As a close companion to this cult of the individual comes the extremist view of property rights. With some, "property rights" have become a mere fetish, but with others, a veritable religion.

We live in strange times. To see parts of our Earth Mother’s surface scarred and defaced for short -term profits seems to me to be the ultimate obscenity.

I have acreage here in Raleigh County. So what are my "property rights?’ Well, I can gouge the surface, clearcut it, spray it with approved herbicides and toxins, sell off the soil or anything under the soil that may be of value (not too deep -- I am constrained from getting too far below the surface because that is NOT mine. That strange anomaly in West Virginia called surface versus mineral or coal) and otherwise uglify it beyond all comprehension. I can do all this legally to what I have proved in court belongs to me. In a few years the land will pass on to someone else, and if I have done all these things to it, what will be left for that future person?

I relish having my personal version of property rights because this allows me to see to it that this particular piece of turf is treated with respect and with responsibility. According to my ethic, I could no way clear cut it, gouge it for minerals or even break it up into subdivisions. But I am in a minority with this view -- and there are those who would consider me un-American, even a communist, for subscribing to this kind of land ethic. (The people who are prone to call others "communists" usually don’t have a clue as to what communism is all about except that it is something "different" from what they are used to, "un-American" and therefore bad.).

My view on this puts me at a considerable financial disadvantage. Not only can’t I sell off my timber, but also I have to be careful who I would sell this place to. I would like to donate the land to a land trust, but I can’t afford to do this because everything I have is tied up in this place. If it came to a matter of life and death, I might have to eat my ethic somewhat – sell out to someone who was not necessary a responsible steward. So as in so many things in this life, it poses a dilemma.

At one time in human history, a man owned a wife and could do with her as he pleased. That included killing in some cases (even now in some backwater places in the US, if a man surprises his wife in flagrante delicto with another man, no court will convict him of murder or even manslaughter. If this is not demonstration of the "owning" of another person , at least her body, then I don’t know what else you would call it). Until relatively recent times in many places in western society he was allowed to beat her with regularity, as long as he used a stick not thicker than his thumb.

We are, hopefully, well out of this deplorable circumstance in today’s times. We are not so far from that kind of thinking, however, with our attitudes towards land and legal protections for those who would destroy sections of our Earth Mother.

In most of Europe, or in our own country where population pressures have forced a modification of this view, there are limits to what one may do with one’s property. Most subdivisions require that a homeowner keep her lawn respectable -- in some cases that not only includes keeping it mowed, but also free of plants considered obnoxious to the neighbors. The greed-based property ethic is still operative here, however. Collectively the other owners fear that their property values will go down if they have a maverick in the neighborhood. Persons who for environmental reasons, or to have a gainful hobby, are often enjoined from having a vegetable garden or a natural area with native plants growing in a relatively unattended manner. One cannot do what one wants if it can impact negatively on the group’s property values.

But usually a large corporation is hardly ever held to such an accounting. Ask folks who live in the coal fields and who have had to put up with all kinds of negative impacts to their properties from mining. So property rights will also vary according to how much money or political clout one has.

I imagine that if humankind manages to survive at all, the property rights now "enjoyed" by people with be a thing of the past.