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.
--Click my name, go back through my posts on this thread, and look at the ones that are not to you or UpAllNight, starting maybe in the 300's or 400's. If I could remember the name of the poster, I'd look it up for you, but I can't, so it's just as easy for you to find it as it is for me.--
Thanks for sending me on a wild goose chase.
-That's a post from you to me asking for a link to something I mentioned earlier. -
Which you never provided. Thanks.
If you ever want to be Mayor, Ping me, I will support you.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
Not to mention that even exercising a recorded, existing, easement involves negotiations and enough tact to avoid crisis.
If the authorities were aware of a possible crisis they should have at least arrested the homeowner based on the threat before showing up with digging tools.
Even more indicative of a successful exercise in inept authoritarianism was the fact that the cop they sent as protection ran for cover and kept going.
--If you ever want to be Mayor, Ping me, I will support you.--
Around Y'all? Being mayor around y'all would lead to an early execution.
Read the linked NEWS stories, not the ramblings of an anti-Christian, pro-drug anarchist Libertarian.
No, it's not. But their refusal to respect his rights is what got them shot. One is more important than the other in the larger scheme of things.
Any servants of the people who forget this are subject to learning it the hard way.
Cheers,
Lloyd
Amen
--No, it's not. But their refusal to respect his rights is what got them shot. One is more important than the other in the larger scheme of things.--
He had NO right to prevent them from accessing the easement for repairs to the system.
These were not the "King's men".
They were just guys trying to keep the sewage system running in a small town where one idiot was not willing to honor his contract with the county.
Killing unarmed backhoe operators is disgusting. He could have fired one warning shot into the backhoe's tires, but unarmed men being shot down. Backhoe operators!
Artemis Webb, You just made that up. Everybody knows militias shoot nice ladys and blacksmiths first!
That's what we used to do.
Semper Fi
An Old Man
--Killing unarmed backhoe operators is disgusting. He could have fired one warning shot into the backhoe's tires, but unarmed men being shot down. Backhoe operators!--
Fast forward to 703! I need a break.
Sorry sport, you been burning up the keyboard today and seem to be caught up in the moment rather than cogitating a bit before you start typing. Never said I agreed with anyone, I took umbrage at you calling a PAID opinion maker a piece of garbage when you, sport, are not paid for yours and could just as easily post you comments in a men's room. Your opinions are worth what people pay for them, and by definition yours are worthless. Calling another's opinions garbage reflects poorly on you, sorry if I could not make that clear to you. Please slow down and think so you don't put words in other people's mouths.
--Calling another's opinions garbage reflects poorly on you, sorry if I could not make that clear to you. Please slow down and think so you don't put words in other people's mouths.--
Vin is Anti-Christian, pro-drug/anti-developed medicine anti-government and his 'works' are filled will misleading statements and exaggerations.
IMHO.
OK, I'll accept your opinion of the guy as I don't even know who he is, and thank you for not merely calling him 'garbage.'
Sewer easements are a gratuitous infringement on property rights, eh? Why doesn't the author just come out and say we should all shit in a pot?
--OK, I'll accept your opinion of the guy as I don't even know who he is, and thank you for not merely calling him 'garbage.'--
Let's just say that his opinions are garbage.
What do you find heroic about a guy shooting a backhoe operator executing a lawful repair of the sewage system?
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