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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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but existing homeowners are a powerful bloc.

Build new cities, then. It is incredibly frustrating to me to hear any blame for all of this garbage placed on the people that currently live in the places people want to go. How are people unable to see that this is the exact same argument that allows for massive immigration in the first place?

Hey bro, just decrease your own quality of life so that some people who don't currently live near you can live near you and get some of that quality you are currently enjoying.

No.

It is incredibly frustrating to me to hear any blame for all of this garbage placed on the people that currently live in the places people want to go

To be fair, it's very easy to blame them when they hold that they have a right to monopolize both the commons and other people's property for the sake of their own preferences.

Are people allowed to have an interest in their own home?

I have an interest in my neighborhood being a place I like to live, my city being a place I like to live, and my country a place I like to live. I absolutely have a right to express my preferences in these matters via the state. Keeping me expressing them via elections instead of simply forcing things to look the way I want them to is very literally the foundational role of government.

I have an interest in my neighborhood being a place I like to live, my city being a place I like to live, and my country a place I like to live. I absolutely have a right to express my preferences in these matters via the state. Keeping me expressing them via elections instead of simply forcing things to look the way I want them to is very literally the foundational role of government.

This viewpoint would be significantly less obnoxious if fewer of the people expressing it also talked about freedom, self-reliance, the value of hard work and other libertarian-adjacent ideas. "You can't have my house, you should get your own, and if you try to build one I will send men with guns to demolish it" is still antisocial, but "You can't have my house, it's my property because I worked hard for it, go get your own just like I had to, and if you try to build one I will act on my God-given freedom to send men with guns to demolish it" is despicable.

I am an unapologetic nationalist at every level. Individuals, neigborhoods, towns, cities, states, and countries should all advocate for their own self interests. If a collection of people want their neighborhood to look the way it does, then that’s their right. Leave them (and me) alone.

If you support housing communism at every level, then you do you. But you will get the standard results of communism.

If you support housing communism at every level, then you do you. But you will get the standard results of communism.

Can you please explain to us clueless readers of your exchange with firmamenti how the hell people advocating for their interests, such as electing representatives to enact preferable zoning policy, constitutes the government owning the means of production?

Houses are part of the means of production (at least according to the people who compile GDP statistics) because they are used to produce housing services. Firmamenti is advocating a system where houses can only be built with the permission of the local government (and where that permission can be granted or denied at a granular level) and can only be used for purposes approved by the local government. That is a system where housing is controlled by the government.

That system, which is what we have and has existed for a very long time, is not communism. The government telling a paper mill that they can't set up their mill in the middle of a residential neighborhood does not make the system communist, so it certainly doesn't make it so when it comes to regulating where houses can be built. If you want to advocate some new understanding of the word "communism" that means something that no one else means by it, you can certainly try to do so, but I doubt it will catch on.