Three years ago, the State broke that most troublesome and libertarian commandment against coveting the possessions of others

What does it mean to covet? Of the Ten Commandments carved on the two tablets that Moses brought down 3,320 years ago this past Monday, the one concerning coveting is the hardest to understand. Can we deeply desire nothing at all?

The other commandments either concern respect for God (don't worship other gods, don't blaspheme, don't build false idols, keep the Sabbath, etc.), or respect for others (don't murder, steal, perjure, or commit adultery). But what of the tenth and final commandment not to covet your neighbor's wife or possessions? Could your mere thoughts alone influence reality?

This may remind you of The Secret, that Oprah-endorsed self-help book and film that teaches that anything you can vividly imagine as being yours will become yours. Critics panned the idea as wishful thinking, even as the book became a best-seller. But perhaps it's far more sinister, perhaps the "Law of Attraction," that alleged secret that "has travelled through centuries to reach you," is the Biblically banned vice of coveting.

What's the difference between an unhealthy coveting and a healthy but intense desire? Consider Moe, the ugly, lovable barkeep on The Simpsons. When all the guys are complaining about their lady troubles, Moe shares his woe too: "The girl I'm stalking had me bumped back to two hundred feet."

By the time someone is stalking your wife or your possessions, even if they don't trespass or steal, that's too far. Battery is the crime of getting hit, but assault is nothing more than an apprehension of impending battery. Perhaps likewise coveting is banned even if the property never gets taken. Perhaps what is being prevented is the disquiet you feel watching someone else creepily ogle your stuff or leer at your spouse—disquiet and fear that your possessions could actually be taken at any time.

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Susette Kelo was robbed of her home in New London a few short years ago. The Supreme Court infamously voted 5-4 in Kelo v. New London that communities have the right to condemn homes through eminent domain and transfer them to other private parties that would pay more taxes to that community.

The Supreme Court ruled that states and localities may covet your land. Government officials can stop by and ogle your home, and if they like it, they will take it.

At least one writer has suggested that the original connotations of coveting suggested images to the ancient audience of witchcraft and sorcery, evil eyes and hexes. As late as 1642 right here in Connecticut, we passed twelve "Capital Laws," laws punishable by death. The laws essentially followed and even cited the Ten Commandments. If you worshiped any other God but the Lord God, or you blasphemed, or you committed murder, kidnapping, rape, or fraud, or you perjured, then you would be put to death. One prominent capital law, second on the list, was against witchcraft.

Yet there was nothing about coveting. Perhaps coveting and the black arts had been muddled together in our minds for thousands of years, and it is only in recent times, when magic has begun to mean card tricks and sleight-of-hand, that we have de-linked the concepts.

Speaking of muddled muggles and witches, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling gave the Harvard commencement address last week, in which she revealed that one of her earliest influences was the concept that what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. And perhaps it's true, at least as far as government is concerned. Hardly a thought passes a legislative body that doesn't involve taking private property. And the line between legislative thought and legislative action is thin indeed.

Maybe the tenth commandment was meant to be a restriction on coveting by the government. Could this really be a libertarian commandment?

You might expect libertarians to be the last people to allow restrictions on thought. After all, libertarianism in a nutshell is: Don't initiate force. Those three words subsume laws against murder, theft, fraud, and perjury and prohibit virtually any restriction on speech, religion, and thought. So how could a libertarian support a ban on coveting, which is barely anything more than thought?

In two ways. One, as discussed above, requires coveting to be as extreme as an assault on your mind. The second is that the ban of coveting applies to government, not individuals. The original Hebrew word "covet" appears in a handful of other places in the Bible but perhaps this quote in the Book of Micah says it best:

"Ah, those who plan iniquity And design evil on their beds; When morning dawns, they do it, For they have the power. They covet fields, and seize them; Houses, and take them away. They defraud men of their homes, And people of their land."

Had the Supreme Court ruled against New London, it could have cited this passage in inspiration.

They could also have cited the second president of the United States, John Adams, who said, "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."

Increasingly, the government is coveting our possessions. They use eminent domain to transfer our land and homes to their crony corporations, asset-forfeiture laws to seize our money and cars without a trial. And the way it is done is the blackest modern art of all. No private person can wield power equivalent to even a single stroke of a bureaucrat's pen. It's government sorcery, and we've stopped opposing it.

On June 21, the three-year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Susette Kelo is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony in her new home. She still lives in New London. Like us, don't you think she's constantly looking over her shoulder? Don't you think she'll always be a little worried about every piece of official-looking mail, or a knock on her door?

President Adams, it seems as if anarchy and tyranny have commenced.

So what do we do now?