Posted on 01/27/2007 1:36:11 PM PST by tpaine
By Vin Suprynowicz
For years, Garry Watson, 49, of little Bunker, Mo., (population 390) had been squabbling with town officials over the sewage line easement which ran across his property to the adjoining, town-operated sewage lagoon.
Residents say officials grew dissatisfied with their existing easement, and announced they were going to excavate a new sewer line across the landowner's property. Capt. Chris Ricks of the Missouri Highway Patrol reports Watson's wife, Linda, was served with "easement right-of-way papers" on Sept. 6. She gave the papers to Watson when he got home at 5 a.m. the next morning from his job at a car battery recycling plant northeast of Bunker. Watson reportedly went to bed for a short time, but arose about 7 a.m. when the city work crew arrived.
"He told them 'If you come on my land, I'll kill you,' " Bunker resident Gregg Tivnan told me last week. "Then the three city workers showed up with a backhoe, plus a police officer. They'd sent along a cop in a cop car to guard the workers, because they were afraid there might be trouble. Watson had gone inside for a little while, but then he came out and pulled his SKS (semi-automatic rifle) out of his truck, steadied it against the truck, and he shot them."
Killed in the September 7 incident, from a range of about 85 yards, were Rocky B. Gordon, 34, a city maintenance man, and David Thompson, 44, an alderman who supervised public works. City maintenance worker Delmar Eugene Dunn, 51, remained in serious but stable condition the following weekend.
Bunker police Officer Steve Stoops, who drove away from the scene after being shot, was treated and released from a hospital for a bullet wound to his arm and a graze to the neck.
Watson thereupon kissed his wife goodbye, took his rifle, and disappeared into the woods, where his body was found two days later -- dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Following such incidents, the local papers are inevitably filled with well-meaning but mawkish doggerel about the townsfolk "pulling together" and attempting to "heal" following the "tragedy." There are endless expressions of frustration, pretending to ask how such an otherwise peaceful member of the community could "just snap like that."
In fact, the supposedly elusive explanation is right before our eyes.
"He was pushed," Clarence Rosemann -- manager of the local Bunker convenience store, who'd done some excavation work for Watson -- told the big-city reporters from St. Louis. Another area resident, who didn't want to be identified, told the visiting newsmen, "Most people are understanding why Garry Watson was upset. They are wishing he didn't do it, but they are understanding why he did it."
You see, to most of the people who work in government and the media these days -- especially in our urban centers -- "private property" is a concept out of some dusty, 18th century history book. Oh, sure, "property owners" are allowed to live on their land, so long as they pay rent to the state in the form of "property taxes."
But an actual "right" to be let alone on our land to do whatever we please -- always providing we don't actually endanger the lives or health of our neighbors?
Heavens! If we allowed that, how would we enforce all our wonderful new "environmental protection" laws, or the "zoning codes," or the laws against growing hemp or tobacco or distilling whisky without a license, or any of the endless parade of other malum prohibitum decrees which have multiplied like swarms of flying ants in this nation over the past 87 years?
What does it mean to say we have any "rights" or "freedoms" at all, if we cannot peacefully enjoy that property which we buy with the fruits of our labors?
In his 1985 book "Takings," University of Chicago Law Professor Richard Epstein wrote that, "Private property gives the right to exclude others without the need for any justification.
Indeed, it is the ability to act at will and without need for justification within some domain which is the essence of freedom, be it of speech or of property."
"Unfortunately," replies James Bovard, author of the book "Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen," "federal law enforcement agents and prosecutors are making private property much less private. ...
Park Forest, Ill. in 1994 enacted an ordinance that authorizes warrantless searches of every single-family rental home by a city inspector or police officer, who are authorized to invade rental units 'at all reasonable times.' ... Federal Judge Joan Gottschall struck down the searches as unconstitutional in 1998, but her decision will have little or no effect on the numerous other localities that authorize similar invasions of privacy."
We are now involved in a war in this nation, a last-ditch struggle in which the other side contends only the king's men are allowed to use force or the threat of force to push their way in wherever they please, and that any peasant finally rendered so desperate as to employ the same kind of force routinely employed by our oppressors must surely be a "lone madman" who "snapped for no reason." No, we should not and do not endorse or approve the individual choices of folks like Garry Watson. But we are still obliged to honor their memories and the personal courage it takes to fight and die for a principle, even as we lament both their desperate, misguided actions ... and the systematic erosion of our liberties which gave them rise.
I guess they use different words in that part of the world that what I am accustomed to. Why would they need a to serve papers if they already had easement? Out here in the West easements are serviced all the time without informing the landowner. You can come home and find your front yard torn up to replace a city water pipe etc. Of course they put it back like they found it or better. However, prudent entities go way out of way to inform folks what they are doing. Street paving and such usually get months of notices and even hearings if traffic is to be disrupted.
Individual rights such as a property owner's right to control access to his property and exclude others from his property...which is the individual right you want violated.
"Our 2nd prohibits infringements on peoples rights to own & carry arms."
Prohibited to the government.
Do you want to try reading the Preamble to the Bill of Rights again?
I've posted it at least thirty times for you, and you refuse to comment on it.
How about the discussions I posted for you from the Congressional record on the debates surrounding the creation of the Bil of Rights?
It would seem that the people who actually wrote the Bill of Rights into existence knew what they intended to do with it, and their clearly stated intention was to set limitations on the ability of the government to violate the rights of the people. Not as you claim to impose limitations on the people to control their private property.
Here...I'll post both things again:
Preamble to the Bill of Rights
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added:
Declaratory and restrictive clauses added by the States to the Constitution so that the powers granted to the government by that Constitution could not be misconstrued or abused by the government created via said Constitution.
Here is James Madison's closing statement in his speech introducing the Bill of Rights to the Constitutional Convention, from The Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, First Congress, 1st Session, pp 448-460.
"Having done what I conceived was my duty, in bringing before this House the subject of amendments, and also stated such as I wish for and approve, and offered the reasons which occurred to me in their support, I shall content myself, for the present, with moving "that a committee be appointed to consider of and report such amendments as ought to be proposed by Congress to the Legislatures of the States, to become, if ratified by three-fourths thereof, part of the constitution of the United States." By agreeing to this motion, the subject may be going on in the committee, while other important business is proceeding to a conclusion in the House. I should advocate greater dispatch in the business of amendments, if I were not convinced of the absolute necessity there is of pursuing the organization of the Government; because I think we should obtain the confidence of our fellow- citizens, in proportion as we fortify the rights of the people against the encroachments of the Government."
"...the rights of the people against the encroachments of the government."
Now t...are you going to make the argument that the people who constructed the Bill of Rights were wrong about its intent?
--Gungrabbers are always 'happy', when they imagine they are winning.--
Are you saying that the GA law which is consistent with my position is a gun-grabbing law? I thought you agreed with it?
No one is saying that you can't do that.
You might however, have to shop places where there are no restrictions on the contents of your car, and work for employers who don't set rules of access to their property that you don't agree with.
You and the NRA are trying to engage the power of government to violate everyone's right to make decisions for themselves.
--THIS ISSUE is much bigger than parking lots. --
I agree. But that was the issue you put to me originally and the one we were discussing. Are you now disagreeing with the GA law?
Try looking at this: Despite warnings that their presence would precipitate acts of potentially lethal violence the town saw fit to place employees/contractors in harm's way over a damned pipe in the ground.
Were the people there to do the excavation warned that there had been a direct threat to their lives if they proceeded?
Were they provided with anything to mitigate the damage to their persons in the event they were attacked (mil-spec body armor?)
Note that the police officer's wounds were not center-of-mass, but outside the protection of any body armor. Just bad shooting? ...good use of cover? ...coincidence?
If someone told me they would shoot me for setting foot on their property I'd take the statement at face value and view it as a clear threat.
While it might be decidedly inconvenient to have your property dug up, what other issues were at play here? I'd wager there is a lot more leading up to the incident than the article is telling us.
--Support murder? No. Where did I say that? --
"He only did what he said he would."
--Were they provided with anything to mitigate the damage to their persons in the event they were attacked (mil-spec body armor?)--
This is a town of less than 400 people. The whole county has ONE zipcode. The median FAMILY income is less than 20k. The median home value is about 20K. As of 2000.
And they needed a NEW line bad enough to get people killed over it? No bigger than that they could have re-routed the darned thing.
However, if what I understand to be the case really is the case, damn if someone wouldn't pay for encroaching on my property. Maybe it was wrong to shoot the messenger for the message, but to paraphrase John Wayne in "The Green Berets", sometimes due process is a bullet. Taking a man's property without just compensation would be one of those cases, I would think.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
The Battle of Lexington and Concord was citizen militia's against British troops. The militia's didn't go shoot the blacksmith and the nice lady at the seamstress shop.
Appreciated and you make a very valid point.
--However, if what I understand to be the case really is the case, damn if someone wouldn't pay for encroaching on my property. Maybe it was wrong to shoot the messenger for the message, but to paraphrase John Wayne in "The Green Berets", sometimes due process is a bullet.--
Sane people know the difference between war and civil procedings. That point seems to be lost on you.
Normally, I agree with Vin.
But killing these working men for "the principle" of the ability to act at will and without need for justification" is beyond rationality.
A new sewer line running under his property was a justifiable cause for killing?
without speaking to him, would you say he was "beyond rationality", insane?
He's dead, no one can speak to him, - although it's certainly wise to question the rationality of his actions. Insane[?], - I doubt it.
do you know all the circumstances that led up to the incident?
No. -- I only know the outcome of his irrationality about property rights.
do you know what the attitude of the "working men" was during and before the incident?
No. I doubt anyone ever will.
did all this happen in a vacuum, with no justification for his action?
No, it happened in the real world, where irrational bureaucrats drive irrational property owners into corners that should not exist under our Constitution.
it seems that he paid the ultimate price for his actions based upon principle.
His 'principle' about property was flawed. So was that of the 'authorities'.
to call the man insane is arrogant, callous and brutish at best.
You called him insane, not me.
You have frequently posted to me "The question remains ..."
Now I say to you, the question remains (unanswered):
Do you support the GA law which is totally consistent with my position as I posted to you in #195 when all this began? I ask because you referred to me as a gun grabber. Does that mean you think the GA bill (which you earlier said you agreed with) is a gun-grabbing bill? Do you consider yourself a gun grabber? These questions need answers or the confusion will continue.
I wonder how many morons are out there like you that can't understand what I wrote.
--The Founding Fathers foresaw many things. One thing they didn't for-see was modern roads and utilities and the need a government has (with due process) to from time to time work on someones property for improvement and maintenance.--
I am sure that they never imagined the complexity that we have now but they did understand that people set up communities for the betterment of society and the individual and along with those communities would be rules and regulations. To put it simply, "No taxation without representation." Somehow, some here have translated this to mean no taxes and no government.
Don't get personal, now. That point isn't lost at all, and shame on you for assuming I don't understand it. I was making a point, that the city had not given the property owner due process. Civil proceedings cut both ways...the responsibility of the property owner is to grant access if an easement legally exists. The responsibility of the government is to ensure due process, or allow the property owner to challenge a proposed new easement in court. Again, from what I gathered from the article, the existing easement didn't cut across the man's property, and the city decided on the spur of the moment to create a new easement across the private property, giving the property owner's wife notice that the next day they would be digging a new sewer line.
Where is the civil responsibility on the part of the city? Where was the public hearing? Where was the man's opportunity to challenge the easement in court? By civil proceeding do you mean it's a property owner's responsibility to allow the government to run roughshod over his right to own property, and allow him to address it only afterward? Sorry...that's not how its supposed to work in this nation.
Please answer without slinging personal insults. It's Sunday, and I'd rather not get into a nasty name-calling battle here.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I apologize and put you on the list of those that do NOT condone these murders.
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