[afarrell]

Is private property really still sanctified when so much of our wealth has come from robbery, slavery, and rents extracted under intimidation?

[pooper]

How do you propose we clean the slate?

[afarrell]

I don't think we can clean it. Any redistributive attempt to do so would involve coercive force. It sucks, but it means that for most societies, talking about property as sacred is ultimately a fantasy.

[jessriedel]

OK, we might just be talking about different senses of "sacredness". I'm certainly not talking about, say, a glowing aura surrounding a piece of property that dims when the property is every taken illegally. I just mean that taking someones stuff is a very bad thing to do, to be compared with (depending on the severity) physically assaulting them.