City councils radically un-American

City councils radically un-American

(My Clovis News Journal column for June 5, 2015. This is the repeatedly rejected one. The version you'll see at the newspaper site is the editor's version- which really isn't much different, but some. I'll probably find a way to post- somewhere- the original version, along with the reworked one which was rejected that I will post here in its entirety in a month.)

Through observation over my adult life- and especially lately- I have come to a conclusion: city councils are the realm of the petty megalomaniac. Need proof? The publicly stated goal of one such gang in the area recently was to plot to impose "enforceable rules that all residents could be held to".

That city council's stated goal is a sad, perverted goal; harmful and radically anti-American.

It was triggered when some people didn't beg them for permission, and pay the demanded bribe (which is dishonestly called a "permit"), before improving their own property in a way which harmed absolutely no one, and in a way many others have done before.

The only rule needed doesn't have to be written: don't violate the property of others. Nor does it need to be made enforceable. Defend your own property from those who try to violate it. I'll even help.

The only real danger most property owners ever face comes from those who imagine they have the right to enforce rules to control everyone else's property... and their eager quislings. It's that dangerous, superstitious belief in "authority" again.

A legitimate rule would apply only to government employees: "You will not violate, under color of law, the choice of others as to how to use their own property, nor steal property in the name of taxation, permits, and fines".

If any city council wants to legitimize itself, it could abolish all its made-up rules and become nothing more than a social club. It could then make all the rules it wants between its members. That path leads to no glorification or rush of power, though.

Do you consider ObamaCare a problem? It can't damage your rights as badly as local busybodies. You encounter them every day, whereas the vermin in Washington DC or your state capital don't generally notice you unless you first seek them out.

Property codes are not needed. Not everything needs to be controlled. We are fast approaching the day when everything not forbidden is mandatory. And I, for one, refuse to play along.

I don't want you committing enforcement of property-violating rules against my neighbors. I don't want you enforcing your twisted notion of "the common good".

It's time to wrest control of our private property back from those who believe they have a right to make up rules which violate us to feed their communistic hunger. It's time to tell them to knock it off and go away. North Korea seems a good fit for those who lust for ever more government control over every aspect of their neighbors' lives.

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