As a second wave of foreclosures starts to surface and as the American Union reels from both residential and commercial real estate losses, we must harken back to one of the principles outlined by our founding fathers.

As outlined in the 1981 work by W. Cleon Skousen, without property rights four things would occur.

1. The lack of this right would compleetely destroy the incentive of an industrious person to develop and improve any more property.

2. The industrious individual would be deprived of the fruits of his labors.

3. Marauding bands would be tempted to go about the country confiscating by force and violence the good things which others had frugally and painstakingly provided.

4. Mankind would be impelled to remain on a bare subsustence level of hand-to-mouth survival because the accumulation of anything would invite attack.

If you read between the lines, are we not there now in several ways? The banks, which have been empowered by a government granting them reserves in cash on our tax-paying dollar, are now forcing foreclosures due to known poor lending practices and are in reality cheating the individual out of their property.

With constant changes now being tossed about in regard to taxation and property tax in particular from the federal government and levels of taxation on the common man, or middle class, many industrious individuals are opting not to purchase and improve property.

But perhaps most interesting of all from our founding fathers is the following from James Madison:

Government is instituted to protect Property of every sort... This being the end of government, that alone is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty is violated by arbitratry seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.

Therefore, Madison, and we can safely say many of the founding fathers, were against the government that was focussed on excessive tax for the redistribution of wealth.