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.
Having fun yet? And folks wonder why some tourists are afraid to travel into middle America.
I know none of this makes sense, just hoping you would clear it up.
Why should I help clear up your nonsense, -- your credibility, when you're attacking mine?
-- You really do need professional help. -- You're attacking most everyone on this thread over nitpicking details.
This was fun at first. You are just nagging now.
Bye.
--Why should I help clear up your nonsense, -- your credibility, when you're attacking mine?--
I am not attacking your credibility. I was just reminding you that failing to clarify your position hurts your credibility. Is it that you have no reasonable response to such a simple question?
After review, do you still support the GA bill?
--You're attacking most everyone on this thread over nitpicking details.--
You are the one that called me a gun-grabber. That is not a nitpicking detail.
Second, it's not that I lack faith in my government. I recognize its limitations and what it can and will do. I live out in the country and experience an ice storm several years ago. No power for four days. Other communities went a week or more. I am not relying on government to help me in case that happens again. I have two generators and keep a stock of gas around in case I need it.
No, I do not want to live in North Korea. I have travelled around the world while I served 18 years in the U.S. Navy and nothing compares to how good we have it here. But that does not mean the government is not inept. That it is not corrupt. That it is incapable of protecting you. That saying so to others should be a warning to others so that they can be prepared to help themselves.
Also, what is your problem with jumping on others on this thread?
Difference between the police and the military. The police in spite of their rhetoric about putting their lives on the line every day, don't really expect to come under serious fire.
And when they returned?
Remember every action at any level of government on a citizen is potentially lethal force. If an individual resists, the response will escalate to the point where he must be taken away in chains or someone is harmed by his effort of resistance.
Our existence carries a social contract that should be secured by the Rule of Law; whereas nowadays we progressively appear to be be enslaved by Mob Rule and survival of the fittest.
Yes and yes. I don't think anyone meant otherwise; however, it's what pushed him over the edge that VS was decrying.
I agree. With one caveat. It is apparent from the information at hand that the City had a valid easement, which is, after all, a contractual property right in and of itself. He had no "property" right to control improvements to the easement or access to the easement, his convictions notwithstanding. Rather akin to his murdering his neighbors because they ruined his view by painting their house the wrong color. I seriously doubt anyone would defend that action on the basis that he was "protecting his property rights" and was "pushed to his limits."
I gave you a reasonable response back at # 321; -- You wrote:
That should have been clear from my post on my position much earlier before I had read the bill. I have been totally consistent on this.
Here's where you were unclear. I asked:
Do you have the right to carry a gun in a vehicle?
I have the right to carry a gun in my vehicle. I do not have the right to tresspass another's premises with my gun in my vehicle.
Clever non-answer. -- You are not trespassing - you are an employee with a right to carry a gun in your vehicle, -- as you admit.
-- The question remains, does your employers attempt to prohibit arms in vehicles meet with your approval?
You said you agreed with the GA bill.
Given that, one can infer that you agree with my employer's right to prohibit uncontrolled guns on his property.
Daffy "inference", as the GA bill agrees that an employee has a right to carry arms in his vehicle.
-- The question remains, does your employers attempt to prohibit arms in vehicles meet with your approval?
---Also, what is your problem with jumping on others on this thread?---
Because so many here have advocated that we should kill the 'little hitlers' that run our government. Burns me up that there are posters here advocating murder and worshipping murderers.
So in your opinion armed rebellion is never justified, or just not justified here and now?
As I said before, it is consistent with my published position (from which I have not wavered) and it is consistent with the GA bill you referred to AND which you sayyou approved of. NOW, the question remains,
After review, do you STILL approve of the GA bill?
We are defenseless against their mighty backhoes!
--So in your opinion armed rebellion is never justified, or just not justified here and now?--
There have been several earlier posts in which I discussed with some others the difference between armed rebellion and murder and that it seemed a lot of posters couldn't differentiate between the two.
-- I don't think anyone meant otherwise; however, it's what pushed him over the edge that VS was decrying.--
The county trying to make their sewage system functional pushed him over the edge?
When you stop being deliberatly obtuse let me know.
"Because so many here have advocated that we should kill the 'little hitlers' that run our government. Burns me up that there are posters here advocating murder and worshipping murderers."
Not jumping into the fray here, but a mention of something one of our Founding Fathers once said.
The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.
Those words are as true today as they were when first spoken.
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