I think it's a bit obtuse to suggest that someone who had the luck to be born a little earlier and move into an area somehow has some sort of a natural right to keep others out through obstructionist policies, and expecting them to act with compassion is somehow selfish.
But I suppose that's par for the course for the US, where individual expression and selfishness is valued over collective good.
You keep talking about "natural right", but nowhere did I mention that. I just said that I don't believe what they're doing is any more selfish than what the people moving in are doing.
Not saying my opinion one way or another, but there is definitely a “natural right” just in the simple sense of physically being present before others.
How so? All "rights" are manufactured by humans. We would like to say that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are "natural rights", but they're not: a bunch of people just agree that they should be, so they are. (And imperfectly, at that! We wouldn't have capital punishment or prisons if we actually believed in these rights.)
And if we recognized "physically being present before others" as a natural right, I imagine the Native Americans would have a much better situation than they do. Thinking that's a right for some but not for others is the height of hypocrisy, but that seems to be what a lot of incumbent property owners here seem to believe.
Sorry, I didn't mean to say "right" as in the kind manufactured by humans. I just meant that two people can not be in the same place at once. It's a right in a very literal sense, I.e. it's "right".
I agree with you about housing but natural rights exist regardless of legal recognition. Rape, murder, genocide, and slavery are all wrong regardless what a bunch of people agree about. That's what natural rights are. They are things that can be violated by an all powerful dictator. But the dictator would be wrong and terrible for doing so.
That being said, I'm hard pressed to call desired housing density a natural right.
You're correct: the most important right, if you follow NIMBY conversations, is the god-given right to a free parking spot for your dockless automobile wherever you may happen to go with it.
But I suppose that's par for the course for the US, where individual expression and selfishness is valued over collective good.