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And if you do want to live in Kowloon walled city, then good for you: go build it somewhere else where you don’t have to destroy the lives of the people living there.
Fully support building whatever configuration of city you can come up with, as long as the current residents are okay with it. If that means finding a place with no residents, then go do that. And by the way, I hope you power it with nuclear power, make cars illegal, ban Christians and whatever else you dream of. Go wild. Just leave me alone.
That's easy to say when every attempt at doing so is frustrated with extreme prejudice.
Turns out you've also made it illegal to build my libertarian paradise in the middle of a nowhere that I fully paid for. And people who try to do it despite this get evicted and shot by government goons. As they did in Kowloon.
"You can't build it anywhere near me and near me is the entire universe" is an interesting notion of being left alone.
Well what if I want you to leave me alone? What about that? Where can I go exactly that doesn't make it illegal for a man to build what he wants on his own property?
I'll go to the edge of the world, Mars if I have to, I just want to be away from the sort of people who think my property is their business but theirs isn't mine.
So is it spite or something? Some person won’t let you build Kowloon walled city so now you need to punish them by ruining their home?
I’m 100% on your side if you want to build a giant condo block out on the outskirts, out in the middle of nowhere, or even in the middle of the city if the residents want you to.
All I’m saying is: the people who live in a city have a right to have say in what their city looks like, just like the residents of a country have a right to say who immigrates into their county. The government should work on behalf of the people who currently live in their city/state/country, not on behalf of people who want to move there.
If me and my neighbors don’t want you to build condos here, then leave us alone.
The problem is of course, as soon as someone moves there, the government now should be representing their interests too no? If you and 30 neighbors don't want condos, then 50 people move in and decide condos would be just peachy, you are outvoted and the condos should be built. You don't get seniority for length of habitation. That seems to be the logical outcome of your position if it just based on the will of those who live there?
Yes exactly. If a bunch of people move into the neighborhood and then all collectively decide that they want to bulldoze the houses they own and build condos, that’s what they get to do.
And what a perfect analogy for immigration this is! And why limited, careful immigration policies are so important! An Irish Catholic with 3 kids and a mechanical engineering degree who wants to move to Texas and work at SpaceX to work on starship? Come on in, buddy!
A single 24 year old Muslim man from Somalia who thinks we should execute gay people, has no education whatsoever, and calls himself a refugee? No probably not, specifically because the first guy already shares the culture of the place he’s moving and won’t really change it, and the second guy doesn’t and will.
And when they vote to bulldoze YOUR house and build condos invoking eminent domain, because they have more votes than you?
How are you making a jump from “people can decide to bulldoze the houses they own” to “people can bulldoze the houses that I own”?
Yes eminent domain is awful. Down with eminent domain.
Because you are stopping them doing what they want with their houses? Assuming you have the majority and you don't want them to bulldoze the house on their land and replace it with a condo right? You are exerting control over what they can do on their land. That was what the whole issue was, they want to bulldoze the land they own and build a condo, and you (and your coalition) won't let them.
So let's say they get control and rezone the area such that single family homes are now disallowed and tell you, you must bulldoze your house and build a condo. Now they are exerting the same control over yours (skip eminent domain if you like, the same effect can be had through rezoning). Presumably you also accept this as ok?
I’m not going to keep explaining this over and over. I think you understand my (relatively simple) point, and at this stage are just trolling.
If you own a house: it’s your house. You can collectively organize with your neighbors to protect your interests and do things like prevent zoning changes. You, as a resident, have more rights over what happens with the neighborhood than non residents.
No this doesn’t mean people can bulldoze your house. It means that if they become residents, and want to petition the city to allow them to build a condo complex on land then own then they are free to do so. If the other residents don’t want them to, then the likelihood of this succeeding is low.
You’re getting into pretty basic “active vs passive” actions type of philosophy/ethics questions here.
It’s perfectly acceptable, at least in the dominant moral structure of the west, where we both presumably life, to say: you cannot shoot somebody. Shooting people is illegal (aside from edge cases like self defense).
However we don’t have laws like: it is illegal not to prevent somebody from being shot. If I see somebody about to get shot, and can’t prevent it, we see this as different than if I had shot them myself.
Similarly: we can pass laws that say “you can’t build that here”, but don’t pass laws (generally) that say: “you must [un]build this here”.
Laws can prevent you from doing something. They can’t ([1]generally) compel you to do something.
There are obviously some exceptions to this. Taxes, the draft, child support are a few.
There are some very rare cases of “condemning” a building and forcing its destruction. Is that what you mean? Do you imagine that a property developer should be able to come to a neighborhood and force the condemnation of some of the homes of people living there so they can be bulldozed? (I doubt this is what you’re saying)
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