In a recent op-ed, Tennessee attorney Jeremy Hopkins
Al-Qaida, the Klan and property activists? (Jan. 20, 2011)
A Virginia Department of Emergency Management’s training manual (“Terrorism & Security Awareness Orientation for State Employees”) has labeled “property rights activists” as terrorists.
The manual contains a list of “Terrorist Organizations,” and includes Hamas, al-Qaida, and Hezbollah; street gangs; racist, separatist, and hate groups; and, shockingly, “property rights activists.” They were listed as terrorists because they “undermine confidence in the government” and “influence government or social policy.”
After members of the public became aware of the manual and a legal organization sent a letter to the governor, Virginia replaced “property rights activists” with “property rights extremists: anti-eminent domain.” So, Virginia’s current manual still lists citizens who oppose the government’s use of eminent domain as terrorists.
While the use of eminent domain in accordance with constitutional standards is appropriate, the manual’s characterization of “property right extremists” is especially concerning given the government’s ever-increasing use of eminent domain to take property from one person only to give it to another–what some call legalized theft. Many law-abiding citizens oppose the government’s overly expansive use of eminent domain; they should not be considered terrorists for their opposition to such policies or for their support of private property.
As former United States Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, himself a Virginian, warned almost 40 years ago: “History abundantly documents the tendency of government–however benevolent and benign its motives–to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies.”
Regardless of the state’s motives, the manual is indicative of the state’s hostile attitude toward property owners. This should not be surprising because private property divides power, empowers the individual, and provides a sphere of protection in which individuals can act without government interference.
Nevertheless, as government has grown and elected officials have increasingly used wealth-distribution programs and “public” projects to buy votes and campaign contributions, those in power have come to view property rights and property owners as an impediment to the politicians’ pet programs and projects.
The manual also demonstrates how far Virginia’s government has come from the days of its founders. While Karl Marx declared that “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property,” that view is far from the principles on which Virginia was founded.
‘Al-Founders’?
According to the state’s manual, Virginia would now label its own Founders as terrorists, as these individuals were some of the most ardent property-rights activists in history.
James Madison said, “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.” Thomas Jefferson announced that “the defense of private property is the standard by which every provision of law, past and present, shall be judged.”
The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, largely written by George Mason, declared “[t]hat all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” Arthur Lee of Virginia called private property “the guardian of every other right.”
When the state issues a training manual that designates property-rights activists as terrorists, citizens should be alarmed. It is no wonder that Virginia’s legislature refuses to enact a constitutional amendment with meaningful protections of private property.
The state’s negative attitude toward property rights also helps explain why Virginia’s courts continue to issue opinions that fail to protect private-property owners. Virginia’s manual only confirms that the right to private property is the latest fundamental liberty on what can best be called the endangered liberties list–a list in which liberty is the prey and government the predator.
Virginians had better wake up and demand strong constitutional protections for their private property. As it now stands, the private property of each citizen, including one’s home, farm, or business, is largely at the mercy of each successive General Assembly of the state government–the same government that labeled property-rights activists “terrorists.”
The government already exercises enormous control over citizens’ homes, farms, businesses, and money. If the government is now labeling those who support private-property rights as terrorists, what does the government have in store for tomorrow?
Jeremy Hopkins is a lawyer with an interest in property rights.