Gangstas, Preachers and Property Rights
Inside Liberty Watch Today - March 6, 2006

It is ironic that free speech on the Las Vegas Strip's sidewalks is again an issue; while at the same time members of local law enforcement brass are calling for casino operators to ban gangsta rap concerts at casino properties and the Thomas & Mack Center.

Metro officers arrested Strip preacher Jim Webber last May for a misdemeanor because of Webber's pro-Jesus banner on a 12-pole violated a County ordinance against signs. Of course the ACLU's local dynamic duo of Allen Lichtenstein and Gary Peck have taken up the preacher man's cause.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Bill Young recently sent a letter to casino owners urging them to demur from hosting gangsta rappers. University Regent and policeman Stavros Anthony went even further calling for a ban on gangsta rap concerts at the T & M. Mr. Peck is on the case again, appearing on KNPR to defend free speech, calling Anthony's proposal, a "textbook example" of censorship, reports Geoff Schumacher in his Sunday Review Journal column.

For those of us who believe in property rights, the preachers should go and the gangsta rappers should stay, if that's what casino owners want. And casino owners only want what their customers want.

Forget the silly sign ordinance and whether it is constitutional or not. The fact is casino owners, or any other property owner for that matter, should be allowed to remove unwanted people from their properties any time they wish, otherwise what property rights does a person have? The ACLU's Lichtenstein told John L. Smith that sidewalks are free-speech zones protected by the constitution. But: "Where does a man have this right?" asks Murray Rothbard in his book Power and Market. "He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed, as a gift or in rental contract, to allow him on the premises."

So, whether it's handbillers peddling smut, union picketers peddling lies, or preachers peddling Jesus, if Terry Lanni or Sheldon Adelson wants them off of their properties, casino security should be allowed to shoo them away pronto. These folks can practice their respective versions of flim-flammary on their own property.

Even staunch freedom of speech advocate Justice Hugo Black believed that freedom of speech was grounded in private property rights. "We have a system of property," Black wrote, "which means that a man does not have a right to do anything he wants anywhere he wants to do it. For instance, I would feel a little badly if someone were to try to come into my house and tell me that he had a constitutional right to come in there because he wanted to make a speech against the Supreme Court. I realize the freedom of people to make a speech against the Supreme Court, but I do not want him to make it in my house."

Police Captain Anthony likens the violent gangsta rap lyrics to "shouting fire in a crowded theater." But, this tired old saw from Justice Holmes does nothing to justify the curbing rights. As Rothbard explains in For a New Liberty, if the theater owner sells tickets and then yells "fire" when there is none, he has defrauded his customers who bought tickets in exchange for the promise that they would see a performance. If a patron falsely yells "fire," he has violated the property rights of the owner and the other guests by disrupting the performance.

"There is no need, therefore, for individual rights to be restricted in the case of the false shouter of 'fire,'" Rothbard wrote. "The rights of the individual are still absolute; but they are property rights."

If property owners see some benefit to having gangsta rappers performing on their properties, that is their business, not Metro's. Property owners have an incentive to provide a safe environment for their guests. If good judgment tells these owners that having guys at their properties singing about killing cops and beating up women adds to their bottom lines they should be allowed to book that kind of act if they wish. No doubt, one incident will change their minds. That's how the market works.

John L. Smith musses that the sidewalk fight "could be bad news for the Las Vegas casino business, which markets itself as a bastion of personal freedom despite its vast Orwellian army of security officers and endless surveillance cameras." If casino owners thought for one minute that having preachers proselytizing at the front of their casinos would attract paying customers, they'd hire them by the dozen and book the Pope for special appearances. Sidewalk preachers are annoying, not a symbol of freedom.

If Vegas is selling freedom, it starts with property rights, the basis for all human rights.

Doug French, Libety Watch Columnist

Nevada News Makers
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