Chafe <VBG> was RE: [at-l] It is immoral...etc.

[kahley7@ptd.net (kahley)]

At 12:01 AM 9/11/01 +0000, Vibram Soul wrote:

 > I looked immoral up in the dictionary.  I have always assosiated the 
word with religion.  Surprise!  It means 'not within the
 > generally accepted standard of social conduct'.

That's it ..exactly  Outside of catastrophes and war,
I can think of no other situation where anyone can take
something you own, against your will, unless you have
broken or are alleged to have broken a law or failed to
pay your taxes.   I take that back...but most of the time,
when that happens, it's called stealing.  Stealing doesn't
fit within the generally accepted standard of social conduct'.
Just because the government is the one doing the stealing
doesn't make it any less immoral.  Think of the associated
words..seizure...taking...aren't these synonyms of stealing?
The trick is they pay you for it but they pay only what they
wish to pay .....calling it 'just compensation'.

Think of it this way.  You are planning a thru and decide to
sink the big bucks into a great pair of boots.  You spend weeks
researching, then days driving hundreds of miles to try on some
pairs, make your selection, have them fitted with your custom orthotics,
have the shoe guy punch them out to accommodate your bunion,
and carefully break them with a couple months of blistered dayhikes till
you have them _just_perfect and ready to take you to Maine.
Finally....a pair of boots that both you and your feet really love!!!!

Then some guy comes up to you and says "I want your boots.
I'll pay you what you paid for them but you have to give me your
boots."  It doesn't matter that you are heading to Springer in two
days so this is a very inconvenient time to lose your boots or that
you invested hours and hours and gas money and hassle and pain
into the choosing  and breaking in of your boots.  This person wants
them and wants them at his price.

You say no.  He persists...so do you.  Eventually he calls over his
friends to intimidate you.  You still say no because these are your
boots and they are important to you.  You paid for them.  They belong
to you.  The guy and his friends use physical force to hold you down
and pull the boots off your feet and as he leaves with your boots, he
tosses two hundred dollars your way.  Fair market value since the
price of the boots was 2 bills.

Have you been robbed?  Were your boots stolen?  Was what happened
'not within the generally accepted standard of social conduct'. The fact that
he gave you money as he took your boots doesn't mean you sold them.
The guy didn't buy your boots because you didn't want to sell them.
Mirriam sez...sell means
to give up (property) to another for something of value (as money)
You didn't give the boots to the guy...he took them against your will.

Okay, you may be thinking that this is a stupid comparison.  I say the 
principal is
the same whether the taking is done by one thug and his friends or by the
government in the name of the people.   It's just that we have come to feel
that some times such governmental thuggery is necessary for the good
of the many.....and basically, screw the good of the one.

I understand that need.  I just don't like the way we go about it, especially
the insistence on fair market value because when the sale is forced, it is
_fundementally_UNfair.  Many ED documents use the phrase 'just compensation'.
It seems elementary to me that justice in a forced sale should include a
premium or profit for the landowner.  Even speculators should receive a small
premium but mostly my gripe is for the people who have invested more than
just money in their property....people who had invested time and attention and
blisters, just as you did with your boots.  They are the ones that should 
receive
a greater profit, perhaps based on longevity, in attempt to make an unfair 
situation
a bit more palatable.  That this isn't done because it would complicate 
things...
well......that just suxs.


>I have some questions for the defenders of property rights (I'm not 
>picking on them, just trying to understand their position).

I'm a little nervous here because this could very easily stray from Trail 
issues....


>How do you feel about zoning ordinances?  I.E. If your neighbor decides he 
>wants to lease his property to a chemical company as a toxic waste dump do 
>you think that the government should be able to tell him he can't?

I'm not a libertarian.  I reluctantly agree that there are situations where 
the
government needs to act to protect the environment, especially considering
toxics.  The government should set standards and regulations and set forth
permitting and inspections and zoning for new usages.  But there has to be
some fairness in the procedures.  Locally, we have an example of a hog
farmer...3rd generation hog farmer.  His neighbor subdivided his land and sold
it for pricey homelots.  People bought the lots, built their homes and the next
summer were outraged to learn that  eau d'hog wafted into their homes with
the evening breeze.  They sought a zoning ordinance to outlaw his 
farm.  Unfair.
He was there first.  They built their homes downwind from a hog 
farm....duuhhhh.
But.....say he sought to dramatically expand his operation, creating an 
larger impact
area for the smell, ...unfair to the people who already lived there, people
who bought a home out of range of the smell of the hogs.

This applies to the Trail too....to the relo that started this situation in 
NC.  The
people involved did not buy land near the Trail, but the Trail moved to 
them and
suddenly there homes are subject to seizure.  Unfair ... IMHO, this is a prime
example of a good time to use a scheme I referenced earlier.  Offer the 
landowners
a chance to retain the current usage of their property as long as they or 
their descendants
choose and buy the property at a deep discount.  The people who own the 
land get to
continue using it and we get to buy it for pennies on the dollars thus 
making the
greatest impact with the scare money we have to buy and protect undeveloped
land.  This was used years ago to negotiate sale of large tracts of the 
Bald Eagle
State Forest from hunting associations and private landholders except that 
I belive
many of those deals were based on a 99 year lease type deal.  If that 
doesn't interest
them, pay them a premium over the market value in an attempt to bring 
fairness to
the forced sale.

Now let's get back to the zoning, permitting, regulation side of this which 
also applies
to a current Trail issue.....the quarry.  Here's a guy, who from what i 
have read, followed
the rules, regulations and procedures to establish a quarry on his 
property.  He invested
millions of dollars to abide by all the regulations, including the 
hardening of a public
road to protect residents from bearing the cost of the wear and tear caused 
by the heavy
trucks.  Now to my mind, it sucks that the people who live locally now have 
to have
their lifestyle changed to include the noise of a quarry but the zoning 
committee permitted
it and all governmental agencies signed off and gave the go ahead to the 
operation.

Only after all this, did someone realize the quarry could be seen from the 
Trail.  BIG duuhhh.
An injunction was sought to stop the operation.  The NC EPA (i think) 
admitted their oversite.
Now what do we do?  Tell the landowner who abided by all the rules and 
jumped through
all the hoops and spent millions of his money to just eat it?  Relo the 
Trail into other people's
back yards?  Let the quarry happen?  Recompense the landholder?  What would
be fair? (other that firing the idiots that blew it in the first 
place....sheeeesh.)

As to the rest of your questions mineral rights are too obscure to relate 
to this Trail and
property taxes...don't get me started.  <aaargh> I will say that before I 
die, I will have
paid more in property tax than i did to buy it in the first place.  If you 
wish to continue
with this, I'd be really glad to.  But can we take it outside?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATLoutside  is an elist established for 
precisely this
purpose (to continue discussions that blue blaze from the Trail) ,and if 
you join and post to
that list we can continue this without adding further Chafe <G>.

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