Please see what not to do on the Forum.

@averagejoe1 said
@AverageJoe1 wrote this friendly problem during a friendly bout with the poster who calls himself Thousand. I'd said isn't it fun to have stuff like this on the Forum. His response at bottom exemplifies how you liberals make the Forum quite difficult.


'The question of illegally acquired property is a good one. If you are not home, and I take your lawn mower and sell ...[text shortened]... r took the mower from a weakling but the government protects his property rights in the mower anyway

“ The question of illegally acquired property is a good one. If you are not home, and I take your lawn mower and sell it to a guy across town, and pocket the money, who owns the lawn mower? The guy across town thinks he does, and paid for it in good faith. ”
You go to court charged with theft and the fencing of stolen goods, the lawn mower belongs to the guy you stole it from, the guy who received the stolen lawn mower should be ok if he can PROVE he purchased it in good faith.
As for the insane attempt at an unspecified analogy regarding the halfwitted house builder, you still own your vacant lot, your neighbour still owns his developed lot and anything on it.

@kevcvs57 said
“ The question of illegally acquired property is a good one. If you are not home, and I take your lawn mower and sell it to a guy across town, and pocket the money, who owns the lawn mower? The guy across town thinks he does, and paid for it in good faith. ”
You go to court charged with theft and the fencing of stolen goods, the lawn mower belongs to the guy you stole it fr ...[text shortened]... lder, you still own your vacant lot, your neighbour still owns his developed lot and anything on it.

Very good, A's for you. It is so refreshing to have normal posts. Being clever is OK, but, not if one can't be clever.

@soothfast said
I hope you're reading it mainly for the elegant prose, because many of Gibbon's analyses are quite outdated now. For example, his thesis that the Roman Empire fell because it adopted Christianity seems not to be accepted by modern scholars.

Given that it took 1300 years to fall, I wouldn’t call it precipitous. Of course, there has been a lot of research done since he wrote (in the 18th c.). The causes were many and of various impact. I’m reading him for his elegant style. English as it was meant to be written, and appreciated by literate readers.