Posted on 08/02/2010 12:14:24 PM PDT by goldendays
Edited on 08/02/2010 12:18:13 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Backyard Scofflaws Found on Earth -- Google Earth Google Earth is now being used to track down criminals, at least in one small town on Long Island. RIVERHEAD, N.Y.
A town on New York's Long Island is using Google Earth to find backyard pools that don't have the proper permits.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Tools are neither “good” or “evil”.
It’s all in how a person puts them to use.
Sounds like a VERY good thing for the taxpayers of Riverhead.
I like the comment someone left on the article - they’ll never do that in California, too many backyard sheds with illegal aliens.
Zoning laws have become the worst form of tyranny in the United States. They have no statute of limitations, you have to prove that you are innocent, and the fines can be astronomical, mounting into the hundreds of thousands while you search for documentation to show that your addition, fence, porch, car port or pool was their before they passed that last stupid zoning law.
Most zoning laws follow a format pushed by the central planning leftists that starts with something like the following: Everything that is not allowed in this code is forbidden.
This is exactly opposite the whole philosophy of western law, which is that everything that is not forbidden is allowed.
their should be there, typing too fast. We did just fine without zoning for most of the country for hundreds of years. After the Progressives came to power, they pushed zoning not just for the few crowded inner city places where it might actually be of some use, but for all the country, because of the immense power it gave them.
Now, it is hard to find anywhere in the country that is not tyrannized by zoning laws.
watch out for that boat that you have
Why have fees for swimming pools? LOL...
umm they are checking people’s back yards via a computer desk in some location. I used to think this way when the Patriot Act became law, Google Earth and things like this are nothing but an invasion of privacy that will be used to someone else’s gain. I would prefer someone come knocking on my door and asking my permission to see if my pool is in zone rather than some Big Brother always knowing whats going in my back yard.
go to back yard... using chalk, paint or whatever, draw an outline of human hand flipping the bird on trhe ground or on pool cover.
I think its funny that people attack google for having the eyes but are apparently OK with government overstepping their authority in the first place.
Don’t blame big brother for seeing, blame big brother for acting.
I’m not sure. Ask the people who live there.
Conversely, if given the choice, I’d rather have people avoiding fees visited than everyone in general, pool or not. And with that, I’d rather have satellite imagery used than helicopters flying over neighborhoods.
I find the entire thing ridiculous, but those are the laws that the people of this town choose to live under.
This is all acclimating us to having bedrooms in our homes. We now have spy cameras photographing major intersections (on the ruse of “it’s for safety” and against red-light runners), on the highways and in every small town in AZ (but not for the beloved illegal aliens, they’re exempt if they speed or run red lights).
We have spy cameras monitoring what we do in our yards.
Since we’re doing nothing wrong, it’s none of the government’s or their best friend Google’s Y%*#(&%$*&* business.
And if you’re unlucky enough to live in the city like we do, Google and the Census photographs and maps the vehicles in your driveway, as much as they can see inside (a lot since most of us live on the first level).
We can’t fly without being irradiated, some more than others, and that’s being done by the US government.
But so many are willing to trade in their liberty for a little temporary safety, as that saying goes.
Many years ago I lived in a townhome whose association president was an orthodox Jew.
One day we were painting the front stoop and he comes running down the block screaming at us that we cannot paint the stoop chocolate brown. It has to be tudor brown. He then proceeds to fine us 25 dollars and that it will be 25 dollars a day until the stoop is once again tudor brown.
So I tell him they are the same color. He is screaming at me, his face taking on the hue of satan red. My wife and I are now laughing and our next door neighbor comes out to see what is going on. Next thing we know, there is a crowd of people watching this display.
I ask everyone if they care that I painted my stoop chocolate brown. Everyone is standing around saying they don’t give a rats butt and no one can really see the difference.
Well the association president begins yelling that we will all get fined. One resident tells him to stop being a stoop nazi. Everyone laughs and the president goes running off saying we will all be sorry.
Two days later his townhouse went up for sale.
Zoning laws were written by central planning leftists, beginning in New York in 1916 ostensibly because of shadowing by skyscrapers, but most likely more out of resentment and jealousy which are always the motivations of leftist losers.
And they spread like wildfire throughout the leftist dominated governments of the time, for obvious reasons: it allowed them to confiscate property, i.e., steal what they could not buy. If they can dictate what is on "your" property, it isn't really yours, now is it?
And best of all they get to charge you money to do all that. And then charge you again for the "improvement" value, thus inhibiting improvement in the first place.
Zoning laws are simply the Road to Communism, because they proceed from the notion that property is held in common, not in private.
And for those on this board who have been brainwashed into thinking otherwise, note that the City of Houston has never had such laws, and seems to be doing fine without them. Markets take care of such things, and if someone is damaged by their neighbor's building, there are civil courts for such matters, no need for massive bureaucracies populated by the embittered losers of society's race for wealth.
Two words — camo netting.
Before:
After:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.