At some times in our history we have stolen the freedom and labor of others, because we felt they were incapable of using it as wisely as we could, and we stole the land and resources of others because they failed, in our opinion, to exploit it “productively”. Perhaps it is the very act of owning that is malignant and toxic and carries within it the arrogance to dictate whether or not others are entitled to the fruits of their own labor, or the produce of their own land.

We are all entitled to our property, those things we have made with our own labor, or traded fairly for with others. But that is not the same as seeing the world as merely a collection of equivalent commodities, things with no intrinsic value except for their abstract capacity to be exchanged for other things, and where that abstract value can be manipulated and distorted until it no longer bears any relation to human needs or desires or the human labor that made it possible. Human relations are not subordinate to commercial activity, and those incapable or unwilling to engage in that activity must not be dismissed as unworthy or undeserving of life itself. The origin of all wealth is the resources of the earth and the labor of men who transform them into useful things.

A man who cuts down the trees in his village for his own personal use is not free, or clever, or bold, or dashing, he is a jackal, a locust who would piss upstream, poison the wells or fish with dynamite. He is worse than the man who steals fruit from your orchard, he is the man who burns your trees for firewood simply because he is cold. He is the man who shoots the buffalo for their hides alone and leaves the flesh and bones to go to waste and their carcasses to rot on the prarie.

In legal terms, it’s called illegal taking.

Theft, in other words.

On the other hand, if the trees were of no particular value but were protected by idiotic bylaws that we know are often part of many HOA, I might applaud him for telling them to stick it in their ear.