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Posted on 10/02/2003 9:54:17 PM PDT by jpconservative
If you haven’t followed the John Lynch story in our past issues, you have truly missed a real tragedy. To summarize, Mr. Lynch bought a lake property on which the previous owner had already secured a building permit. What could be safer?
Unfortunately, there were some things the previous owner didn’t tell Mr. Lynch, the most important of which would be the extreme difficulty Mr. Lynch would have if he ever had to build a driveway to the house, since it would have to cross a wetland. The previous owner accessed the building site from a neighbor’s road.
Things went rapidly down hill after that. The neighbors revoked Mr. Lynch’s access, leaving him with no way to get to his house. Then he got involved with the DNR, and you can guess the rest.
That’s right, pure hell. Though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted a permit for the driveway, the DNR refused to go along. In effect, the agency (this time in the person of one James Grafelman) said, no matter what the compelling circumstances, no matter what the federal government says, no matter what mitigation or compromise you offer, we’re going to force you to lose your life’s investment.
What a hemorrhage of justice.
Not only do the Lynches have no access to their almost finished home, they have lost a baby because of the emotional torment they have had to endure. They have had to sell properties to pay for a house they can’t get to, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way. They have seen their lives turn into a nightmare.
The question, of course, is why and how . . . why do agency officials act like this? How can Mr. Grafelman make such an unconscionable decision?
The answer is, because they (and he) can, and no one is apparently willing or able to stop them. We watched Sen. Roger Breske parade around the Lynches’ property, feeling their pain as usual, and then do nothing, as usual.
DNR management is no better. We hear much (at least in the Madison press) about the fresh approach Scott Hassett is bringing to the agency, but every time we have asked him a question, he has given us the same old tired party line. Gov. Doyle, too, is right in stride with current DNR policies, a True Believer, a politician who can be counted on to reinforce rather than rewrite the agency’s approach to – and war on – the citizenry.
There have been many poster children in the DNR’s cavalcade of abuse – the Lynches are another casualty but one that really hits home. Mr. Grafelman even acknowledged in his notes that the Lynches lost their baby over “this.”
And what was “this”? It was about filling in .17 of a wetland to get to an almost finished home. How many of us would like to be denied access to our homes? Most of you would probably say it can’t happen, but it does and it happened in front of two news reporters, Sen. Breske and a handful of other people who watched powerlessly.
John Lynch and his wife, Jennifer, are certainly big losers in this situation, but the biggest losers of all are “We the people.” Mr. Grafelman did not merely destroy Mr. Lynch’s “Enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety (Article -1 Bill of Rights),” he destroyed the rights of every taxpaying citizen.
If one man or woman loses the right to own and have property to live on and pay taxes on, we all lose. Because once an out-of-control government gains the kind of immense power the DNR has amassed, we no longer live in a democracy.
This past week I had the privilege to interview a young man who just returned from Iraq. From what he endured I don’t know if he will ever be the same. I’m sure you could say that about any man or woman who has served in the military and fought a war. They are fighting to keep this country safe and free; they are fighting for the Bill of Rights.
He told me Iraq is about 100 years behind us, not because of the war but because of a dictator who only cared for those in his own party. Poverty levels there are unheard of in this country. It is a place where one family of eight was only getting $3 to survive on, while those loyal to the dictator received $100 dollars a month.
Sound extreme? It is, and it is analogous to the situation in Wisconsin with the DNR. Like those who served Saddam, those who serve the DNR get what they want – Mr. Watson and his deck, Mr. Watson and the paddle club, DNR staff having private access to their own wilderness playgrounds, where they can use motorized boats and vehicles.
There’s no one to hold them accountable. There are no rules they have to live by, only rules for you and me. These elites, with their unelected power, use it to trample our fundamental rights as citizens.
We see it all the time. The wealthy and those in power routinely get to fill in wetlands, for example, while average citizens cannot, and are made to move their homes back or suffer other equally disastrous consequences.
So what in reality was that young man fighting for in Iraq?
Was it for an out-of-control, socialistic cadre of elites, masquerading as environmentalists, much as the old Soviet totalitarians masqueraded as freedom fighters, taking wages from the pockets and food from the tables of workers and their families?
Or was he fighting for true freedom for working Americans – to support their ability to make a living so they may one day own land and a home. It makes you wonder.
Let us not forget, freedom is not just some abstract notion. Freedom has a face. It is the common face of all working men and women. It is the face of John and Jennifer Lynch. It is the face of every child who has hopes and dreams for the future.
If left to the DNR and to the likes of Mr. Grafelman, those hopes and dreams will be dashed; the common face of America will be permanently scarred.
Just think. When Mr. Grafelman wrote about the loss of the Lynches’ baby, there was not a hint of compassion in his notes, only the cold calculating scribble of the pen pusher’s humanless methodology and heartless logic.
But when he pursued his own political agenda – in an e-mail to his ECCOLA friends opposing ATVs, sent on a government computer and at taxpayer expense – we saw his passions rise. He apologized for that, but it nonetheless showed where his loyalties are, where his heart lies.
It is not with the average citizen – not a speck of feeling for the Lynches – but with the select few and their narrow agendas. And we pay for him to pursue his agenda, with no ability to protest, no power to appeal, no recourse to elections.
You have to ask yourself, is this democracy? Where are the checks and balances that are so important in our constitution and in our Bill of Rights?
If democracy fails for the Lynches, it fails for us all. If the DNR triumphs over one, it triumphs over us all. The Lynch case shows just how dire the situation is; with such obvious and excessive abuses going unchecked, it is surely only a matter of time before we all lose our fundamental rights to this powerful Goliath.
Posted: September 25, 2003
"What a hemorrhage of justice."
Well put, Mr. Walker.
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