I have lived in plenty of rural areas and all of them had some sort of zoning ordinances. Either on building codes or on taxes. Your property was either residential, commercial or agricultural, then further subdivisions of R1 (single family) and R2 (multiple residences) and R3 (mobile homes).
C1 is your standard gas station or small store C2 is for light manufacruring and more dense retail like a strip mall, and is goes on from there. If those don’t qualify as zoning ordinances then you are further out to lunch than your handle implies. Most ordinances are driven by insurance underwriters, while a few are driven by nimby types. I don’t advocate these, I accept them as the reality and adjust my choice of location for a home based on thise facts. It not just ordinances. There are deed restrictions and covenants written into many properties these days and you must read the fine print before you sign the title transfer.
This guy decided that that POS van was worth more than his life and that is a shame, but, I would be willing to bet that the ordinance about abandoned cars has been on the books longer than he has lived there. Some towns enforce those codes more vigorously than others but this was the wrong hill to make a stand on.
Just say it like this, “I don’t advocate for Socialism, I just accept it as reality.”
Then go sit in a corner.