The Present in Plain Text

Battle Creek Update

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how the Battle Creek sandbar in Calvert County, Maryland was essentially commandeered by the state. In a nutshell, the state decided to plant sea grass on a sandbar patronized at low tide by boaters, which has effectively rendered it useless to the taxpayers who just paid for the grass.

Well, as a result of my original post, Corinne Cook, clerk to the board of Calvert County commissioners, set about investigating this matter a bit further. Ms. Cook spoke with a representative at Calvert County Soil Conservation and put the information he shared into an email, which I've reprinted in part here:

1.  The sandbar is in fact privately owned by Walt and Susie Hance Wells, originally owned by Y.D. (Young Duke) Hance, Susie's father.
 
2.  The State (or County) did a project elsewhere in the County that disturbed wetland, so therefore, they had to find a place to plant on another site in order to stay within guidelines.
 
3.  Soil Conservation sought out the [Wellses] to use the sandbar as it was a perfect place for a wetland planting . . . according to them.
 
4.  The [Wellses] gladly allowed the County to do this as they were having problems with OTHER visitors to the sandbar.

Given that I was told by the son of the owners of the land connected to the Battle Creek sandbar that the sandbar is in fact public property, it seems that there may be some confusion as to who actually owns it. However, as I'm not in a position at this point to dispute the veracity of the information divulged by the representative at Soil Conservation, I'll go ahead and assume that the sandbar is privately owned by the Wellses.

At any rate, it appears the Wellses were indeed growing weary of boaters playing loud music and leaving trash on the sandbar. Therefore, if it's true that the state requested the owners' permission to plant sea grass on their sandbar, there's nothing you, I, or the general public can do about it insofar that we'd have any right to tell a family what it's to do with its property. Indeed, the Wells family could deed the property to the state if it chose to do so.

However, we do have plenty of right to protest when the state decides to misuse public funds -- in this case, when it decides to subsidize wealthy landowners at the expense of taxpayers. The Wells family may have no problem with Soil Conservation's decision to plant the sea grass -- they very well may have preferred it -- but that certainly doesn't necessarily legitimize the expenditure of taxpayer resources to do it. Indeed, Ms. Cook notes that "taxpayers paid approximately $1,700 to have the planting done by the County." I suppose I should go ahead and put in my request now for Calvert County to reseed my yard in the fall.

This issue is nothing if not entirely confusing. For one thing, Ms. Cook originally spoke with the Calvert County commissioners with whom she works, and she was told they essentially could do nothing because this is a state issue -- even though you'll notice that the planting of sea grass was actually done by Calvert County Soil Conservation. This is precisely the type of confusion that is bred when the government more or less has carte blanche when it comes to spending our money.

Moreover, it's practically impossible to even track where taxpayer money is coming from in the first place these days, given that the federal government subsidizes any number of projects for the states, which in turn subsidize local governments. And good luck getting your upstanding representatives to admit where they're spending all your hard-earned money.

The U.S. is little more than a centrally-planned state today, and it's all too evident that private property rights have been a significant casualty of this continuing encroachment on our rights and property. However, this shouldn't be too surprising because the government doesn't care about our property. We are merely wards of the state, hosts on which parasitic, power-hungry politicians can feast by confiscating our income and assets in order to enrich themselves along with their closest friends and special interest supporters.

Think I'm joking? Whether politicians facilitate land deals to transfer wealth from one property owner to another, stadium deals that fleece taxpayers in order to subsidize gazillionaire professional sports team owners, or relatively small land grabs like the Battle Creek sandbar, it's all theft. Theft that results from the compulsory taxation of citizens who may have no use whatsoever for the projects at hand. Theft that would get you and me rightly thrown in jail if we did to another what the government does to us.

If the Wellses are fed up with boaters using their property, they -- not the government -- are responsible for taking the first steps to prohibit such use. "No Trespassing" signs cost about two bucks at Wal-Mart. Shotguns are a bit more expensive. They -- not the taxpayers -- can pay to have sea grass planted on their sandbar. And if these measures fail, they have every right to expect their land to be protected from trespassers by the police, who are supposedly first and foremost entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing laws upholding our property rights.

To be fair, the Wellses apparently didn't have any problem with local boaters using their sandbar, and only began to grow frustrated when out-of-towners began to abuse it. However, because they weren't willing to do what virtually everyone else does and use their own money to protect their property, local taxpayers are the ones left with their bill. They should know better. So should the state and county governments.

And with any luck, Maryland taxpayers will know all about this fiasco in short order and demand much more accountability and responsibility from their government.

UPDATE (6/20): Ms. Cook has informed us that she was originally misinformed as to the cost of the wetland project. It was actually $17,000, not $1,700. As she rightly observes, what a difference a zero can make!

[Note: This article also appears at my personal Who's Your Nanny? blog.]

More "Zero Intelligence" Public School Folly

The list of public school "zero tolerance" idiocy is long and distinguished -- swigging mouth wash, drawing pictures of guns, or taking pre-menstrual pills is usually enough for children to draw the ire of politically-correct socialists who run government schools.

So it shouldn't be too hard to believe that mistakenly bringing a small Boy Scout pocketknife to school was enough to get thirteen year-old Tim Hapner expelled from Milton Somers Middle School in La Plata, Maryland.

The BayNet reports:

On Friday May 18th, Tim goofed. He accidentally brought a small Boy Scout pocketknife to school.  He had been looking at it while getting ready for school because he had a backpacking trip with his troop coming up. As he came downstairs for breakfast he put the pocketknife in his pants pocket. He meant to leave it on the kitchen counter but got distracted by his morning routine and left the house to catch his school bus without emptying his pocket. 

During fourth period he realized, with a jolt, that he still had the knife in his pocket. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have a knife at school but was too scared to turn it in. Instead, he thought it would be better to leave it securely pocketed so he could take it home and put it away. 

You have to read the entire story to believe it. It doesn't matter that Hapner is an excellent student with an outstanding academic and behavior record. It doesn't matter that he merely had a "weapon" in his possession but never even intended to threaten anyone with it, much less actually use it (so much for mens rea -- "no crime without specific intent").

It also apparently doesn't matter that the school didn't even mention pocketknives in a list of prohibited weapons that was handed out to parents at the beginning of the school year (the Hapners claim that pocketknives appeared in an online list later in the year without their knowledge). And it's also very likely that school administrators violated Tim Hapner's constitutional rights when they questioned him about this incident.

The Hapners aren't arguing that their son is innocent in this matter. They acknowledge that he should have known better than to bring the knife to school. But they also realize that this punishment does not fit the "crime."

But it doesn't matter, and here's why: Note that in this situation Tim Hapner does not have the benefit of being a "victim" of his environment -- he lives with two loving parents, is a responsible student, and gets good grades. You can bet a million bucks that if he were a "behaviorally-challenged" kid living with a single parent, he probably wouldn't have even gotten suspended, much less expelled. Obviously, no child in this situation should get suspended for this type of mistake, but if you think our public schools administer punishments and rewards fairly, you're not paying attention.

Kids often do stupid things. No parent needs me to tell them that. When I taught fourth grade, one of the funniest things I ever saw was a kid named Anthony thumbing through playing cards that just so happened to have Penthouse playmates on them. They were his father's and he'd grabbed them on the way to school. I took them away, trying not to laugh, and that was that. Anthony was a curious kid, not a freaking criminal.

According to the BayNet, Hearing Officer Karen Kunkel said that Charles County Public Schools "prevents legal issues by using the Zero Tolerance policy to limit administrators’ ability to use their best judgment on a case by case basis." Well, that's good, because if I were Tim's parents, I'd be suing the shit out of Charles County right now. Maybe if more taxpayers realized they have to foot the bills for these lawsuits that should never have to occur in the first place, more of us would wise up to the trash heap that is our public school system and demand reform, or better yet, permanent closure.

Kn@ppster: Practicing Libertarian Racism.

Kn@ppster: Wow, Ron Paul's a Racist

In my former life as a politically-tainted blogger I used to associate with a man by the name of Tom Knapp, whose work I've linked to before.  Check the blogroll and the archives for proof.  Ours was something of a mutual appreciation society for a hard-headed, obstreperous brand of practical libertarianism.  My how things change in 2 years.   The obstreperous part is still there, as is the hard-headedness, but the practicality is gone, at least it wasn't there this morning.

This piece, though is a sad testament to just how hyperbolic one can get in taking one thing out of context and blowing it completely out of proportion in a fit of reactionary pique.  It pains me to think that Tom spent so little time thinking about the quote (or the entire article for that matter) in the context of Dr. Paul's canon of writings and actions to the contrary.  The entire thing is intellectually dishonest and emotionally vapid. 

Moreover, in re-reading the comment thread it's clear that Tom wants Dr. Paul to basically issue him a repudiation of the article, something that he has already done in the past, saying on the record that the article was ghost-written but he signed off on it and has to take responsibility for the content regardless.  Again, emotionally vapid and terribly self-important. 

Now, This is Real Support for Ron Paul

Latest Harris National Poll has Paul at 4%

4% of the 3304 people polled said the would 'consider voting for' Ron Paul.  That's a significant number.  The 5% threshold is a big step up.  Name recognition is still Dr. Paul's biggest barrier to a further rise in popularity, no matter how much good press he's gotten recently that's only just gotten him onto the playing field, as it were.  A position in the starting lineup is still a little ways off.  That's why his performance in the debate last week (less time there than on The Daily Show, sadly) and Comedy Central's two big 'news' shows were so very important for him to do well on.  These were opportunities to humanize and promote such basic concepts as respect for life and basic human decency and humility, which I think he did admirably.

Sadly, the numbers from the "First Choice for President" leave him at just 2%, which is really just statistical noise, but it's it's a number with less noise and more signal than he had the previous two months.  For him to truly have a shot at pulling off a peaceful coup d'etat he'll have to double his numbers in this category by no later than August, I would think.

Personally, I think he's capable of it.  The appearance on the Colbert Report last night saw a spike in his Facebook and MySpace numbers, nearly 8000 and 30,500 repsectively, from yesterday alone.  I watch those numbers daily and note that nearly 1000 people have joined him since yesterday.  That's 1000 more people who have taken the red pill, jacked out of The Matrix and aare simply saying, "No,"  to more welfare/warfare, slavery, spying, paranoia and fear.

You know, if this keeps up, I might begin to smile at the prospects for my daughter's future.

Ta,

p.s. Thanks to the LRC Blog for the link.

Why I'm Letting My NRA Membership Lapse

I've been growing more and more skeptical of the National Rifle Association's commitment to our constitutional right to bear arms ever since Executive V.P. Wayne LaPierre criticized oil conglomerate ConocoPhilips for opposing an Oklahoma statute requiring companies to allow employees to keep guns in their cars when parked on private parking lots.

Here's what I wrote in an article almost two years ago (related piece here):

Reacting to a federal lawsuit filed by ConocoPhillips to block an Oklahoma law preventing companies from firing employees for keeping legally owned firearms in cars parked in company parking lots, LaPierre stated, "[W]e're going to make ConocoPhillips the example of what happens when a corporation takes away your Second Amendment rights."

As a member of the NRA, I support its campaign to encourage corporations to allow employees the benefits of firearm [protection] on company property. But Mr. LaPierre nonetheless should have known better than to suggest that a private corporation has any duty whatsoever to uphold our right to bear arms.

The Bill of Rights is not a contract between two citizens. It's a contract between government and its citizens. It places limits on the government, not the people. The Second Amendment expressly prohibits the federal government from infringing upon the right of the people to bear arms; it does not grant it the right or responsibility to regulate the states or its citizens.

Consequently, the federal government has absolutely no right to demand that states conduct background checks against law-abiding citizens attempting to purchase guns. However, the House has just passed H.R. 2640, which aims to close a "loophole" in the National Instant Check System (NICS) that ostensibly led to the Virginia Tech massacre.

Sadly, the NRA fully supports this legislation, stating, "No piece of legislation will stop a madman bent on committing horrific crimes. However, those who have been found mentally incompetent by a court should to be included in the NICS."

I'll admit that I don't necessarily like the idea of the mentally ill running around with guns. I also don't particularly like the idea of guns in the hands of husbands who catch their wives in bed with other men or fathers who've found out their daughters were raped, either. But this protocol is ripe for abuse, regardless of what politicians and the NRA claim today.

According to Gun Owners of America, H.R. 2640 is nothing more than "a deal with Democrats," not to mention one that "involves legislation introduced by the most anti-gun member of the House, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)." The GOA proceeds to note that this policy will also unfairly target military veterans who have suffered from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. To wit:

The Brady law already contains a procedure for cleaning up records. But it hasn't worked for the 83,000 veterans that are currently prohibited from buying guns. Gun Owners of America is aware of many people who have tried to invoke this procedure in the Brady Law, only to get the run around -- and a form letter -- from the FBI. The simple truth is that the FBI and the BATFE think the 83,000 veterans, and many other law-abiding Americans, should be in the NICS system.

Note to Wayne LaPierre: This is bad legislation. Not only does it further empower the FBI and federal government with greater oversight and control over our gun ownership, but the N in NICS stands for national. For an organization that thrives by claiming to represent our constitutional rights to own firearms, it certainly misses the entire point of the Constitution in the first place.

The NRA has undoubtedly done much good over the years in advocating on behalf of gun rights. However, it appears to have morphed into an organization that is more concerned with serving its own political ends as opposed to the individual rights of its members.

It is for all of these reasons that I will not renew my NRA membership and instead join with the GOA to help protect our guns and our rights from the federal government. Go here to do the same.

"I'd Rather Be Free and Alive"

Ron Paul just kicked ass on The Colbert Report. Colbert did his best to toss softballs, but Paul's public speaking confidence and message consistency is getting better by the week.

In a bit where Colbert was mocking Republicans (and Bush in particular), saying the "Constitution isn't a death sentence" and "I'd rather be alive than free and dead" as justifications for domestic spying and war in Iraq, Paul came right back with, "I'd rather be free and alive, and I think you can be."

You know, when Ron Paul's already got Bill Maher, Ben Affleck, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert -- and more importantly, their audiences -- on his side, you can't help but think he's got a chance.

All it will take is for Americans to finally wake up and demand a president who doesn't suck.

"Why Have Public Schools At All?"

Jonah Goldberg shows his libertarian side. Sort of.

He does just fine up until here:

Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary, but then getting out of the way?

What's so terrible is that it would still place the State at the center of education. It implies that government knows better than parents what is good for children. And where there is subsidy and oversight there is bureaucracy, inefficiency, and ultimate control.

Even if there were justification for government funding of education, there is no justification for government production of it. In this regard, Goldberg's suggestion is most definitely an improvement upon the status quo.

However, under the current system everyone is taxed to pay for so-called services they may not even use. This is immoral. Absent complete abolition of government schools, parents and taxpayers who don't use these schools should at the very least be able to claim this money taken from them as a deduction on their income.

O'Malley Shakes His Iron Fist

Not yet six months into his first term, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has already begun to exercise blatant fascistic control over private enterprise within the state.

We're not talking about compelling taxpayers to fork over portions of their paychecks to the government, or forcing residential and commercial property owners to abide by restrictions on the use of land they already own. Nah, that's been the norm for years. As Dan Gainor points out, O'Malley and state comptroller Peter Franchot have personally put the kibosh on a bayside development project that includes single family homes and condos, even though the developer has abided by every single permit and regulatory requirement during its eight-year bureaucratic battle with the state and local government.

... The firm did everything it was told to do. According to The Washington Post, O’Malley even said the developers had “jumped through every hoop.”

Even that wasn’t good enough. The plan called for building a bit of the community in a wetlands area. That meant it needed even more approval. And that’s where politics trumps law, ownership and local authority.

So O’Malley and Franchot voted the project down — not on the law, but on politics. O’Malley called overruling eight years of process “common sense” because our current development system wasn’t good enough in his eyes.

Ah, yes. More "wetlands" business. Want to exert authoritarian control for political gain? Looking to assume ultimate command over the property rights of tax-paying citizens? Why, play the "environmentalism" card! It seems nothing allows the government to run roughshod over our property rights like perceived threats to the almighty environment. Indeed, all that stands between politicians and our livelihood and property these days is their ability to convince us that their decisions are more important than ours.

If the state of Maryland doesn't want development to occur within close proximity to particular waterways, it can refuse to zone the land for such use. That would be immoral if the land is already privately owned, but it's not nearly as shameless as forcing a company to pay all its regulatory fees over eight years -- not to mention the legal fees that are incurred fighting bureaucratic planning and zoning boards -- only to be told in the end that all their work was for nothing.

In truth, the government doesn't really care about the environment or the people who benefit from it. Politicians merely care about themselves. If "saving the bay" or protecting the environment from abuse was their true end, the state could disallow building along its shores. Prospective buyers would know the rules of the game ahead of time, and they wouldn't purchase land that would turn out to be useless to them.

Oh, but doing that would cost the state untold millions in property tax revenue every year, wouldn't it? Instead, it's apparently better to allow people to purchase this valuable property and simultaneously impose restrictions on its private use. Mussolini would be proud.

I know exactly what this is like. For years now, I've wanted to remove dying trees from my backyard because there are a few that pose a direct threat to my house when it storms. However, I'm technically prohibited from doing so without prior approval from the county because I live within a "critical area" zone, a fancy name for land near water. The thing is, I paid for these trees. They're mine. The county doesn't have a damn bit of right to tell me what I can or cannot do with trees I own.

But that matters not. All that matters is that our politicians get to have their cake and eat it too; that they can fleece us for all we're worth, reserve ultimate control over our lives, and act as if their deeds are mere acts of altruism for our benefit -- even if this means preventing me from removing trees that will eventually come down anyway and fall right through my house.

How benevolent. Thank you, Governor! Thank you county commissioners! I am eternally grateful that you're here to help!

LRC -- Ron Paul’s American Education

Karen DeCoster's article this morning on LRC is, for me, one of the more readable things she's produced in a long time. While I have a great deal of respect for her and her perspective, I've noticed a tendancy in recent years for her towards a dismissive and reactionary tone that, personally, was a real turn off.  It's hard to maintain a respectful and objective perspective when you immerse yourself in the kind of criticism that people like us engage in.  It's easy to succumb to that after you've repeated yourself a thousand times, knowing your analysis is mostly correct ( or, at least, more correct than those you're speaking to) and still the world continues to hurtle towards a government-sponsored abyss. In common parlance that's called 'burn-out.'

That is only just part of the reason why I took a couple of years off from writing about these things, deciding instead to spend my time wiritng about something else that I love nearly as much (Hockey).  I figured if I didn't have the patience to treat my audience with any respect then why should they treat me with any?  Moreover, those that were still reading already agree with me, so, what then is the purpose of continuing to write other than to build a cult of peronality?

"Words are being spoken but communication has not been acheived," is a common refrain in my social circle.  If I'm not interested in communicating with anyone who doesn't agree with me then why not just talk to the wall or the mirror?  The effect is really the same.  In my mind, Ms. DeCoster's work had fallen into this category which is why the article this morning was so refreshing to read.  It almost seemed to me like she was awed by Dr. Paul's ability to maintain his even-keel and humility despite decades of being ignored, reviled, ridiculed and worse. 

For him to truly have an effect on the political landscape next year he is going to need to maintain that tone, never losing that humility, never succumbing (as he pointed out to John Stewart on the Daily Show) to being bigger than the message.  Reading Ms. DeCoster's account of her relationship with her father made it all to apparent to me just how much I miss the opportunity to talk with him at this moment in time.  From the article it seems her father is in a difficult place and I hope for both of their sake's that he lives long enough to see Dr. Paul's story through to its conclusion and beyond.

Ta,

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Ron Paul's Got Real Support in Utah

Salt Lake City GOP Convention Straw Poll Results Amazing

Props to the LRC Blog where they found the above blog entry detailing the Ron Paul Campaign's efforts at the Salt Lake City GOP Convention this weekend.  The straw poll taken by the delegates (over 1500 of them) yieled the most surprising result.... Ron Paul in 2nd place, ahead of everyone else except Romney, the mormon.  What's fascinating is this puts a different face on the popular conception running around both the MSM and much of even the internet crowd, frankly, that Dr. Paul's support is only virtual. 

Leaving aside the implication that people who use the internet aren't real, it's great to see that the general exposure he's received has begun to create tangible results where it matter most, with Repuglican delegates.  It's all well and good to get people who aren't members of the GOP all hot and bothered to support Dr. Paul and his campaign, but it means absolutely less than squat if the people who make up that party don't support him.  He won't be their candidate if that happens.

So, give a shout and a cheer for the good people of Utah who turned out and did the right thing by putting their state party on notice as to which direction they want this election to go.  His is an easy message to sell in a place like Utah and I'm glad it registers well there now.  If it didn't I'd feel a whole lot less optimistic about his chances over the next 7 months or so.

Ta,