My neighbor, Delbert Crooch, has a lot behind me and my next door neighbor, Tiff Lemur, that does not front a public street. Delbert and his family have a nice, big house, his kids seem to be pretty good kids, and for the most part, they are polite, unobtrusive neighbors. Certainly better neighbors than I am. So.... how do you think ol' Delbert and his family get in and out of their property every day? He drives down a dirt road right of way along Tiff's property line. Does that dirt road constitute an "incredible abuse of Tiff's property rights?" Should Tiff or I be forced to give Delbert access to his land? What do you think would happen to Delbert's lot value if he DIDN'T have a right to get in or out? If Delbert had to seperately negotiate with me or Tiff? I'll tell you what would happen. I would either have a nice, 1 acre field behind my house that would not block Tiff's or my city views or else Tiff or I would have snaked each other by cutting a deal with Delbert for a nice fat check in our pocket that would total a pretty good percentage of Delbert's lot.
So... what is fair for Delbert? Well, the fellas (sorry, back then it was all fellas) who thought about property and property rights, (which, by the way, are the very bedrock and foundation of our society, although you won't find that seemingly important fact in our kids textbooks) thought the right of ingress and egress pretty dang important.
Who was the good guy and who was the bad guy in the old Westerns? You know, the guy who looked like Henry Fonda that had sneering hechmen who bought all the land around the hard working farmer and made lowball offers under the threat of violence to clear out the family he surrounded, the guy who looked like Forrest Parker with the unlikely hot frontier wife and cute kids?
If you think the Parker guy is the hero, congrats. You are of a certain age, and you were raised right. If you think the Fonda guy is the hero, you have a lot in common with snivelling Republican state elected officials and the Supreme Court.
But wait, you say. We have right to ingress and egress, and I haven't heard anything about taking that right of way away by anyone, Republican or Democrat.
Well. Yes. Unfortunately, you are thinking that property rights, are 2 dimensional, like a piece of paper. In reality, they are 3 dimensional objects, like a cube. It is that third dimension that is under vicious attack by the "flat earthers". Those of you that own property in the third dimension, meaning the subsurface estate, ie mineral rights, are in the midst of a raging battle where your ever-lovin' neighbors are trying to steal your property... by denying you the right of ingress or egress. I mean, why buy your neighbors property if you can talk a politician into stealing it for you? That is what politicians do, isn't it? We spend a lot of time and money lobbying politicians into voting on ways to steal things from our neighbors... meaning you can't do it yourself right now because it would be against the law.
"But what about democracy?" you might whine? If the ratio of stranded property owners to property owners with street access is 1:3, is it fair for "democracy to work?" Should the three vote themselves the ones property? Is that "what democracy is all about"? Theft by gang?
If you think theft by gang is alright, you will be quite relieved about the statements made to me by the attorney chief of staff of a very prominent republican state office holder who had the gall to tell me that it "sure is a tough issue" while his boss stood there with a stupid grin on his face and a cocktail in his hand. Tough issue. Stealing people's property. From a republican to boot. Made me sick to my stomach. Or maybe it was the tiny corn dog appetizers.
By the way, I read where the latest legislative session resulted in 1400+ new pieces of legislation, or 20 some odd percent of the 6000+ proposed pieces of legislation. Think about that for a second. What a great day. 1400 more rules that you and I know little or nothing about to tell us what we can and cannot do. And two years from now, another 1400, then another 1400 and another 1400 until we drown in laws and red tape. Can you believe we PAY people to do this to us? Doesn't that make you feel great? Safer? Maybe a little bit... queasy?
By the way, this little piece in the WashPost today shows how late these guys are to a story. Remember my blog from February 07 about the Denver Carpenters Union Strikers? http://openchoke.blogs.com/open_choke/2007/02/index.html
Well, the practice has gone national...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072302011_pf.html
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