Property Rights, Riots, and "Vigilantes"

One local RadioMouth has made it his personal crusade to radio-convict Kyle Rittenhouse of murder or something because Rittenhouse was defending property in Kenosha.  It's also his aim to trash-talk Rittenhouse's actions by referring to him as a "vigilante" and then decrying "vigilante justice" as the Most Horrible Thing since the Holocaust.

In brief, his fanatic-emotionalism on the topic is overcoming any intellectual discussion of "property rights", which Rittenhouse was actually defending.  The concept of citizen-defense of property rights deserves a lot better than unhinged rants, so here we go.

This link was provided by Madison bloggeur (sic) David Blaska, (who is a very proper Moderate Republican, not some white-terrorist-supremacy ideologue.)  The essay was written by Dustin Siebel, a Libertarian, and while his premises are seriously flawed, his conclusions and much of his argumentation happen to line up very well with Natural Law and standard moral-theology principles.  (To clarify the issues, I have deleted some text which is extraneous to the matter at hand.)

Among other things, the RadioMouth claims that Rittenhouse was not protecting HIS OWN property.  To that.......

...An [  ] argument might be that his claim to defending property is illegitimate because it was not his property, or because he crossed state lines. This, in my view, is a ridiculous proposition. ...The claim that people don’t have a right to defend the property of others also undermines the entire premise of protesting on the behalf of another....

Yes, there is a 'reverse the poles' example which RadioMouth didn't think about.

...The argument that Kyle’s claim to property defense ends across state lines also draws arbitrary boundaries on where your rights to aid others begin and end. Would you honestly refuse a request for aid from a friend, or relative, because they live in another state?...

Of course not.  But RadioMouth's tirades begin with the fact that the car-lot owner did NOT call Rittenhouse; they were not acquainted at all.  So we have a total stranger protecting somebody's property rights here, right?

So now we get to the center ring of this exercise.  I will line-out his Libertarian ideology and substitute the Judaeo-Christian text; you will note that it makes no difference to his conclusion.

...To dispute the dismissal of property rights as a whole, let’s first identify where property rights come from. The primary right from which all other rights are derived is the right to ownership of one’s own body. From the right of self-ownership, God created you and gave you certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life and the pursuit of happiness.  ...You have the right to sustain, or destroy, that which you own. In order to sustain the body, a person must be able to make claims to unclaimed resources in which they have invested their labor to transform. If a person cannot make claims to the resources they utilize to sustain themselves, then self-preservation is impossible. If theft, or destruction, of property cannot be a violation of rights, then the use of violence to impede a person’s survival is not a violation of their rights. Therefore, to imply that a person has no right to defend their property is to imply that they have no right to self-preservation.

This is Natural Law reasoning and it happens to be supported by Catholic moral theology.  In fact, the Catholic position allows lethal force to protect property, which is NOT allowed in Wisconsin.  (Yes, there are limits and conditions.  Please apply common sense.)

...Let’s move on to the more common argument, that lethal force is not acceptable in defense of property. This argument is often based on a premise that the force utilized to protect property should be proportional to the threat against the property. However, a requirement of proportional response makes the claim to property rights contingent upon an individual’s ability to use marginally superior force in response to a threat. If you cannot repel a threat without using more force than necessary, then your right to that property is surrendered. Therefore, the claim to property would be relative to one’s own ability to exercise force. This strips property rights from those who cannot exercise force only marginally greater than the aggressor.

Under such conditions, only a person with unlimited access to power, across the spectrum of power, at all levels, has a claim to property. If a person’s right to keep their property is limited by their ability to defend it, then those with limited power must delegate the protection of their property to an outside force. This, in turn, makes the right of property ownership by the powerless subject to the discretion of those with power to enforce it. Because property is derived from self-preservation, this in turn means that self-preservation is limited by one’s ability to enact marginal violence....

"Delegating the power...." is what we do by funding law enforcement.  But in Kenosha, "law enforcement" was not present or was insufficient.  (The reason why is irrelevant.)

...The view that it is okay to destroy property, but not to defend property, that it is okay to batter and kill, but not to defend yourself, is a violation of natural rights....

Let's take the next step.  We established that Natural Law allows defense of one's own property but that we delegate protection to law enforcement.

When law enforcement is not available, do natural rights disappear with them?

Nope.

Are 'strangers' allowed to defend YOUR property?

Yes.  

Property rights do not disappear, and since we are all obligated to some degree to maintain Civil Order which protects ALL rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness), all of us are called by virtue of citizenship to assist in case of need.  Can RadioMouth argue that nobody should assist in this task?  If so, we'd be very interested in his thoughts.

It is impossible for one to maintain--as does RadioMouth--that only "authorities" or "owners" can protect property the possession of which is an inalienable right.  It is also impossible to maintain that only specifically-called or -delegated friends are allowed to protect Civil Order, unless that Order exists only at your home/business, or your city block.  Positing that the limits of Civil Order are congruent to your property-line (or that of the friend who engaged your help) is obviously silly.

In other words, if Civil Order should be maintained, all citizens are naturally responsible to assist in that maintenance, and that MAY include lethal force as a LAST RESORT.

Our RadioMouth seems to believe that Civil Order is either not a necessity OR that no citizen is allowed to maintain such Order.  I wonder what his wife and children think about that.

Write your Legislature and change Wisconsin law to comport with moral and natural law--allow lethal force for protection of property.

Another entry on the same topic can be found here, with more links to RC moral theology.