If you want to understand why several Democratic Socialists of America just won their primary elections in Oregon, you don’t need to analyze complex voter data or read political theory. You just need to look at our inbox. 

We received an email the other day from a rural homeowner asking for our help in stopping their neighbor from partitioning their property and building two home sites next door.   

Never mind that the email sender owned a rural house on their property, and that the neighbor was proposing to do basically the exact same thing. This was different, according to the sender. 

Why was this different? According to the sender, the following parade of horribles would cascade down on all the properties in the vicinity if the neighbor was allowed to do this: 

• The “character” of the neighborhood would be permanently destroyed; 

• The elk and deer would all vacate their critical range area, never to return; 

• The traffic up and down the narrow country road would become unbearable; 

• The “night sky” would suddenly become less dark because of the light pollution from the neighbor’s “McMansions”; 

• And the piece de resistance of all arguments – the neighbor’s land is “farmland” and if they were allowed to divide it and build two houses, it would be destroyed forever.  

In short, if the neighbor was allowed to build these two homes, life as we know it would cease. I could almost hear the sender hyperventilating as they were typing the email. 

When we get one of these emails from a property owner in town, it always starts the same way – “I’m all for housing, but . . . . . .”, followed by: 

*insert story about how you like to trespass on the vacant lot near you to walk your dog and if townhomes get built there you will have to walk 5 more minutes to the local dog park instead.* 

*insert excuse for why there should be more housing in town, but it shouldn’t be in your neighborhood.”*   

In both cases, there are bonus points awarded if the caller forms the “Friends of My Neighbor’s Tree” and puts out misleading pamphlets in the neighborhood to stir up extra fear. 

We’ve heard it all.  

Aside from the fact that the folks asking us to help sue their neighbor clearly have no idea that OPOA fights every day on behalf of people who want to use the land they own, and that working to stop someone from using their land is not something OPOA would support – getting these emails serves as a reminder about how far Oregonians have strayed from the concept of private property rights. 

More than ever, Oregonians are falling victim to a dangerous double standard: “Opportunity for me, but restrictions for thee.” Or to put it more bluntly, “I don’t want anyone telling me what to do with my property, but I want to be in control of what all my neighbors do.” 

And it’s precisely this gatekeeping culture that is helping drive the next generation straight into the arms of socialism. 

Given the election results, we felt like it was a good time to remind everyone why property rights are important to people of all political persuasions — Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Progressives, Libertarians, and everyone in between.

If we want to build a future of real opportunity for the next generation, we have to understand the ultimate tool of freedom that makes that opportunity possible. 

This is a deeper dive than our usual updates, but this is the most important message we can share.

The History: Ye Olden Times 

Private property rights are foundational to America.  

Think back to 7th grade history class. Remember learning about feudalism? In feudal England land ownership was at the heart of systemic control. Feudal tenure defined ownership. All land was technically held by the Crown, and individual people occupied land only through obligations to their superior lord. 

Property was not freely alienable – peasants could not easily buy, sell, or inherit land outside the rigid manorial system. In short, land ownership meant power, but only a tiny elite could hold it. 

The “American Dream” was founded on the idea that people in the new world – regardless of their feudal status – could own their own property. The American colonies rejected feudal tenure and embraced freehold ownership. In the new world, land could be bought, sold, inherited, and improved without feudal obligations.   

You know, that whole “No Kings” thing. 

This shift was foundational and embedded in our earliest laws. As an example, look at one of the oldest laws of our county, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties. This document preceded the English Bill of Rights by fifty years and the U.S. Bill of Rights by 150 years. It extended rights to all Caucasian males instead of merely to the elites who were protected in earlier English documents such as the Magna Carta and the English Petition of Right: 

“No man’s life shall be taken away, no man’s honor or good name shall be stained, no man’s person shall be arrested … No man’s goods or estate shall be taken away from him… unless it be by virtue or equity of some express law of the Country[.]” – Massachusetts Body of Liberties, 1641 

In sum, the founding generation viewed property rights not merely as an economic convenience, but a safeguard for liberty itself.  And while those safeguards weren’t available to everyone, they were expanding, and progress was being made. 

The History: The Constitution 

When it was time to stop being colonies and start being an independent nation, property rights remained central. In fact, the Framers saw the protection of property as one of the primary purposes of government.  

For example, James Madison wrote in 1792 that “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort,” and argued that a person has property not only in land or goods, but also in opinions, conscience, personal safety, and liberty.  

As such, property rights have long stood at the center of the American constitutional order. They were even enshrined in our Country’s most important document: 

• The Fifth Amendment Takings Clause: “Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”  

This clause was a direct expression of the Framers’ belief that government must not seize property arbitrarily.  

• The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”  

This clause, enacted after the Civil War, was designed to prohibit the government from stripping people, particularly the newly freed slaves, of their basic rights or property.  

If the government could disregard an individual’s right to fairness and process in regard to their property, it could also disregard the life and independence of the citizen. 

The History: Property Rights as Civil Liberties 

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: as demonstrated above, despite being foundational to our freedom, property rights have not always been doled out equally. At the time of our Nation’s founding, women, people of color, and pretty much anyone who was not a white male could not own property.  

As our Country’s civil liberties evolved, property rights remained – again – at the forefront. Control over property has always determined power, freedom, and opportunity in America. 

Before the 19th century, women had almost no property rights. Under “coverture” a married woman could not own property, could not sign contracts, could not control her own wages, etc. She was legally absorbed into her husband’s identity.  

From 1839 to 1900, the states passed a series of laws that allowed women to own property, keep their wages, and inherit property independently. These property rights laws were the perquisite to suffrage. Why? Because voting was historically tied to property ownership and legal personhood. In 1920, the 19th amendment was passed, granting women the right to vote across America.  

A woman’s right to vote was the political culmination of a long struggle for economic and property autonomy. Women could not be full citizens until they could control property and vote. 

Before the Civil War, enslaved people were legally classified as chattel property, an atrocity that did not formally become illegal until the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.  After emancipation, former slaves were eager to obtain land ownership as an exercise of their freedom. 

But even though slavery was enshrined in the Constitution as illegal, many states tried to continue to oppress African Americans through land use regulations. These laws were designed to recreate slavery in all but name. Here’s one example:  

• Mississippi (1865): “Provided, that the provisions of this section shall not be construed as to allow any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenements, except in incorporated towns or cities, in which places the corporate authorities shall control the same.” See Laws of Mississippi, 1865, “An Act to Confer Civil Rights on Freedmen,” Sections 1 (November 25, 1865).  

The effect of this law was to prevent any former slave from obtaining property rights to land outside of city limits (farmland), meaning they could not start their own farm and provide for themselves, thereby forcing them to continue to work for the white farmland owners. The Due Process Clause was intended to be the response to laws such as these. 

As time passed, governments had to get more devious to keep people of color from having the full benefits of property ownership. A more recent example is “redlining” – a federal housing policy that primarily occurred in the 1930s to 1960s. This lending practice graded neighborhoods by “risk,” marking primarily black areas in red and declaring them “hazardous.” Banks then refused to lend there. This blocked black families from buying homes, the main engine of American wealth. 

There’s so much more here we could cover, but I think you get the point: property rights are integral to not only freedom, but equity, equal protection under the law, and equal opportunity.   

Property Rights Today: The Fight for Land Ownership 

Today, property rights matter just as much as they ever have. Whether it’s a young family hoping to buy their first home, an entrepreneur dreaming of opening a small business, or a kid who grew up on a farm wanting land of their own, the desire to own property is still one of the most powerful forces in American life. 

Polling shows that housing and homeownership consistently rank among the top priorities for young people. They may not know the full history of property rights, but they instinctively understand what the Founders believed: landownership means freedom, freedom creates opportunity, and opportunity creates prosperity. 

The data backs it up. Organizations like Habitat for Humanity have repeatedly shown that homeownership is one of the most effective ways to break cycles of generational poverty. When people have something they can own, build equity in, and pass on, their lives — and their children’s lives — improve dramatically. 

Yet Oregon’s land‑use system does not give everyone an equal opportunity to own land. In fact, it is designed to do the opposite.  

For example, Oregon’s farmland policy, spelled out in ORS 215.243(2): 

The preservation of a maximum amount of the limited supply of agricultural land is necessary to the conservation of the state’s economic resources and the preservation of such land in large blocks is necessary in maintaining the agricultural economy of the state and for the assurance of adequate, healthful and nutritious food for the people of this state and nation. 

In practice, that means most land outside our urban growth boundaries (which is the overwhelming majority of land in the state) is not supposed to be divided into smaller parcels and owned by many different people. As a result, counties are required by state law to create large “minimum parcel sizes” for lots and there are hosts of restrictions and limitations on dividing resource lands.    

In practice, these policies favor keeping land consolidated in large tracts, which inevitably concentrates ownership in the hands of a relatively small group. 

Boy, that sure sounds familiar to some of the things we read earlier.  We’re surprised that no one in the Antebellum South thought up our land use system.  

Even those who defend the system most aggressively are starting to figure out this policy is turning out to be problematic. However, they are so bought into “more regulation” and “more government control” being the answer to everything, they aren’t even aware of how truly regressive some of their proposed solutions are.  

For instance, certain “land use watchdog” groups and legislators argued that OPOA’s Farm Store Bill (HB 4153) from last session was a bad idea because it enabled farmers to be more successful, which would raise the value of their property. If the property value went up, it would make it harder for potential buyers to purchase the farm.   

Instead of simple measures like allowing young farmers to buy smaller parcels that they could afford, helping them with downpayment assistance, creating low‑interest loan programs, or offering temporary tax credits for first‑time farm buyers, they argued for more restrictions (less property rights) to deflate (i.e. steal) land values by limiting what existing farmers could do with their land.  

In other words, they wanted the government to step in and prevent current farmers from being too successful, because the more successful they were, the more value they added to their land.   

Basically, let’s use Oregon’s land use laws to reduce freedom and devalue property.  Okay comrades.  

Property Rights Today: The Fight To Keep Your Land 

Even the people who do manage to claw their way into ownership aren’t safe. We all saw that Oregonian story a few weeks ago – a Portland homeowner, already dealing with a homeless encampment and broken-down RVs lining his street, finally asked the city for help. And what did he get? Not support. Not safety. Not even a conversation. Instead, the Portland Bureau of Transportation showed up to warn him that his hedge had crept a few inches into the public right‑of‑way. 

Instead of addressing the real problem, the city turned its enforcement power on the property owner. What followed was a stack of nuisance notices and code enforcement letters. While property owners don’t have a protected right to do harm or create a nuisance: code enforcement proceedings should be treated with extreme scrutiny.  

Violations of land regulations can come with fines that can quickly pile up. If a homeowner can’t pay, the city can slap a lien on the property – a legal claim that clouds the title, blocks refinancing or sale, and in the worst cases can even result in foreclosure. That’s not “public safety.” That’s the government reaching directly into the equity someone spent their life building. 

And these systems don’t hit everyone equally. Complaint‑driven enforcement and escalating fines fall hardest on low‑income neighborhoods and communities of color — Portland’s own Ombudsman has said as much.  

It’s the same old story: the people with the least cushion face the harshest penalties, while those with resources can absorb the hit or lawyer their way out of it. 

Sound familiar? It should. We’ve spent this whole-time tracing how property restrictions – from Jim Crow era policies to redlining to modern land‑use rules – have been used to decide who gets to build wealth and who doesn’t.  

This is exactly why fighting for property rights still matters. Because without strong, fair, and consistent protections, ownership becomes conditional. It becomes something the government can chip away at, picking winners and losers based on the politics of the moment. And when ownership becomes conditional, opportunity becomes conditional.  

That’s the opposite of what this country is supposed to stand for. 

Property Rights Today: The Rise of NIMBYism

Property rights were never a “conservative” issue or a “progressive” issue — and they still shouldn’t be. When you buy a home or a piece of land, no one asks whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or completely fed up with all of them. People of every political persuasion own property. 

For nearly forty years, we’ve represented fierce property rights advocates from all different political viewpoints. Let me tell you: watching some nameless faceless bureaucrats propose a rule that wipes out the value of your home or business has a way of taking your personal politics right out of it.  

But somewhere along the line, defending the right of all Americans to own and use private property stopped being a shared civic value and turned into something more — selfishness. A desire to use the government to favor you by hurting your neighbors.  

People are losing their appreciation for private property rights and it’s happening on both sides of the aisle. Folks who preach limited government increasingly have no problem telling their neighbors what they can and can’t do with their land. And the self-professed progressive saviors of democracy who love posting about their latest crusade seem perfectly comfortable demanding restrictions that strip their fellow Oregonians of the very autonomy they claim to fight for. 

Property Rights Today: The Nihilism to Socialism Pipeline

At the same time, nihilism is increasing, especially among young people.  

You don’t need a degree in sociology to see why the next generation feels completely hopeless about the future. Just spend five minutes doom-scrolling through any social media feed. What you’ll find isn’t principled civic engagement; it’s a masterclass in hypocrisy, driven by established gatekeepers pulling up the economic ladder behind them. 

• They claim to be terrified of climate change, but immediately mobilize to ban local solar farms and sign petitions to block the exact transmission lines needed to carry clean energy. 

• They complain bitterly about homelessness and the lack of affordable housing, but  aggressively protest new subdivisions and Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansions under the paranoid guise that new families are “stealing their water” or “causing unbearable traffic.” 

• They demand that local governments provide better services and infrastructure, but completely freak out when their city tries to build mandatory water treatment facilities or create tax revenue from new commercial or industrial development.

• They protest agritourism events on rural farmland because it might interfere with their own interests but then turn around and claim a Topgolf inside city limits is “ruining the night sky.” 

• Their comment sections are flooded with posts begging people not to move here, wrapped in a dark, anti-human rhetoric that unironically suggests the only way to save the planet is to stop reproducing and depopulate the earth.  

The wave of negativity and fear dominating our cultural discourse is overwhelming. The default reaction to any form of growth, progress, or problem solving has become a resounding, immediate: “That’s bad. No.” 

When every single door to advancement or economic opportunity is slammed shut, it’s no wonder so many young people are embracing socialism with open arms.  

They are constantly told the future is already lost — the planet is burning, democracy is collapsing, corporations hate them, and they are destined to die under the crushing weight of student loans while renting forever. 

What they aren’t being told is that opportunity is still on the table. No one is convincing them that we can actually build homes they can afford, open up high-paying jobs that will elevate their lives, reduce regulations and red tape to enable them to create their own business, and secure a real future for them right here in Oregon.

When their reality is nothing but stagnation, decline, and “Get off my lawn you lazy, worthless, teenager!” tirades by the same people who are solely to blame for those outcomes, socialism wins by default. Because at least it gives the young generation hope that it will tear down the “elites” and give the next generation a piece of the pie. 

The newly elected Mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson, a self-described socialist, was recently asked during a sit down interview what she’d say to a Washington resident who chose to leave the state because of Washington’s newly enacted “millionaire’s tax”. Her answer – she’d tell them, “like, Bye”. 

The audience, mostly young progressive people, cheered and laughed. They have yet to realize that when your entire revenue model is based on raising taxes on the rich, and the rich leave for states that respect private enterprise, there’s only middle class and working families left to pay the price. 

What they have also yet to realize, is that while socialism may promise to free you of the shackles of billionaire corporate interests, it walks you straight into the shackles of government oppression and control. And there is nothing you can do about it without private property rights.  

Property Rights Today: The Fight for Freedom & The Evils of Centralized Land Use Planning 

There is an old, historical truth that many young people haven’t been taught: When you give the government complete control over property, you give them complete control over you. 

The disconnect for most people is simple, but fatal: without private property rights, your civil rights cannot exist. When the state owns or dictates the means of food production, the engines of wealth, your transportation options, and the land beneath your feet, it also owns your right to object. 

Think about it. If the government or a tiny group of state-sanctioned elites controls all housing, all commercial space, all transportation, and all development, they control your survival. Speak up, criticize the administration, or protest the status quo, and you don’t just risk losing a debate — you risk losing your livelihood, your housing, and your independence. 

Remember the whole, “No Kings” thing? 

Control over property has always determined who has power, who has freedom, and who counts as a full citizen. But this leaves young people with a massive, justified dilemma: What are you supposed to do when you have absolutely no chance to own land of your own?  

This is especially true in Oregon. Thanks to decades of centralized planning, the vast majority of our state’s land is locked away in massive blocks, legally insulated from being divided, developed, or purchased by anyone outside a tight circle of legacy owners.  

Here is our direct pitch to the next generation: If you want to take down the ultimate power-grab of the elite, you shouldn’t look to socialism (another brand of feudalism where the government is King) — you should demand property rights. Demand your right to freedom and opportunity to succeed. 

Statewide zoning laws and bureaucratic planning commissions are not protecting the public. They are government-sanctioned monopolies. They are the exact tools the political establishment uses to artificially restrict the supply of land, spike the cost of housing, and keep the younger generation trapped in a permanent, subservient renting cycle. 

For fifty years, the elite have beautifully packaged this system as “farmland preservation” or “protecting the environment.” But look past the marketing. In reality, it is institutionalized gatekeeping designed to protect their own aesthetic views and keep the next generation from getting a foot in the door. It is a modern feudal system, wrapped in a green ribbon. 

This is why Oregonians in Action was founded and why property rights are the heart of our work.  

It’s why we will never stop fighting to create more opportunities. Why we will never stop fighting to create more property owners.  

The future of our Country depends on it.  

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not represent the opinions or positions of any party represented by the OPOA Legal Center on any particular matter.