filtherton

Arbitrary, as in, the things you think are important aren't the same as the things other people think are important. The things you think are rights are just the things you think are rights, they aren't actually rights in the sense that they aren't behaviors allowed by people with more power than you.

If you want to distill it down, my position is that "rights" are determined by the folks with the power to give and take them, and that all this high minded talk of a person's "right" to decide specific things about his/her property doesn't amount to a whole lot more than pissing in the wind.

My "way" doesn't matter, because I don't have a particular way with respect to the moral high ground of landlord/tenant relations (well, actually I do, but it's a stupid thing to argue about, so I won't). All I have pointed out is that in the past, certain landlords have shown an inability to perform their jobs as landlords to the satisfaction of their fellow citizens, and that, in fact, they failed so miserably that the ensuing public outcry resulted in a significant reduction in the things they could do in their capacity as landlords. I neither endorsed nor denounced what happened.

Try to make me understand how "neither of these are rights" isn't just a meaningless distraction.[/quote]

I don't think that they're rights in a moral sense, if that's what you're asking.

A counterexample of what? Your thesis that was a complete misunderstanding of everything that I said?

Let the complete lack of any mention by me that *mean people should have their stuff taken from them for being mean* anywhere in this thread by the counterexample then.