Posted on 04/24/2002 9:34:45 AM PDT by Protagoras
"What ever happened to America?" is the question I asked the government employee just before our conversation ended yesterday. He seemed befuddled by the question.
I just thought I would post this short story about a common everyday occurrence that happened yesterday even though the topic is unremarkable.
I have fence around my yard in my medium sized suburb of Chicago. Part of the fence, about eighty feet, behind my house is at the end of its usefulness. Truth be told, it's falling down.
Having decided to bite the bullet for the $1600 that it will cost to replace the section, I ordered the fence and arranged for it to be erected in a few weeks. The fencing company told me that times had changed and that I might need a permit from my village. The salesperson suggested I call the building department anonymously and ask only a hypothetical question concerning the possibility of replacing a section of my existing fence with one of the same type and whether that would require a permit of some type.
I was a tad taken aback by her suggestion because I thought that I was the only paranoid person who was afraid of the repercussions of telling someone in government of my specific plans for this mundane improvement.
So I did as suggested and asked the polite gentleman who answered the phone if a permit was required for my potential plan. He immediately responded that I would indeed need a permit and an inspection would be required. When I inquired about the reason for such an inspection he said that is was to ensure that the posts were sunk 42" deep and set in concrete. When I told him I was interested in setting the posts in gravel he told me it would be quite impossible because study after study had shown that concrete set posts were superior to any other method.
I told him that it was quite beside the point in any case because it would be my fence and it didn't matter what anyone else thought about the installation method.
He informed me that the ordinance was needed for my own protection from unscrupulous fencing contractors. I then asked him the question "What ever happened to America?" (a statement for which I didn't require an answer) as I thanked him for his help and said goodbye. He asked me to wait a moment before hanging up because he wanted to discuss the issue with me. He felt compelled to defend his job I suppose.
He repeated that the ordinance was for my own good and didn't understand my resistance to the good being done for me. At this point I told him that I was an adult free person and more than willing to take personal responsibility for my own decisions. I told him that since the matter was not one of public safety but only of the opinion of government employees who had no stake in the matter that it really was a mute point because I didn't need their opinion to make my personal buying decisions. His response was that all the fences in my town had the same requirement. (as if that justified his interference)
I then told him I would be more than willing to come to the village hall and sign a paper that admitted that I had heard their opinions and warnings and had decided to take responsibility for my own choices. He informed me that that would be quite impossible because "it doesn't work that way".
I repeated my question about what ever happened to America. He said he didn't understand what I was talking about. I wasn't surprised.
And in a time when we focus so much on the tyranny of the distant federal government, we sometimes forget just how bad our very own neighbors treat us.
Some people go nuts with a little power. All reasonableness and commonsense go out the door.
Deus Vult! 'Pod
Don't think anybody will do anything to you if you simply put a fence up.
I live on acreage near Chicago also in an area which is supposed to be a homeland for an endangered species (the emerald dragonfly which stopped the I355 tollway extension for years). I went through two years of obtaining approvals for this and that, and I'm sure I could have been denied at almost any stage if someone on the county or township board had desired. I suspect that, in the end, that I got my zero frontage variance and special use permit to cross a floodplain to erect a dwelling approved because the powers that be figured I was a better bet as a resident than a potential tire retreader or emu farmer.
The US Consitution says otherwise.
On the other hand, if you are in Canada, then yeah, there are no guarenteed property rights in the Constitution, and your point stands.
Well, I bought a six-room (2 bedroom/2 full bath) house in 1983 and, since that time my wife and I have added .. and constructed by ourselves .. four rooms, a full enclosed patio, and an enclosed back porch without even so much as a by-your-leave to the county before I did so. I have one more 20x20 room to build and then we're finished with that.
My acre-and-a-half property is full fenced with a six-foot mesh-and-barbed-wire fence, backed by a hedge of 10-ft cedar trees hidden in which is a twin-roll of concertina wire (policed up from the maneuver range here at Fort Hood).
The only thing anyone from the county ever said was when the Sheriff stopped as he was driving by when we were putting the concertina wire over the 2-ft cedar seedlings. He looked at the perimeter of concertina and the barbed wire fence and simply asked my wife is she was expecting the Normandy invasion. Then he laughed and drove off.
I guess private property means something different than it does here in Texas.
Does it really? Do you have a reference for that?
All but a few people go nuts with a little power. That's the problem with 'democratic socialism'.
I've built a few fences in my time and that is a bit of overkill. If the post is 42" deep ,concrete is definitely optional. We've contained 3500lb pissed off beefmaster bulls with less(of course the posts were old railroad ties, but they weren't set in concrete)
As I recall, you have the right to be secure in your persons, houses, papers, and effects ( Amendment IV ).
In Amendment V, it specifically mentions 'private property' shall not be taken without due process and it won't be taken for public use without just compensation
Clearly the founding fathers believed in the concept of private property.
The only reason things are like they are today, is because we let them get like this.
If everyone in that suburb of Chicago decided to build their fences however they wanted, what would the mighty Government do? Send in the BATF to burn the whole community down? They would do nothing, and they would like it.
My understanding is that when you purchase property within a municipal boundary you are implicitly agreeing to abide by all of that jurisdiction's laws related to property ownership. If someone doesn't like the laws as they pertain to his own property, then he can either try to change them or move somewhere else.
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