Censorship as Property Violation

Sor Juana faced the Inquisition's scrutiny, ecclesiastical censorship of her work, and demands that she publicly recant her intellectual independence. These were not merely attacks on abstract freedom but concrete seizures of her property: her words, her ideas, her right to publish and be read. Libertarian justice treats censorship as a property violation because it confiscates the creator's ownership of and return from their work. The censor steals the author's voice and audience. Sor Juana's defenses of her right to write and be published were property arguments avant la lettre. This concept reframes free speech not as a privilege granted by authorities but as a property right: you own what you create, and others have no right to suppress or confiscate it. Her example shows that censorship is theft.