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Chapter 12-Property Rights

Property rights can be a bit confusing.  Most people think of “real estate” when they talk about property rights, but it goes much deeper than that.  Are your skills or your time considered property?  What about your earnings?  Are they property?  What about your thoughts or ideas, your writings, your car or house, your boat, furniture, and pets?  
   
The further we get from the tangible the more things become a little grey.  Now let’s throw a curve in here by asking, “Do property “rights” exist without the property?”  The simple answer is yes; however, the exercise of those rights cannot happen before ownership.  Notice that I did not say before possession.  For instance, if you own a home and rent it to someone else, who owns the property and who has possession?  You can own property but not have possession of it, and the law will limit what you, as the owner, can do while it is in someone else’s possession.
   
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.  No one shall be denied equal protection under the law, and taxes shall be uniform and apportioned.  Most of us recognize much of the last sentence from the amendments known as the Bill of Rights.  The courts have made it clear that income is property, see James v. United States, 970 F.2d 750, 755, 756 n. 11 (10th Cir. 1992).
   
If no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law; and income is deemed to be property, then how is it that they take so much of it by direct taxation without apportionment?  The answer is that we let them. (See the chapter on taxation.)  We have all become accustomed to accepting a little less freedom; as long as we can go home at the end of the day, put our feet up, and watch a little TV, or go out to eat or to the movies, life isn’t so bad.  Put it in a different perspective, let’s say the local gangster approaches you on the street and says: “Listen bud, when you get your paycheck each week, I want you to cash it and give me 30% because I want to help out my friends who need the money more than you do.  For your payment, I will make sure that if anyone breaks into your home, I’ll look for him -- if I have time.  And if you don’t pay, I’m going to send my boys over and take you away from your family for awhile”.  Now replace Bud’s name with yours, and replace the gangster with the Federal Government.  What is the difference?