” has come to mean land.
Why do we even need to have this debate? Of course you have a right to your property. You can do anything you want on your land. You own it; it’s yours to do with whatever you please.
But you don’t have a right to the property owned by other people, including the right to property owned in common by other people. This means you have no right to connect your property to a municipal water or sewer system, or to use public streets to get access to your property. Those services and privileges have nothing to do with your right to your property. If you want them, you’ll have to bargain for them, as you would whenever you want someone else’s property. That bargain might include some limits in how you use your property, but the choice is yours as to whether to take it or leave it.
You have a right to do whatever you want on your property, but you don’t have a right to alter or harm other people’s property. This means you don’t have a right to burn stuff, or do anything that makes dust, if the dust or smoke particulates drift off your property line. You don’t have a right to add silt or anything else to a river or creek that runs through your property, since that clearly flows onto someone else’s property. You don’t have a right to use a septic tank, since the drain field affects ground water that eventually makes its way off your property onto someone else’s. You certainly don’t have a right to dam or alter the flow of any streams on your property, since that obviously affects the property rights of the people who own property downstream.
You don’t have a right to use a well, since the water you would draw from is connected, underground, to other properties. You might be able to collect and use the rain water that falls from the sky, but there is some question as to whether you really own it. You don’t own rain when it’s in the sky; do you get title to it when it hits the ground? The same applies to the other living things on your property—animals, plants, birds, insects. Do you own them? What if the birds or insects are born on someone else’s property and simply wander onto yours? If you kill them, have you taken someone else’s property?
Some day in the future, private ownership of a piece of God’s earth will seem as strange as the concept of owning another human being. But we’re not there yet. For now, you are free to use your land however you want…as long as you don’t affect in any way the property rights of anyone else.
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