Greenpeace: Clarification

It is safe to say that Greenpeace activists are not libertarians and targeted a power company because they are anti-capitalism, not anti-mercantilism. In my previous post, I brought up the idea that the power plant may not really be private property. There is (I believe) legitimate libertarian discussions around the Robin Hood scenario; the King’s money was stolen from the people, so it is not his property. If you break into the Hoover Dam, should a jury convict you of trespassing?

But that is not the question in this case. It was given that the power plant is the private property of the power company. So, as Butler Shaffer writes, “Ahhh, it was a matter of ‘preventive trespass!’ Will acts of murder soon to be defended as ‘preventive self-defense?'”

There is nothing libertarian, ie, true, about this line of defense, and the jury in the case has denounced the idea of private property (just to show they believe in climate change?).

Share

9:26 am on September 12, 2008