What is it that makes a free country? Is it becuase the country is corruption-free. Nyet. Is it because the free country has taxation below a certain level? Nine.
What distinguishes a free country is the right and use of private property. Socialism / Communism says the government owns everything. Facism says it is prvately owned but government controlled. Freedom is defined by the right of a private citizen to own and control his private property.
In this country we are moving rapidly from that position to one of “freedom by permit only.” This allows government to keep the fascade of freedom.
“Of course you own it. Of course you may direct its use — as long as you get a permit (our permission) to do so.”
One of the main functions of a legitimate government is to provide protection from others infringing on my rights. When it is doing this it is not likely to violate the private property rights of individuals. When it treats property as a collective ownership and allows others to control property for which they are not footing the bill it becomes a monster.
That’s why our grandparents knew that if they wanted a privacy buffer they had to buy it. Today’s homeowner just calls for some regulation or enforcement that controls another’s property without any personal financial investment on their part. What a deal!
If each taxpayer had to pony up money for the so-called environmental protections that are being imposed today at the expense of private property owners we would be forced to prioritize those protections that really rise to the level of good and necessary.
As long as we attempt to get a public benefit without a public cost we will continue down the road to serfdom.
Archive for December, 2009
Private property distinguishes free countries from the rest
Monday, December 21st, 2009Hi! I’m with King County and I’m here to save your lifestyle!
Monday, December 21st, 2009Run!
I did and if you want any semblance of a “rural” lifestyle, you will too.
The King County vision of a “rural economy” can be summed up in two words: forestry and agriculture. Their vision for the “Rural Area” is McMansions.
According to the 2002 US agricultural census there were 450 farms in King County that made a profit that averaged $99,949. There were 176 farms that grossed $50,000 or more. There were 1,098 farms that operated at an average net loss of $14,305. At the very most, there might be 100 farmers making a living in King County.
Forestry statistics are harder to find. In talking with people involved in that industry for many years it would seem that the only ones making any money in forestry are Weyerhauser and its peers. For the sake of analysis let’s pretend that there are 50 people making a living growing forest trees.
So the entire economy of rural King County, all 130,000 of us, is to be based on 150 families and the handful of businesses that support them. No wait, that is wrong. We have to add in the 1,098 families that pay money earned elsewhere to support their ag hobby.
There are only three acceptable uses for any property in rural King County: ag, forestry, or residential. Given the numbers above, which do you think will dominate? As “smart growth” crams more density into the 39 cities of King County we will see that core of 1,098 “gentlemen farmers” grow exponentially. The rich have always had at least two residences; one in the city and one in the “country”. Rural King County with its five-acre-minimum lots is poised perfectly for McMansion country homes. As government regulation keeps the land prices down by limiting density and uses, evermore city folks will be able to buy their country estate.
Good old country boys like yours truly that need to do something productive on the land to afford more than a quarter acre will have to move elsewhere. True country folks tend to be a little too “rustic” for the gentry. “Rustic” is the most used synonym for “rural” in the six dictionaries I checked, by the way. It is a little hard to achieve rustic when you are subject to building regulations more restrictive than those in the cities, but that is by design.
“The Puget Lowland was settled in the main by a rather select emigration from the North Central States, most of it biologically and socially equipped for success in various economic activities. Along with this predominant class of immigrant, however, were the usual number of socially less fitted types. Considering the recency of settlement in western Washington, there has been an interesting ecological segregation of types in the area. The socially superior peoples have settled in the cities and towns, or on the alluvial farm lands of the Basin, while the socially inferior have gravitated to the foothill lands of marginal value.” (White and Renner, Human Geography: An Ecological Study of Society, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, NY, 1948, p. 378.)
Country has always been the place where those of us “socially inferior” people who actually like rustic have lived, but it is time for us to go. The space we occupy will be filled with houses. That was inevitable. The only question was whether it would be filled with “rustic” affordable housing for the middle and lower classes or with urban quality McMansions where the “socially superior” peoples of the cities spend their weekends. The decision for the latter was made some time ago.
Any city that grows always consumes the countryside around it. The socially inferior country folk are always forced further out. Whether they are paid anything for their land depends on the largess of those in power.
Pretending to encourage a “rural economy” while doing everything possible to restrict a real economy in the rural area is typical of those currently in power. It may be good for the conscious, but it doesn’t do much for the country folk.
The problem with Evironmetalism
Friday, December 18th, 2009I keep trying to remind people that environmentalism is, well, an “ism.” Folks who want to be good stewards aren’t necessarily into the religion of environmentalism. Those who “believe” strongly keep swerviing over into other aspects of the religion. Charles Colson, Nixon’s “hatchet-man” and convicted Watergate felon does a great job in his Dec. 18th radio broadcast of showing how the two keep intertwining themselves.
http://www.informz.net/pfm/archives/archive_913341.html
Read for yourself why we have a hard time keeping our fight to real property when taxes confiscate our private property and enironmentalism wants to threaten innocent life to reduce CO2 emmissions. They call for limits on children as a way to reduce the discredited theory of global warming. Talk about religious zealotry.
Just keep in mind that spotted owls and salmon never really were the goal. Saving a tree and a tract of developable land always has been the true goal.
And just like those who found that opposing the death-penalty for jury convicted criminals was harder than simply running the cost up beyond what is reasonable, so environmentalists have figured out that driving up the cost of a permit is easier than admitting that “back-to-nature-with-no-human-footprint” is the real goal.
So the battle really comes down to those who think mankind should be in charge of the environment and those who think the environment would be much better off without any human effect.