In Oregon you don't own your rainwater.

[jts]

I'm not making this up. Honest.

http://www.naturalnews.com/036615_Oregon_rainwater_permaculture.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/z036615_Oregon_rainwater_permaculture.html

Oregon criminalizes permaculture; claims state ownership over all rainwater - ponds and swales restricted - jail time for violators

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) There's nothing more refreshing than standing in a cool, summertime rain shower. Or bathing in the warm sunlight on a crisp spring day. Or inhaling the cool autumn air, fresh with the scent of turning leaves and pine needles. These things -- rainwater, sunlight, air -- have long been assumed to be not only free, but un-claimable. You can't claim to own the sunlight that falls on my front yard, for example. A corporation can't claim intellectual property ownership over the air that you breathe and demand you pay a royalty for inhaling.

But today, Jackson County, Oregon says it owns YOUR rainwater, and the county has sentenced a man to 30 days in jail and fined him over $1500, for the supposed "crime" of collecting rainwater on his own property.

The man's name is Gary Harrington, and he owns over 170 acres of land in Jackson County. On that land, he has three ponds, and those ponds collect rainwater that falls on his land. Common sense would say Gary has every right to have ponds with water on his 170 acres of land, but common sense has been all but abandoned in the state of Oregon.

Much like California, Oregon is increasingly becoming a collectivist state. You didn't build that! The government built that! You don't own that! The government owns that! That rainwater that just fell on your land? That's the government's rainwater, and you're going to jail if you try to steal from the government!

That's the explanation from Jackson County officials, who initially granted Harrington "permits" to build ponds back in 2003. Yes, in Oregon you actually need to beg for permission from the government just to have a pond on your own land. But the state of Oregon revoked his permits a few years later, after he had already created the ponds, thus putting Harrington in the position of being a "water criminal" who was "stealing" rainwater from the state.

Tom Paul, administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department, is an obedient water Nazi. He insists, "Oregon law that says all of the water in the state of Oregon is public water and if you want to use that water, either to divert it or to store it, you have to acquire a water right from the state of Oregon before doing that activity."

What he means, of course, is not that the water is "public" water, but that it's government water. The government owns it, and if you "steal" from the government by, for example, collecting rainwater off your own roof, you will go to jail.

Thus, even when rainwater falls on your own property, you don't own it! The government owns it. You didn't build that! The government built that. That's not YOUR land, you only lease it from the King, and by the way, your property tax is due again...

Paul continues, "If you build a dam, an earthen dam, and interrupt the flow of water off of [YOUR OWN] property, and store that water that is an activity that would require a water right permit from us." (http://www.nwpr.org/post/southern-oregon-man-sentenced-jail-time-ille...)

You don't own the rain that falls on your own yard, Oregon insists

The state of Oregon openly admits, on its website, that you don't own the rain water that falls on your land! As stated on Oregon.gov:

Under Oregon law, all water is publicly owned. With some exceptions, cities, farmers, factory owners, and other water users must obtain a permit or water right from the Water Resources Department to use water from ANY source... (http://cms.oregon.gov/owrd/pages/pubs/aquabook_laws.aspx)

That page describes an exception to allow rainwater collection from rooftops, but not from a yard or natural landscape: "Exempt uses of surface water include ...collection and use of rainwater from an artificial impervious surface (like a parking lot or a building's roof)..."

So, in other words, if Harrington had paved his fields with asphalt, then collecting the rainwater would have been legal in Oregon! But because his fields were natural grasses, shrubs and trees, the rainwater collection was deemed illegal.

Harrington said that he will never stop fighting the government on this issue. As reported in CNS News: "When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, This is wrong; you just can't take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I'm going to fight it." (http://cnsnews.com/news/article/oregon-man-sentenced-30-days-jail-col...)

If states claim they own the rain, they may soon claim to own the sunlight, too

Rainwater, it turns out, isn't the only thing that falls on your land. Sunlight also falls on your land. Air resides above it, and minerals below it.

If the state of Oregon already claims to own all the water that falls on your land, what's to stop them from claiming ownership over all the sunlight, too? Imagine a day when the state erects solar panels on your land, but the electricity isn't yours to keep. You still have to pay for it, because the sunlight belongs to the state, get it?

If you erect your own solar panels on your own land, the state could then arrest you and charge you with "stealing" state property. All those photons, you see, belong to the state. Once the state declares sunlight to be "community property," you instantly become a criminal for having solar panels on your house.

State of Oregon declares war on permaculture and sustainable living

Collecting rainwater -- and sunlight -- are practices taught in sustainable living, permaculture and throughout the green movement. Rainwater capture using ponds and swales is one of the most important strategies for restoring a local landscape. See a good video overview of this here:

These rainwater capture practices help trees grow more quickly and accelerate the return of animal life to any region. They can even be used to restore a desert to a lush, food-producing forest. Watch these remarkable videos with Geoff Lawton:

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=C8103CF932330F50C3517F90AD81CBAB

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=566CDDCCEAB4F13F84BD671136D07F10

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=9F5EE67E76B9EEF613327E144B1B9973

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=E6AA432FA7063A24C998BC96C1363A72

See more permaculture videos on the permaculture channel at TV.naturalnews.com:

http://tv.naturalnews.com/Browse.asp?memberid=18014

Capturing rainwater also reduces the burden on groundwater supplies and municipal water systems. Capturing rainwater actually protect aquifers and raises the value of land, which results in higher property tax revenues for the county.

That Jackson County officials actually criminalize permaculture practices is abhorrent to not only the green movement on the left, but also the Libertarians and Constitutionalists on the right. Much like in California, Oregon County officials are lying, power-hungry tyrants who falsely accuse Harrington of "diverting" stream water when, in reality, he was only capturing water that normally flows off his own property and later joins the stream.

"Water law is water law, whether you agree with it or not," said Jackson County Water Master Larry Menteer. (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/16/man-disputes-oregon-convictions-...)

In other words, the power of the state is absolute, even if the state departs from the realm of sanity. Importantly, if the state of Oregon can claim ownership over rainwater, what's to stop the state from claiming ownership over the AIR, too?

To clarify: Oregon state bureaucrats are claiming they own the RUNOFF water from rainwater that falls on your own land! Some of the communist-minded critics who are defending state officials in this case are lying and trying to claim this man "dammed a stream," implying it was a stream that ran through his property. That's a lie. All this man did was dam up his own runoff which later dumps into a stream. Thus, he only captures his own rainwater. He takes no water from anywhere else. And when his own ponds are filled, that rainwater overflows directly into the stream where it used to flow before he built his dams.

This practice of capturing rainwater has been used throughout the history of civilization to restore landscapes, preserve soils, grow food and live more sustainably. Do not fall for the disinformation campaigns being waged on this issue by the Oregon communists and socialists who believe no individual has any right to anything.

What if Oregon claims ownership over the air you breathe?

If the state of Oregon can claim it owns the water that falls on your land, then it can also just as easily claim ownership over the sunlight that falls on your land. But it doesn't stop there: What about the air you breathe?

There is absolutely nothing stopping Oregon -- or any other state -- from proclaiming air is "state property." If you breathe it, you owe the state money.

The fees will be small at first -- perhaps $10 / month -- but over time they will be raised to exorbitant levels. It's a state-run shakedown, after all, and once the People become apathetic enough to allow the state to expand its power beyond all reason, there is no limit to the state's desire for total control over everything under the sun... even including the sun and the air!

This is not a difficult matter for the state to achieve. Oregon could simply pass a new law declaring all air that exists within state boundaries to be state property. Those who "divert" air by engaging in activities such as inflating balloons or compressing air and storing it in air tanks would be given stiff jail sentences.

Think this couldn't happen? Think it's too stupid? It's no more stupid than what has already happened -- the criminalization of capturing rainwater, a common permaculture practice for sustainable living.

California criminalizes fresh milk; Michigan criminalizes small local ranching; Oregon criminalizes permaculture

Do you see a pattern in all this? As NaturalNews has reported in just the last 18 months:

• California has declared war on small, local fresh milk farmers and distributors (http://www.naturalnews.com/036614_James_Stewart_Ventura_county_raw_mi...).

• Michigan has criminalized small, local ranchers and animal operations (http://www.naturalnews.com/035585_Michigan_farms_raids.html).

• A city in Michigan has also tried to criminalize home gardens (http://www.naturalnews.com/032960_Julie_Bass_home_gardening.html).

• The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma sent out a "destruction crew" to chop down a woman's edible landscaping garden of over 100 varieties of foods and medicinal herbs (http://www.naturalnews.com/036234_edible_landscaping_medicinal_plants...).

• Oregon has criminalized one of the most important practices of permaculture, capturing rainwater to restore life to a local landscape.

What's the pattern here? Total state domination over all resources -- land, water, food, medicine and more. This is part of the ongoing effort to crush self reliance in America and turn everybody into a mindless, hopeless slave of the state, living on USDA food stamps and eating corporate-engineered GMO.

Freedom means being able to speak your mind, capture your rainwater, bask in the sun, grow trees, raise backyard chickens, home school your children, say NO to vaccines, defend your life and property against looters and violent crime. Freedom is what once made America great, and it is the crushing of freedom which is now destroying America.

Collectivism is the enemy of freedom

In Oregon, California, Michigan, Washington D.C. and everywhere around the world where evil bureaucrats seek total power over all of humanity, our natural, divine rights are being viciously stripped away. Our money supply is being eroded at an accelerating rate. Our right to due process has been nullified by our own President (http://www.naturalnews.com/034537_NDAA_Bill_of_Rights_Obama.html). Our right to free speech is being increasingly censored and stifled. Our right to grow our own home gardens is under constant assault. (http://www.naturalnews.com/036234_edible_landscaping_medicinal_plants...)

The common cause behind all these attacks on freedom is "collectivism" -- the idea that individuals have no value and that only the state can provide life, food and an economy. This is accomplished through endless permit requirements that now make running something like an organic farm a paperwork nightmare. It is encapsulated in the recently-publicized idea that "You didn't build that! The government built that!" which ridiculously imagines that only government creates prosperity, not individual innovators and people who believe in hard work.

Similarly, the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act late last year (http://www.naturalnews.com/030986_food_safety_farmers.html) will absolutely devastate small, local farms once it fully kicks in (see video below).

We are all becoming indentured servants

With every new regulation, inspection, permit and government burden placed upon farms and land owners, we are increasingly destroying our own futures by placing more power in the hands of tyrannical government. We are all becoming indentured servants to the state. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant)

Think you OWN your land? Try not paying property tax for a year. You'll find out very quickly that you don't own anything. The state owns it. You are just paying rent.

Watch this video interview with Farmer Brad from central Texas, who talks about the devastating impact of the Food Safety Modernization Act:

http://www.naturalnews.com/036615_Oregon_rainwater_permaculture.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/z036615_Oregon_rainwater_permaculture.html

[Brant Gaede]

Rights rule or government rules. Government rules.

--Brant

end of story?

[jts]

Rights rule or government rules. Government rules.

--Brant

end of story?

I don't know what you mean.

According to Objectivism, government is needed to preserve recognition of rights. So according to Objectivism, rights and government are supposed to go together.

I posted that story without trying to prove anything by it. Perhaps something can be proved by it; I don't know.

That story is only one piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Put enough of them together and a picture starts to emerge. But it is a picture that most people refuse to accept, and I figure the reason why is that most people trust government.

Examples of trust in government:

1. Some schools are "accredited" and some not. What does "accredited" mean? It means it is approved by government. Schools that are approved by government are regarded as good schools; schools not approved by government are regarded as not good schools. This is trust in government.

2. FDA, EPA, WHO, etc. approve some drug or other product and people therefore trust that product to be good. These are government extensions. This is another example of trust in government.

3. Some professions are licensed by government, doctors, etc. Those not licensed by government are regarded as quacks. Again, trust in government.

Trust in government must be blasted. People must learn to not trust government.

What evidence supports trust in government?

1. The history of government? The history of government is mostly a history of violation of rights by government.

2. The current performance of government? Can you tell me one thing government touches without turning it into shit?

3. The nature of government? Like a monopoly on the use of force is trustworthy?

I don't claim to know the truth about anarchy vs minarchy. I suspect both would be doomed to failure and that there is no solution and that the human race is screwed. On the other hand, maybe there is a solution in the form of the right philosophy, as Yaron Brook says.

[Brant Gaede]

Rights rule or government rules. Government rules.

--Brant

end of story?

I don't know what you mean.

According to Objectivism, government is needed to preserve recognition of rights. So according to Objectivism, rights and government are supposed to go together.

Well, think about what I wrote. When government "rules" it grossly violates rights. When rights rule, government is held in check. Today, government rules. Tomorrow--?

--Brant

[jts]

Rights rule or government rules. Government rules.

--Brant

end of story?

I don't know what you mean.

According to Objectivism, government is needed to preserve recognition of rights. So according to Objectivism, rights and government are supposed to go together.

Well, think about what I wrote. When government "rules" it grossly violates rights. When rights rule, government is held in check. Today, government rules. Tomorrow--?

--Brant

Government is supposed to rule according to rights. But it seems no way was found to hold government to that restriction for long. Constitutions and Bills of Rights don't do it for long.

[Brant Gaede]

Rights rule or government rules. Government rules.

--Brant

end of story?

I don't know what you mean.

According to Objectivism, government is needed to preserve recognition of rights. So according to Objectivism, rights and government are supposed to go together.

Well, think about what I wrote. When government "rules" it grossly violates rights. When rights rule, government is held in check. Today, government rules. Tomorrow--?

--Brant

Government is supposed to rule according to rights. But it seems no way was found to hold government to that restriction for long. Constitutions and Bills of Rights don't do it for long.

No. Freedom rules.

Government sucks.

--Brant

[jts]

No. Freedom rules.

Government sucks.

--Brant

Are you an anarchist?

[Selene]

If he isn't...

can I be one?

[Brant Gaede]

No. Freedom rules.

Government sucks.

--Brant

Are you an anarchist?

No. You don't have to be an anarchist to know this. The Founding Fathers knew this. That's why they set up a constitutional republic.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

No. Freedom rules.

Government sucks.

--Brant

Are you an anarchist?

No. You don't have to be an anarchist to know this. The Founding Fathers knew this. That's why they set up a constitutional republic.

--Brant

Which did not last very long as a limited government Constitutional Republic. The experiment was killed off by the Civil War. It has been some kind of Statism or another ever since.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Yes.

--Brant

that's the problem anarchy seeks to fix; I don't think it does; I don't think it can

[Selene]

Seems the basis for this intrusion on freedom dates back to a 1925 City law that never mentions rainwater. However, the government thugs used that law to strangle this citizen...

30 days in jail!!

$1,500.00 dollar fine!! AND

The property owner has to pay for the cost of the government's thugs to drain the ponds that he has. One pond has been on his land for thirty-seven [37] years!!!!

Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -- for Collecting Rainwater on His Property

By Kendra Alleyne

July 26, 2012

Subscribe to Kendra Alleyne's posts

(AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) – A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.

“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.

The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence.

Harrington said the case first began in 2002, when state water managers told him there were complaints about the three “reservoirs” – ponds – on his more than 170 acres of land.

According to Oregon water laws, all water is publicly owned. Therefore, anyone who wants to store any type of water on their property must first obtain a permit from state water managers.

Harrington said he applied for three permits to legally house reservoirs for storm and snow water runoff on his property. One of the “reservoirs” had been on his property for 37 years, he said.

Though the state Water Resources Department initially approved his permits in 2003, the state – and a state court -- ultimately reversed the decision.

“They issued me my permits. I had my permits in hand and they retracted them just arbitrarily, basically. They took them back and said ‘No, you can’t have them,’ so I’ve been fighting it ever since,” Harrington told CNSNews.com.

The case, he said, is centered on a 1925 law which states that the city of Medford holds exclusive rights to “all core sources of water” in the Big Butte Creek watershed and its tributaries.

“Way back in 1925 the city of Medford got a unique withdrawal that withdrew all -- supposedly all -- the water out of a single basin and supposedly for the benefit of the city of Medford,” Harrington told CNSNews.com.

Harrington told CNSNews.com, however, that the 1925 law doesn’t mention anything about colleting rainwater or snow melt -- and he believes that he has been falsely accused.

“The withdrawal said the stream and its tributaries. It didn’t mention anything about rainwater and it didn’t mention anything about snow melt and it didn’t mention anything about diffused water, but yet now, they’re trying to expand that to include that rain water and they’re using me as the goat to do it,” Harrington

But Tom Paul, administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department, claims that Harrington has been violating the state’s water use law by diverting water from streams running into the Big Butte River.

“The law that he is actually violating is not the 1925 provision, but it’s Oregon law that says all of the water in the state of Oregon is public water and if you want to use that water, either to divert it or to store it, you have to acquire a water right from the state of Oregon before doing that activity,” Paul told CNSNews.com.

Yet Paul admitted the 1925 law does apply because, he said, Harrington constructed dams to block a tributary to the Big Butte, which Medford uses for its water supply.

“There are dams across channels, water channels where the water would normally flow if it were not for the dam and so those dams are stopping the water from flowing in the channel and storing it- holding it so it cannot flow downstream,” Paul told CNSNews.com.

Harrington, however, argued in court that that he is not diverting water from Big Butte Creek, but the dams capturing the rainwater and snow runoff – or “diffused water” – are on his own property and that therefore the runoff does not fall under the jurisdiction of the state water managers, nor does it not violate the 1925 act.

In 2007, a Jackson County Circuit Court judge denied Harrington’s permits and found that he had illegally “withdrawn the water at issue from appropriation other than for the City of Medford.”

According to Paul, Harrington entered a guilty plea at the time, received three years probation and was ordered to open up the water gates.

“A very short period of time following the expiration of his probation, he once again closed the gates and re-filled the reservoirs,” Paul told

CNSNews.com. “So, this has been going on for some time and I think frankly the court felt that Mr. Harrington was not getting the message and decided that they’d already given him probation once and required him to open the gates and he refilled his reservoirs and it was business as usual for him, so I think the court wanted -- it felt it needed -- to give a stiffer penalty to get Mr. Harrington’s attention.”

In two weeks, if unsuccessful in his appeals, Harrington told CNSNews.com that he will report to the Jackson County Jail to serve his sentence.

“I follow the rules. If I’m mandated to report, I’m going to report. Of course, I’m going to do what it takes in the meantime to prevent that, but if I’m not successful, I’ll be there,” Harrington said.

But Harrington also said that he will never stop fighting the government on this issue.

“When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”

[Selene]

So when are we going to accept that we are rapidly accelerating into a "soft" tyranny...

=========================================================================================

Man Sentenced to 30 Days for Catching Rain Water on Own Property Enters Jail

By Kendra Alleyne

August 8, 2012

Gary Harrington goes to Jail

Gary Harrington reports to Jackson County (Ore.) Jail to begin serving a 30-day term for collecting rainwater on his property. (Photo: Gary Harrington)

(CNSNews.com) – Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.

“I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.

Harrington was found guilty two weeks ago of breaking a 1925 law for having, what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property. He was convicted of nine misdemeanors, sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined over $1500 for collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his property.

Gary Harrington news conference

Crowd of supporters outside Jackson County Jail, Wednesday August 8, 2012. (Photo: Gary Harrington)

The Oregon Water Resources Department, claims that Harrington has been violating the state’s water use law by diverting water from streams running into the Big Butte River.

But Harrington says he is not diverting the state's water -- merely collecting rainwater and snow melt that falls or flows on his own property.

Harrington has vowed to continue to fight the penalty, stating that the government has become “big bullies” and that “from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”

“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies, Harrington said in an interview two weeks ago with CNSNews.com.

"We as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.

His release is expected in early September.

=============================================================

http://cnsnews.com/n...rty-enters-jail

[Mikee]

Lots of things wrong with Oregon. They won't let you pump your own gas, that's enough for me. I think they went off the rails a long time ago.

[jts]

So when are we going to accept that we are rapidly accelerating into a "soft" tyranny...

Woman in trouble with the law for growing a garden in her front yard.

Kid with a lemonade stand shut down for not having a business license.

Raw milk is illegal in Canada and in parts of USA.

Woman in Germany arrested for selling 500g of vitamin C.

Industrial hemp is illegal.

Psychiatric drugs are forced on children.

Government puts fluoride in bottled water that people drink to avoid fluoride.

Man is arrested for saving the life of a policeman.

Man is arrested for not smiling while watching a parade. (He had Parkinson's and could not smile.)

Crippled people are tased.

Doctor gets in trouble with the law for helping an elderly man. (The doctor was supposed to let him die.)

UK had free speech zones. (Outside these zones you don't have free speech.)

Dial 911 because someone is beating you up and get arrested yourself even tho you did nothing.

In some places you are told falsely you are required to take vaccines.

There is a war against nutrition. (naturalnews)

School children are not allowed to eat lunches from home.

They are trying to make gardening illegal. (Search: gardening illegal)

If you have more than 8 days of food, you might be a terrorist.

Monsanto wants a law prohibiting truthfully labelling non-GE as non-GE.

Obamacare. (total control of doctoring)

Agenda 21 worldwide. (environmentalism on steroids)

Codex Alimentarius worldwide. (total control of food)

Cancer viruses in the vaccines.

Stuff sprayed from airplanes that ruins the soil.

Global warming lies.

etc. etc. etc.

If I had a better memory, I probably could list ten times as many items.

[caroljane]

Feeling better now, Bonzo?

Now lie back down on your bed of nails and enjoy your nice snack of raw worms,

[Selene]

Feeling better now, Bonzo?

Now lie back down on your bed of nails and enjoy your nice snack of raw worms,

Damn...so it IS bedtime for Bonzo!

And I met Bonzo's owner and this dude ain't no Ronnie Reagan!

[caroljane]

Don't be so sure. Ronnie had some wild times when he was an FBI informant, with J Edgar and the Carmen Miranda hat gang

[Brant Gaede]

So when are we going to accept that we are rapidly accelerating into a "soft" tyranny...

Woman in trouble with the law for growing a garden in her front yard.

Kid with a lemonade stand shut down for not having a business license.

Raw milk is illegal in Canada and in parts of USA.

Woman in Germany arrested for selling 500g of vitamin C.

Industrial hemp is illegal.

Psychiatric drugs are forced on children.

Government puts fluoride in bottled water that people drink to avoid fluoride.

Man is arrested for saving the life of a policeman.

Man is arrested for not smiling while watching a parade. (He had Parkinson's and could not smile.)

Crippled people are tased.

Doctor gets in trouble with the law for helping an elderly man. (The doctor was supposed to let him die.)

UK had free speech zones. (Outside these zones you don't have free speech.)

Dial 911 because someone is beating you up and get arrested yourself even tho you did nothing.

In some places you are told falsely you are required to take vaccines.

There is a war against nutrition. (naturalnews)

School children are not allowed to eat lunches from home.

They are trying to make gardening illegal. (Search: gardening illegal)

If you have more than 8 days of food, you might be a terrorist.

Monsanto wants a law prohibiting truthfully labelling non-GE as non-GE.

Obamacare. (total control of doctoring)

Agenda 21 worldwide. (environmentalism on steroids)

Codex Alimentarius worldwide. (total control of food)

Cancer viruses in the vaccines.

Stuff sprayed from airplanes that ruins the soil.

Global warming lies.

etc. etc. etc.

If I had a better memory, I probably could list ten times as many items.

Pretty bad and getting worse.

--Brant

nations of children ruled by power-hungry idiots

[william.scherk]

Gotta thank OL posters and commentators for keeping me away from the carnage in Syria for a couple of hours today.

This story interested me. All attitudes towards law and property aside**, I wondered what the terrain looked like -- how in hell these water holes could be a problem to anyone. So, I read the 2007 court judgement that was the best summary of legal actions taken against Harrington. In the judgement summary, I discovered pertinent details of the longstanding tussle between the law and Harrington.

Here is a map visual of the Harrington property(s)^☄. I include it so that the actual property in question could be viewed, in scale -- and so that we can have a look at the water bodies that were subject to the litigation.

If you zoom in on the easternmost 'pond' you can see a boat-ramp, pier and other structures on the water (as does the most recent of the ponds on the south, which shows recreational watercraft ☜). You can also see the length of the retaining dams that had to be built to catch the water on all three bodies. Reading the judgement, media release (below) and a couple of other bits of information, you can learn that the easternmost pond was stocked with fish by the Harringtons. Does this make the law any less shitty and intrusive (particularly the odd Medford 1926 law)? Nope. But it does take a bit of the lustre off the story of a 'pond' for rainwater or snowmelt. The facts make the litigation less of David and Goliath struggle, at least to my damned socialist eyes.

View Larger Map

** - I am not Objectivist by any means, but I do understand and often sympathize with the kind of ideal world of (zero to extremely limited) government that Objectivists would like to see. Obviously, in some conceptions there might be corporations ('Corporation of the City of Burnaby') or quasi-municipal bodies that could arise even within a stripped down administration, but I think it's fair to say that there would not likely be an Oregon Water Resources Department, or a stream of precedent legislation and judgements that has so stymied Harrington's plans.

But, putting that aside for a moment, and returning to the real world of government, no one else in Oregon has been subject to ten-plus years of struggle to maintain a simple 'rainwater/meltwater' pond. Harrington's story is unique enough to attract a lot of attention.

We have yet read here only the outraged reaction and Harrington's presentation of the dispute. I think that even if we all did reject the specific kind of oppressive state tutelage visited upon Harrington, we still ought try to gather as many facts as possible, if only to understand how things got to the point where a man must spend 30 days in jail, and where he must drain the waterbodies or face further penalties.

So, those who want to understand a bit more of the context, please have a read of the judgement cited above, and see also this statement released by the Oregon Department of Justice: "Harrington Conviction and Sentence."

☄ - Harrington and his family own several parcels of land. I did a set of searches and ended up on the Jackson County, Oregon website, and looked for the (I thought) single property that corresponded to Harrigton's address, per search. The county site has made all property (taxes, etc) information available via mapping programme. By checking the adjoining properties, it became clear that the three water bodies in the map above are the cited rain/meltwater catchment pools, on separate but adjoining properties of a Harrington family member (see also this screen-capture of the EPA's water inventory map of the subject area; this shows the dotted-line of an intermittent creek and the first 'pool' that has been in place for some 37 years). Three of the four Harrington family properties (those containing the ponds) are owned by named [Harrington] persons and by "Farm of the Family Recreation Association" (one adjoing Harrington property is not shown in this map. It lies to the east on a daughter's property):

☜ - the first thing that came to mind when I saw the boat-ramp and boats was that the Family Recreation Association could be part of a plan to develop the ponds for business. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it makes the struggle of the Harringtons more complicated than they present ...

-- I note in passing the photos and videos that have appeared in support of the Harringtons. In none of them do we see the structures, dams (one of which is twenty feet high) or watercraft. Here is one example. Try to place this bucolic scene on one of the ponds ... and read the southern Oregon Star-Tribune story excerpted below.

The State of Oregon v. Rain Man

Gary Harrington's 11-year battle with the state over his reservoirs continues to make waves

August 05, 2012

By Mark Freeman

EAGLE POINT — At 13 feet deep and well over an acre in size, one of Gary Harrington's three illegal reservoirs off Crowfoot Road looks more like a private playground than a rain-fed, backyard fire pond.

A fishing dock lined with rods and rod holders is tethered to shore near an outdoor barbecue. Boats line the bank. A fish feeder floats nearby, dispensing food to the illegally stocked largemouth bass Harrington says he bought from a Medford pet store.

It's a place where family and friends spend hot summer days and where wildfire rigs can hook up to a water line any time they need a refill, free of charge.

"The fish and the docks are icing on the cake," says Harrington, 63. "It's totally committed to fire suppression."

It's a story state police and water managers have heard for more than a decade and still consider irrelevant. Ditto for state courts that three times over an 11-year span have convicted Harrington of illegally storing water without a permit. On Wednesday, Harrington must report to the Jackson County Jail for a 30-day sentence for his latest conviction.

Edited August 10, 2012 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

I'm amazed at your ability to research this stuff out.

The only reason I can think of to oppose these dams in Oregon would be to protect those downstream from flooding from a dam failure or from water contaminated by recreational users. As this is Oregon, not Arizona, evaporation would probably be minimal. Water rights are a complex subject in any state, but especially in the states west of the Mississippi. This situation may fall under "the tragedy of the commons" sans "tragedy."

Unless this gentleman has a more general solution or recasting of the nature of the apropos legal structure respecting water rights in Oregon--as opposed merely to his property respecting land he owns--I can't be sympathetic to his willful and self-contrived plight. If you put up a dam you are damming a stream. Countries are threatening each other right now about dams in one country depriving another of water. Intra-country, Russia, as the former USSR, did a lot of damage to itself by major water diversion from the Caspian Sea's river sources to benefit agriculture. This was and is a blatant failure of socialism.

Oregon's failure is a failure of properly defining water rights as private property rights. Stating that they are a "public" resource means socialism or fascism or a combo of those which equals much too much possibility of screwism.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

I'm amazed at your ability to research this stuff out.'

I am often intrigued by the tales Jerry Story drops here. This was one of them, where I wondered what the rest of the story was. On the surface, reading the pro-Harrington commentary, it seemed insane -- beyond the usual crazed state intrusions. Jerry likes the headlines, and tends to give a shallow overview of events snarled with his own cognitive errors. I knew there was more to the tale, and the first thing that had not been covered in pro-Harrington materials was the actual 'ponds.'

What I did was pretty basic. Check, verify, seek context. Things I learned as a young skeptic. What are the facts(?)

Unless this gentleman has a more general solution or recasting of the nature of the apropos legal structure respecting water rights in Oregon--as opposed merely to his property respecting land he owns--I can't be sympathetic to his willful and self-contrived plight. If you put up a dam you are damming a stream.

In the farming areas adjoining my community, and in many of the ranges/cattle country farms I have seen, run-off ponds are common, almost ubiquitous, but usually simply a hole dug in a a hollow and nowhere near the one-acre size of the ponds dammed by Harrington.

(British Columbia has a massive set of law to constrain property rights, called the Agricultural Land Reserve. The first socialist government elected in 1972 put this in place. It reserves land across the province that is classified as prime agricultural land, bottoms lands usually.

This legislation has not been overturned by subsequent governments of the non-socialist stripe. A look at the map of BC shows you that the extent of agricultural land is small, and of course our Fraser Valley (prime) would be the easiest to develop residential/industrial areas. Look at this snippet of a Google Map. The difference between developmenty patterns in the nearest equivalent conurbation (Seattle) shows starkly. All the arable bottom lands, flood-plains (non-bog) and previously farmed areas cannot be redeveloped outside of agriculture in BC under the ALR. Contrast to the ring of exurbia surrounding Seattle.


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Here is a portion of the ALR map covered in the photo map above. The green areas are subject to the ALR.

Oregon's failure is a failure of properly defining water rights as private property rights. Stating that they are a "public" resource means socialism or fascism or a combo of those which equals much too much possibility of screwism.

It is one of those puzzles of governance that intriques me. As you may note, wars are fought over water, and water-rights are often highly-contested. The puzzle is that water respects no private property boundaries. It flows. In a perfect (Objectivish) world, the same pressures would remain. Cheap, easily developed agricultural land is the best for development. Similarly, in that perfect world, it remains to be seen how an efficient adjudication of water disputes would occur. When property maven A dams or diverts a waterbody for his own use, and property mave B downstream is impacted, then what? Where is a just settlement of opposing interests obtained. Most arnarchist/minarchist responses to these kinds of issue devolves into magical thinking ... the magic of the market will solve all problems most efficiently. I do not buy that pie-in-the-sky kind of dodge. It often seems to me that arnacho-minarchos cannot get their heads around the notion of public goods (air, water) that do not respect private boundaries. Edited August 10, 2012 by william.scherk

[william.scherk]

Brant, I thought I might bore you with another graphic. This is a Google satellite map of the city of Calgary, Alberta (just down the road from Jerry in Edmonton). Alberta is the province with the strongest 'free enterprise' governments, always conservative, and the home of the greatest anti-intrusive-state reform movements in modern history (the Reform Party of Canada principally, with its extremely influential minimal-state policies). But ... when you look at the urban form, you will see that the city ends abruptly at an edge. A tight control over land is the norm even in our most 'right-wing' province.


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Contrast this with the comparable 'twin city,' Denver Colorado (like Calgary a major city on the Rockies, with a large agricultural hinterland.

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There is no edge to Denver. The conurbations sprawls where it wants, with a diffuse exurbia. So different to the Canadian practice even in the province that is the most Objectivish. Hard to explain simply.

So, any dreamworld of a future private-governance minimal state will face with the same pressures on agricultural land, the same lure of easy-to-service, cheap exurban farm-to-subdivision development. How these things would be settled in a competing-justice/unassailable-private-propery-rights utopia is a complete mystery to me.

To my eyes, no amount of minarchist boilerplate addresses this mystery. A patchwork profusion of 'gated communities' with equally-demented restrictions up the ass would seem to be the result. How persistent, perennial water and land issues would be settled is smudged, covered with napkins or otherwise evaded. If you live in a settlement where a 'board' or 'bylaws' or 'commercial government' rules, where you may not plant begonias or paint your shitbox other than beige or park your RV or raise a radio tower or clip your hedges, what is the difference from living under rule of law (however gruesome)? I can rarely understand just how private and unaccountable governance or commercial autocracy will do a better job of solving perennial human disputes.

[Brant Gaede]

Well, the key is how private property is both defined and recognized and by whom?

If you operate on the principle of moving generally to a state of more freedom, not less, you are not a part of the anarchist/minarchist debate, if there actually is one. (It seems to come from the anarchist faction.) You are not looking to impose Utopia on anyone. Frankly, I don't think Rand really did, either. My impression was she suggested a logical, end result of her philosophy, more as a marker. Her "I mean it!" was leavened by the means of dominating philosophical discourse, with politics as the end consequence of educating the culture thus changing it. She was a gradualist's gradualist that way. The libertarian can be so stuck in politics and the limited morality found in politics, that NIOF is such an over-whelming moral issue that it's blood-in-the-streets time anytime we aren't living in the ideal time. Hence, morality unbalances his politics and if any government violates the NIOF principle to the slightest extent--it has to or there is not any government--it's wrong and cannot justify its existence. All these anarchist theories of governance--contrasted with minarchist statism--flow out of this dilemma. The libertarian embraces Rand's end result for neither her end result nor his has any initiation of force by government. The libertarian merely says her basic American Constitutional structure won't get the job done and what is needed is competing defense agencies or what not = moral governance or government. The posited conundrum is a monopolist government has to violate the NIOF principle. I agree. Rand didn't but didn't dwell there, quite wisely for her. The locus of Rand's philosophy isn't politics, however, it's ethics or morality. These terms have somewhat different meanings and applications, but "ethics" will do here as she called this part of her philosophy the Objectivist Ethics, not morality. "Morality" is a broader, more foundational concept and individually oriented, while "ethics" tends to be more socially oriented. This is simplistic, of course.

Objectivism a la Rand is a whole ball of (her) wax take it or leave it philosophy. She made it much easier to leave it than take it, blowing off rights' oriented conservatives--leaving them in the arms of Kirk and Buckley--and libertarians--leaving them in the hands of the anarchists such as Rothbard--and even many outright would be Objectivists/students of Objectivism. This has continued post-Rand.

Instead of embracing rights' advocates, Rand blew them off if they weren't Objectivists or trying to be. She could have said--I know, not really--my philosophy embraces individual rights and if you do too we are allies. I do invite you to examine my philosophy as a possible means of strengthening your own position. Mine is primarily an intellectual enterprise and I do give and take examining and explaining my ideas and will do the same with yours. This would have been a lifeline to conservative and libertarian intellectuals. What we have ended up with with Rand's approach is an intellectual jejunism for all parties including Objectivists with neo-cons riding the horse of moral gravitas which is not the horse of liberty but United Statianism. Libertarianism seems to have generally disappeared as a philosophy, though many libertarians remain.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

Well, the key is how private property is both defined and recognized and by whom?

Yes. As this applies to the Harrington issue, where exposing the litigation makes for an interesting snarl of competing interests. Unless one can deny reality (on philosophical grounds) that there are any public goods, the rest is as you suggest -- dealing with superstructure of legal traditions and state power that were birthed long ago, in the very first bureaucracies (alongside money and written language). I think of the way the first permanent agricultural human settlements (contemporaneous in the Middle East/Asia/Americas, though much more is known of the MENA settlements) drove progress in human achievement while hobbling freedoms enjoyed under a 'state of nature.' The difference being between the free-as-apes nomads/pastoralists/subsistance tribes -- and the unfree, complaining bazaar merchants. Water, once collectivized, was power. Power to feed greater numbers, and power to amass capital.

The birth of permanent settlement was I think the real first birth of states, officialized hierarchy, and order -- however primitive it seems today. Management (or governance or government) emerged and grew as by-product, necessary 'evil' and contributor to human growth, I believe. Governance was essential for the flourishing of the first 'urban' communities, built and regulated to have systematized labour diversity, trade and communal protection (see any material on the Neolithic revolution in agriculture, its universal drivers and products) -- and each succeeding polity built upon the same basic forms, retaining and augmenting (or seizing and adapting) earlier governance norms and inventions.

A lot of background there just to situate my observations in actual human history. Sorry.

If you operate on the principle of moving generally to a state of more freedom, not less, you are not a part of the anarchist/minarchist debate, if there actually is one. (It seems to come from the anarchist faction.) You are not looking to impose Utopia on anyone.

I think I almost follow this. Does this mean that you (YOU/one/the royal-you/we) find there is a principle that is so singularly stated? (in any case, libertarian/limited governance philosophies are true incubators, not mere talk-shops, I would argue)

I find that that there are many currents of philsophico-political action, real political action, currents that are not necessarily allied, but which do move the apparatus of the state by increments. I give an example from recent Canadian history to illustrate (snooooooooze). The now extinct Reform Party of Canada had a platform that would best correspond to present-day Tea Party verities. "Freedom," reduced regulation of business, non-deficit spending, corraling and culling the proliferation of governing agencies and control structures, reducing the arms of an octopus state that had long grown dementedly self-perpetuating.

Now, the Reform Party (have a nap here if you like) did not achieve power, until it was defanged and coalitionized with the Progressive Convervatives in several staged merges.

But while its leader had a raft of seats in Parliament, its economic programme was stealthily adopted by the governing Liberal Party. Odd to note, but it was the leftist party that sucked the marrow from the Reform bones and injected into its own skeleton. This was the era of deficit reduction, privatizing or removing subsidies from moribund state companies (from the national flag carrier Air Canada to the Post Office), reforming business regulation, etcetera. Many of the economic freedom indicators that surprise Americans today (that it is easier to do business in Canada, that economic regulation is less strict, etc) were the result of this marrow transplant. The Liberal Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin did their reform work over a fifteen year period, reducing debt and introducing back-to-back black ink budgets, reducing corporate taxes, personal tax rates, etcetera.

However, there is another libertarian-ish current that I have remarked upon before, what I call social liberatarianism. Unfortunately the Reform Party was a Christian fundamentalist party at birth, and was implacably opposed to certain freedoms (drugs, sex, religion, tits, whores, Frenchies, open immigration, etc).

In the same timeframe as American governance (under putative Right-ist administrations such as ReaganReaganBushhiccupBushBush) expanded both in deficits and reach and intrusion (Patriot Act), Canada's state footprint shrank under the Liberals.

By the time the Liberals were tired and feeble and out of ideas (thieved from the right) and it was time for a upfront Conservative government to assume executive power, the social liberties were embedded and the Conservatives had to abandon the nutter wing of Christian Heritage. This is where the mind boggles. Under a 'rightist' Conservative government we discover that abortion law is a non-starter, that bilingualism and multiculturalism are now an unremarkable backbone of Canadian reality, and so on.

Further social liberties were proclaimed and longstanding injustices were formally redressed on the Conservative watch, then. The painful 100 year legacy of institutionalized racist oppression of the Indian Schools, for example, led to the current billions of dollars disbursed in settlements. Add formal apologies for actions taken against groups (Japanese-Canadian WW2 detainees, Asian Head-tax reimbursements, Metis recognition), declaration of Quebec as a nation within Canada, and so on.

Now, here, in British Columbia, twenty years of Liberal (in BC this means Conservative, go figger) administrations led to record deficits, grotesque expansion of government spending and waste, sleaze, corruption and out of control cabinet spending, along with overweening arrogance. The current government is drowning, flailing in the polls, at about 20%, and BC will lurch back under a 'socialist' goverment next year without a doubt.

_______________________

Freedom qua freedom is a waffly term abused by all, but on balance my country is now freer economically than the USA, freer in social terms, freer in social mobility and ease of making pots of moolah. Another puzzle. We have emerged rocking from the recession worldwide because of nimble national banks who were institutionally conservative (no wild derivative speculations or crashing magic-money pyramids and fucked up mortgage peddling) -- not because of regulation.

All this to say that philosophy as drivers of social and political change cannot be easily boxed. The hideous lockjaw of the American two-party system is a reminder that hard and fast partisan walls get in the way of freedoms, gum up the ability of governments to steal, morph, self-extinquish, turn on a dime. No amount of philosophical jabbering from the sidelines can correct the institutional defects in your system, at least not in the short term, when the philosophy has no action plan.

So, in many ways I regard current libertarian and minarchist debates and kerfuffles to be the equivalent of theological seminary productions or Civil War re-enactments. Entertaining and worth watching, but about as fecund and world-changing as a Tupperware party.

When I come to Arizona, I want to meet you and Laure, enjoy several too many alcoholic drinks, learn to shoot a handgun, and get to know you as a man, not an objectivish person.

You bring a lot of value to this forum, Brant, from my purely selfish point of view.

Edited August 10, 2012 by william.scherk