Once again, Paul Barford applies Barfordian logic to the mix. I wonder if he was captain of his high school debate team and they had some obscure rule which restricted them to one form of medium. I can see it now: ” Today we are going to debate [some local economic reform issue], but you can only use today’s local newspaper as source material.”
My comments are rather broad and are based on several years of comments and attacks by Mr. Barford against collectors and “evil” dealers that supposedly have a no-questions-asked approach. He likes to play the innocent, claiming to be open minded, but, quite frankly is anything but.
No one is denying that laws somewhere ARE being broken (in some cases) or that there is a problem. There are SEVERAL problems. Let me attempt to explain two of them from my point of view:
1. We have an issue that deals with the property rights of individuals. While this tends to be a rather “American” point of alarm, our friends in Eastern Europe, having survived decades of communism and socialism lived through a time where their personal property was nationalized and where they HAD to struggle to hold on to seemingly unimportant things, such as chickens and their eggs. They have developed a rather healthy distrust of the authorities and are especially loathe to cooperate with those that claim that something which has been found, which no one living nor any of their children can lay claim, that these items should be “nationalized” for the greater good and without some form of reasonable compensation.
2. We have a black market which has been created because of these socialist inspired laws. A very real concern, just look at the results of prohibition in the United States. We are still struggling with the bastard child which was spawned by this law which was meant for the “greater good”. (Organized crime)
Now, I wrote that I am not “as concerned” about unjust laws. While I am certainly concerned with harm to the archaeological record (in some cases) and unsavory elements in source countries, I am loath to judge individuals protecting their personal property. In Cuba (where my family is from) all property was nationalized. Because of this, a pretty active black market has grown. But should I celebrate when the 60 year old woman is sentenced to a year of house arrest because she “stole” chicken eggs (from what by all rights be considered HER chicken) instead of turning them over to the state for the “greater good”? Or should I be concerned about the guy that is trying to feed his family, goes into the ocean, grabs a couple of lobsters and gets arrested and ends up spending a few months in a Cuban jail, because lobsters are only for export and it is in the best interests of the “people” that he go hungry so that the state can (theoretically) make a few more dollars on the export of those two lobsters? I certainly object to the person that is stealing gas from the government depot to sell on the black market, but there are very clear differences. (The gas has an owner with clear title whereas ancient coins or other antiquities found on private property do not)
While the information which can be gained by proper excavation can be incredibly valuable (depending on the circumstances), it does not trump the personal property rights of the land owner. The ONLY viable solution is to enact reasonable laws which reasonable people will be willing to follow and would be glad to see enforced. Once you give people viable options, they become less dependent on those individuals that are “unsavory” and they are less inclined to risk prosecution if there is a viable alternative.
