[ExI] Public spaces

[Dan]

--- On Sat, 4/11/09, painlord2k at libero.it <painlord2k at libero.it> wrote:
> Il 09/04/2009 16.24, Dan ha scritto:
> > --- On Thu, 4/9/09, painlord2k at libero.it<painlord2k at libero.it>
> > wrote:
> >> As the public places are properties of the
> government (now), it can
> >> decide that people must be unmasked. Or must
> unmask at request of
> >> the police, or other.
> > 
>> I think that would be a point of debate: whether
>> public spaces are
>> truly property of the government.  Further, the
>> issue is who should
>> control public spaces.
> 
> The definition is a bit lousy, I admit.
> We could say that all public spaces (what is not
> incorporated is some specific property) are owned by "the
> people". And we could define "the people" like the group of
> persons that form a compact governing and controlling the
> place (the citizens). The (people forming the) government
> control the public spaces only as agents of the compact.

Actually, these are based on fantasies too.  No government existing today was formed in that way.  The use of "public spaces" and "public property" merely hides this fact and tries to conceal that the government controls -- in a sense "owns" -- such spaces and properties and as it sees fit.
 
> Obviously this bring a few problems on how to administrate
> the shared places, the public ones. But it is nothing
> different from administrating a condominium or a shared
> enterprises.

There is.  This is a false analogy with property that is legitimately acquired by a group of people.  Governments simply don't acquire property that way.  So, there's no way to legitimize such ownership and control simply because it bears outward resemblances to how legitimate property is managed.  (In fact, one could argue that the use of coercion to acquire it and using fictions to defend actually adds to the differences -- specifically, the inefficiencies and knowledge problems -- between public and private property.)
 
> > The strict libertarian view is, IMHO, that
> > public spaces either have legitimate NON-governmental
> owners (and
> > governments have merely stolen the property and dubbed
> it "public" to
> > keep the fiction that everyone (the public owns it)
> and that
> > governments are actually doing the will of everyone*
> when they
> > control such spaces) or are unowned (in which case,
> they can be
> > homesteaded).  In my view, a strict libertarian
> would and should
> > contest any government's control of public spaces --
> well, within the
> > limits of practical action.  (I.e., one should at
> least ideologically
> > and morally challenge the state -- but not necessarily
> risk being
> > shot or spending time in the big house over this.:)
> 
> The third possibility is that, the people agree between
> themselves to reserve a part of the spaces to public use and
> confer the administration to a body of government.

Which has never ever happened.

> The hall of a condominium is a shared properties of the
> condominium owners, it is administered for them by the staff
> of the condominium and I don't think there is a right to
> homestead there.

Again, false analogy.  Actual governments were not conferred such a status by real owners.  (Even on the off chance that one ever was, it would still not allow said government to exceed the rights of the original owners.)
 
> I suppose that the condominium owners have the right to
> deliberate that masked people can not enter in the condo
> shared parts or must unmask / identify themselves is asked
> by the security staff.
> 
> Some owners could have different ideas, but this is matter
> of what they agreed when they became owners of a part of the
> condo. If the don't like the rules, they can change condo or
> convince the other owners to change the rules.
> 
> The problem happens when people are born inside the condo
> and start to have not defined understanding of the rules or
> the rules are lousy and imprecise or wrong.

See above.  The problem is a false analogy with actual private ownership.  This is a typical statist rationalization for government and for public property.

Regards,

Dan