[MD] Intellectual activity

[craigerb at comcast.net]

David,
[dmb] 
> I've often wondered if there is any important difference between "property 
> rights" and "thou shalt not steal". Since ownership is so very common, 
> well-known and accepted in Western culture, I can't help but wonder what the 
> right's emphasis on "property rights" is really all about.
 

Wonder no more.  Read Ayn Rand & Robert Nozick (especially, "Anarchy, State, and Utopia") for a sample of the right's view on private property.
Note that the right's emphasis on private property is no different in kind from the communists emphasis on all property being held in common, the socialist's emphasis on the state owning all property used as the means of production, the welfare statist's emphasis on re-distributing property (in the form of money, food stamps, etc.), and so on.  In a capitalist society there are laws against stealing private property; in a communist society laws against stealing from the commune; in a socialist society laws against stealing from the state, etc.  Again, no difference in kind. 
Those on the right believe that each (adult) individual is responsible for providing for his or herself.  One of good ways to do this is to allow them the freedom to set aside the excess above what they consume in subsistence, in the form of savings, personal & real property.        

[dmb]
> Anyway, I wanted to point out that Randy conservatives are often at odds 
> with other segments of the conservative coalition.

(I'll resist your set-up for a joke here.:-))  True.  There is much dispute between conservatives (as there is, for instance, between liberals & radical leftists, Leninists & Trotskyites, etc.)  This is how they refine their viewpoints.

[dmb]
> the MOQ says that money is a measure of SOCIAL good. This is not to be
> confused with intellectual quality.

If this is true of money, then it is true of money in a capialist, communist, socialist, welfare statist, etc. system.

[Pirsig]
> The real reason [freedom]'s so hallowed is that when people talk about it they > mean Dynamic Quality.

Couldn't have said it better myself.
Craig