Do you view tearing down a house as equivalent to murder? The syllogism depends on the process in question -- hypothesizing a different version by swapping out nouns contributes nothing to the conversation.

Next time they're drinking a latte or beer, smack it out of their hands.

After all, having your drink taken from you is morally equiavlent to never having it in the first place, right?

And you're going to pay for it? Because there's a big difference in simply not having a latte, and having paid for one only to have to knocked all over your shirt...

This is exactly what the speaker seems to be missing. Building homes required significant money in the first place; there's no such thing as a free house.

My point is that if Person A purchases something, and then Person B says that having that thing taken is equivalent to not having it in the first place, then Person B is ignoring the cost that Person A had to incur in the first place.

> This is exactly what the speaker seems to be missing. Building homes required significant money in the first place; there's no such thing as a free house.

You do realize the speaker is advocating for developers, who have the money (typically through financing, which is fairly straightforward to get if you are a competent developer), to be allowed to build the projects they propose. Not for housing to magically appear out of the ether.