What should be done?

[Darth Executor]

No one has answered my question. the facts and units are as specified. What should be done? This is one reason I don't come here much anymore--people don't answer questions which are asked, which are legitimate questions. If no one is going to answer, I won't tell you where this is or anything else about it.

There is no good answer.

[Carrikature]

No one has answered my question. the facts and units are as specified. What should be done? This is one reason I don't come here much anymore--people don't answer questions which are asked, which are legitimate questions. If no one is going to answer, I won't tell you where this is or anything else about it.

No one said the questions aren't legitimate. They are. They just can't be answered with the little bits of info you've given. Maybe you can answer some other legitimate questions and get the answers you're looking for? Here's a few I can come up with off the top of my head:

1) Why are the poor landless farmers poor and landless?
2) How did the 3300 come by their land?
3) Are the 3300 using the land?
4) Could the land be used for farming AND what the 3300 use it for?
5) Why can't the 3300 build fences to keep off the farmers?
6) Why are the 3300 allowed to kill the poor landless farmers?
7) Are you calling them 'poor landless farmers' to skew judgments in their favor?
8) Could the poor landless farmers be doing something other than trying to setup farms on the 3300's property?
9) Should we claim that being poor and/or landless gives you some right to use another's property to correct either status?
10) Are the 3300 perhaps already doing something to alleviate the poor and landless state which the poor landless farmers are refusing?
11) Who decides what is good farmland? The 3300? The poor landless farmers?


Don't complain that people aren't giving you answers when you're not willing to provide enough information to get coherent answers. If you're really interested in our views, you need to let us actually develop them in context. Otherwise, why bother?

[Jedidiah]

I know where about 3300 people own 140,000 square miles of good farmland. When poor landless farmers from outside try to set up a farm on this land, some are removed forcibly losing all the livestock, buildings and effort they put into the farms on this forbidden land. Some of these poor landless farmers are killed along with their families and the farms burned, sometimes with the farmer families inside the buildings.

What should be done? On the one hand the farmers are trespassing on privately owned land. On the other hand the farmers have no land of their own with which to feed their families.
Should the land be taken from the 3300 owners and distributed to the poor?
Should ownership rights be enforced and the poor landless farmers excluded?

Curious the views here. It would also be interesting to know the reasoning behind the answers.

No where near enough information.

[Roy]

I know where about 3300 people own 140,000 square miles of good farmland. When poor landless farmers from outside try to set up a farm on this land, some are removed forcibly losing all the livestock, buildings and effort they put into the farms on this forbidden land. Some of these poor landless farmers are killed along with their families and the farms burned, sometimes with the farmer families inside the buildings.

What should be done?

I don't think this can be answered without additional information. One solution might be to get the landless farmers to pay the landowners rent, but your scenario is not inconsistent with e.g. the land being some form of nature reserve that the landless farmers are destroying, or the landowners being hunter-gatherers who use the land but not for agriculture.

[tabibito]

This also could be an allegorical account of refugees.

[stfoskey15]

They could hire help.

Like those poor landless farmers.

[grmorton]

Of course it is a trap which is why your gutless folk don't want to answer the question. Yall have all the relevant details required. Where this is, who this is, is not important at all. What is important is that it exists. But see yall gutless folk later, maybe. Seems no one has any courage or convictions here.

Those unwilling to be wrong are those unwilling to learn something new

[Terraceth]

Of course it is a trap which is why your gutless folk don't want to answer the question. Yall have all the relevant details required. Where this is, who this is, is not important at all. What is important is that it exists. But see yall gutless folk later, maybe. Seems no one has any courage or convictions here.

Those unwilling to be wrong are those unwilling to learn something new

>Admits the question is some kind of a trap.
>Admonishes people for not falling into the trap.

Perfect troll logic!

[Darth Executor]

Of course it is a trap which is why your gutless folk don't want to answer the question. Yall have all the relevant details required. Where this is, who this is, is not important at all.

It's very important. I'm willing to risk my life for some people but not others. I'm willing to take sides in bad conflicts with no clear good guys or bad guys provided I have some interest in one or both parties. So who they are is vital information. Without that information i have no reason to pick a side.

[Faber]

You're talking about farmland the size of the state of Montana.

You mention farmers and their families being killed, but by whom? If you mean South Africa, there have been many deadly attacks on tenant farmers and their families, mostly due to theft according to Johan Burger, Institute for Security Studies. The number has increased due to abandonment of the South African Commando System and government indifference.

If you mean India, there have been instances of tenant farmers rioting due to poverty, taxation and the government's agricultural poliicy. Paramilitary troops had killed several of them in an attempt to stop the rioting.

Reading you initial post, I get a totally different impression: that the landowners had been killing the farmers and their families, and had been burning their homes. How can I express an opinion when you're vague and not giving further detail?

And are you suggesting that whatever government is involved should take land from landowners and redistribute it to the poor? Sounds good but that is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. Also in India.

A large part of my work involves taking of land by the United States or my local state for the purpose of "public use," as per Amendment V of the Constitution, but not without just compensation. This involves land to be used for highways, drainage basins, public safety issues, etc. The earliest deviation of this in the history of the United States is when land was taken for railroads, but then handed over to the railroad company, a private entity.

I mentioned the State of Hawaii, not that it was anywhere near the square miles you cited, but because of the case of Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (467 U.S. 229 ). Because the early land chiefs owned nearly all the land, the Hawaii Legislature enacted the Land Reform Act of 1967 (Act) in order to reduce the concentration of land ownership. The US Supreme Court supported this act, stating, "The Act does not violate the "public use" requirement of the Fifth Amendment." But by doing so, they bastardized the Constitution, reinterpreting "public use" to mean public benefit.

Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945 (60 Stat.795; D.C. Code §§5-806(c) in 1946, authorizing Congress to take blighted areas within that city which were harmful to public health, safety, morals and welfare. Section Two of that act further redefines the meaning of public use: ". . .the acquisition and the assembly of real property and the leasing or sale thereof for redevelopment pursuant to a project area redevelopment plan . . . is hereby declared to be a public use." On November 22, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States supported that act.

Then there's the notorious case of New London, Connecticut, where the City of New London used eminent domain to kick the entire neighborhood of Fort Trumbull out and tear down their homes in order to provide a business center and mrina to induce Pfizer to build a pharmaceuticals company there. In March 2004, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the City, declaring that the mere promise of an increase in tax revenue justified condemnation for public use. In Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005). On June 23, 2005: The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 4-3 in favor of the City of New London and against Suzette Kelo. Justice O'Connor, in her dissent, wrote, "Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

So if you're talking about social justice, or redistribution of wealth, I would strongly disagree. This may be good in a communist country, but don't think that this would be the solution to the problem of poverty.

[shunyadragon]

I know where about 3300 people own 140,000 square miles of good farmland. When poor landless farmers from outside try to set up a farm on this land, some are removed forcibly losing all the livestock, buildings and effort they put into the farms on this forbidden land. Some of these poor landless farmers are killed along with their families and the farms burned, sometimes with the farmer families inside the buildings.

What should be done? On the one hand the farmers are trespassing on privately owned land. On the other hand the farmers have no land of their own with which to feed their families.
Should the land be taken from the 3300 owners and distributed to the poor?
Should ownership rights be enforced and the poor landless farmers excluded?

Curious the views here. It would also be interesting to know the reasoning behind the answers.

I would support a government buy out of the tracts of the land divided into economic farm tracts by emanate domain to by resold to the low income farmers based on repayment in terms pf the economic return the farms.

[Jedidiah]

Of course it is a trap which is why your gutless folk don't want to answer the question. Yall have all the relevant details required. Where this is, who this is, is not important at all. What is important is that it exists. But see yall gutless folk later, maybe. Seems no one has any courage or convictions here.

Those unwilling to be wrong are those unwilling to learn something new

We certainly do not have all the relevant information. Who these people are and what the background is makes all the difference. This sort of dishonest trolling does not seem to be the sort of thing I recall you pulling in the past. What is up with you?

[Roy]

Of course it is a trap which is why your gutless folk don't want to answer the question. Yall have all the relevant details required.

Potentially relevant details that are missing:
- what the land is currently being used for
- whether the landless farmers have attempted to negotiate with the landowners, for e.g. payment of rent
- how the current landowners gained possession of the land
- whether the farmers are bringing in diseases or invasive species
- whether the farmers acknowledge the landowners' ownership of the land
- why the landless farmers are in that predicament
- what laws are in place in the area

My current guess is that you're talking about European settlers colonising the North American plains, in which case you've left out a whole heap of relevant details.