Another Attack on Civilization

September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists attacked and destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and severely damaged the Pentagon in Washington D.C. killing thousands of people in the process. Resistance aboard Flight 93 prevented that plane from reaching its target, but their spontaneous heroism could not prevent the day's death toll from reaching almost 3000 innocent civilians. These attacks were vehemently condemned by the civilized world as actions outside the bounds of morally defensible behavior.

September 10, 2008, a British jury acquitted six Greenpeace vandals of $35,000 criminal damage to a coal plant. There is no doubt that the defendants caused the damage. Though much less heinous an act, destruction of someone else's property is also outside the bounds of civilized behavior. But instead of being condemned for endorsing the violation of property rights, the jury's decision was "greeted with cheers from the courtroom."

The jurors had been persuaded that the perpetrators' act was justified under a law which allows property to be damaged in order to prevent even greater damage from occurring. This law, rationally written to protect fire fighters from being sued for breaking down the door of a burning building, has now been perverted into justifying the violation of property rights as long as it is done in the name of global warming.

The foundations of civilization are those principles which, if followed consistently, will lead to moral and peaceful social interaction. The most fundamental of those principles arise from the sanctity of human life: the individual rights of life, liberty and property. To undermine these rights in a court of law is to use the trappings of justice to destroy justice. Until it is understood that property rights are merely the physical expression of the right to life, then peace, prosperity and civilization itself are at risk.