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.
It's a symptom of people who feel powerless and squeezed.
--which was separate from their easement.--
You don't know that. If fact a post earlier refuted that.
Well then, please show me your evidence that the original story about this was wrong.
--It's a symptom of people who feel powerless and squeezed.--
I won't argue that. So was the Oklahoma Federal building bombing.
Here in Vermont, land issues are very carefully negotiated and worked out by the board of selectmen, the Town Clerk and neigbors. In my town here in Vermont, if a neighbor is bullied in any way by the Town acting within the law, dozens of neigbors show up at the town hall to ask why.
This careful approach goes a long way to prevent misunderstandings over land use. The town might agree to plow a guys drive way for free for his cooperation, even if the town has a right to enter the persons land. They still make a mess, noise , and there is cleanup. Deals are worked out informally before any entry to land happens. I like that, even though the Town does not have to engage in such diplomacy.
I smart pol would find a way to tap into that feeling.
Where have you been since Kelo?
IF YOU COME ON MY LAND, I"LL KILL YOU ~ by Vin Suprynowicz
Clarence Rosemann, whose family runs the local Handi Mart in the deeply wooded community 100 miles southwest of St. Louis, told reporters for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he and his son dug up sewer lines on Watson’s property about a year back, when Watson couldn’t get the city to consider fixing them. After Watson paid Rosemann to dig up the pipes, Rosemann found that the clog was, indeed, on the city’s right of way, as Watson had contended.
Is that the part you're accusing me of being wrong about?
I haven't read this whole thing but I have followed a few sub-threads in it and now make the following observations:
Some think he should have sued the city rather than shoot the workers. To them I say, how far do you think his suit would have gone considering he would have had to pay an attorney while all the time he was also paying the city's attorneys through his taxes.
Some others think he was "more or less" justified in protecting his property with lethal force. While the idea of using such force is certainly anti-social it does get the attention of the powers that be - - much more so than a lawsuit buried in a city attorney's office.
Some will say (if they haven't said it already, as I said, I haven't read this whole thing) that the way to effect change is through the ballot box. To them I say, get real! Trying to change the way a city does things with one vote would be akin to p!$$!ng in the ocean and expecting a tsunami!
After a period of mourning, finger-pointing and castigation there is a possibility that the city will do a better job of contacting those whose property they are about to dig up. The shooter chose a harsh but effective way to make change. How many of us have done anywhere near as much with a lawsuit, a ballot or an anonymous comment on a public forum?
Please show me the post where someone refuted the part about the easement. I must have missed it.
--I smart pol would find a way to tap into that feeling. --
David Duke? OBL?
I do not condone civil violence. I condone the right to defend our property against being taken illegally. By not holding public hearings, by not allowing due process, the city was trying to illegally take part of the man's property.
Here in Boise, there is a proposed street widening project that has been working its way through the system for a couple of years now. The Ada County Highway District wants to expand Ustick Rd., and unfortunately, it will shear a few feet off some yards along the street. The process started with a public hearing, during which both sides of the debate were heard. Afterward, the ACHD offered to compensate the property owners, and wrangling has been going back a forth for a "fair" amount. If some, or even one, of the property owners refuses to sell, then it will go to the court. If the ACHD goes through all the proceedings it is legally obligated to do and someone still refuses to sell, well unfortunately, that's just a TS situation. The road will be widened, and the property owner will be "justly" compensated.
The Missouri case, evidently, was nothing of the sort. The city decided it didn't like the easement they had, and on the spur of the moment, decided it was going to "take" part of someone else's property for a new easement. For the life of me, I see no difference between the city's actions, and someone kicking down the man's door in the middle of the night to steal property from his house. Either way, the man's "castle" is being invaded.
Would I do the same if I were in the Missouri man's boots? I'd have to think long and hard about it, but unfortunately, he didn't have the opportunity to think, because they just showed up on his property to start digging. At least he gave them warning before he started shooting.
Are you familiar with the Donald Scott case, about 15 or so years back, in Kalifornia? Similar, but the JBTs kicked in his door in the middle of the night, wearing their ninja suits and carrying MP-5s.
You and I see things differently. That doesn't make either of us insane, it just means my line in the sand and yours are spaced pretty far apart.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
--While the idea of using such force is certainly anti-social --
Come on. It is MURDER!
The pol won't promise much, just that things won't get much worse for an entire demographic. And he'd probably win.
Would you please show me where you're getting your information. You claim I'm wrong about this, but all I have to go on are the article posted at the top of the thread, and a longer version of it that I posted a link to. If these are not accurate, I'd like to know where I can get the facts you're clinging to. Please advise.
--Is that the part you're accusing me of being wrong about?--
Seems like there were problems with the line and they were trying to correct those problems.
Strictly a matter of semantics.
For you, the workers and their families, the officials who had to clean up their mess and the police, it was indeed murder. For Mr. Watson, it was defense of his private property, his home and his family.
There was once a similar difference of opinion when a bunch of farmers shot and killed some members of the King's army. The king thought it was murder while the farmers considered it self defense.
Which side would you have been on?
No, it doesn't sound like that at all. Read it again. He paid someone else to dig up the sewer, after the city refused. Then they decided to run a new sewer line, without getting a new easement.
Again I ask, where are you getting information that's not posted in the article?
Luis:
No one is saying that you can't do that.
It's weird luis how you can rationalize your attempts to infringe by simply saying 'it isn't so'. Sheer denial.
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.
Yes luis, we "might". -- If we are fools enough to allow such infringements, we "might" one day have the right to own arms without the right to carry them anywhere.
You and the NRA are trying to engage the power of government to violate everyone's right to make decisions for themselves.
'We the people' made the decision on carrying arms long ago luis. -- You businessmen cannot place restrictions on the contents of our vehicles. -- Learn to live with our Constitutional decisions.
UpAllNight wrote:
tpaine -- 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? Are you saying that the GA law which is consistent with my position is a gun-grabbing law? I thought you agreed with it?
You seem obsessed with your vision of what the GA bill meant to achieve. -- Why is that, considering that you agree:
"--The issue is carrying a firearm in your private vehicle for protection of yourself and your family when you are traveling to and from work, to and from shopping and to and from any place law-abiding citizens normally go in the course of daily routines. --"
I will say this one last time, 'cause I'm getting tired of repeating myself: from what I understood from the story, the city's easement was not originally under this man's property, but elsewhere. The city didn't like where the existing easement was, so they decided to move it to the man's property, without giving him the opportunity to challenge it legally. In this situation, the city was wrong to have simply given the man's wife less than a day's notice that the digging would start. What they were doing was illegal. Period. Those are the facts I gleaned from the article.
A man has the right to defend his property from illegal taking, whether by a guy with a piece of paper, or by a criminal in the night. How he chooses to do so caries varying consequences, so he has to make that decision for himself.
Now, I hope you understand my point. Time to move on to further discussion.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
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