Your Right To Sell Your Stuff

by Claire Wolfe
Backwoods Home Magazine

Is your right to sell your very own used stuff in peril?

Jennifer Waters’ Consumer Confidential says:

Tucked into the U.S. Supreme Court’s busy agenda this fall is a little-known case that could upend your ability to resell everything from your grandmother’s antique furniture to your iPhone 4.

The short version: In the U.S. courts have long recognized that once we buy something – whether it’s a Van Gogh painting or a Toyota – it’s ours and we can re-sell it.

Not so in some other parts of the world – or at least not without paying obeisance to the original maker. And now one more attempt is being made to impose other people’s laws on us. So potentially, if your car has Japanese parts or you bought that dress on a trip to Italy, it might become illegal to re-sell it.

If Ms. Waters is right, and the Nazgul do their frequently statist thing, we could technically lose The All-American Garage Sale. Or eBay. Or Craigslist. Or … perhaps even gun trading?

Sounds alarming.

Now let’s stop a second. And give a hearty, insouciant Freedom Outlaw laugh (once again) to the arrogance of Our Rulers.

Then let’s get some practicalities out of the way before we continue slapping our thighs in contemptful, Outlaw glee.

The Supremes just might choose to find against statism this time. If the Nazgul rule bad, Congress could afterward choose to restore Our Right to eBay via legislation.

But no matter what they do, if it hinders us from selling our stuff it’s just chaos-causing nonsense.

Remember the diktat a couple of years back that was going to prevent anybody from selling used kids clothes, toys, blankies, etc.? (Might contain lead, you know.) It stunk. It also got howled down by an angry public. Oh, sorry. I mean the ruling got “clarified.”

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October 11, 2012

© Copyright 2012 Claire Wolfe