The Right's Distortion Machine
We've been hearing about this so-called "rural rage" off and on for several months now - pent up, explosive anger directed at the Critical Areas Ordinance and the the Growth Management Act.
Indignant "property rights" activists (as if property actually had any rights) are furious about regulations that tell them what they can and can't do with some of their land.
If you look at it only through their narrow point of view, it seems government is an oppressive and nasty monster, acting unduly unfair and infringing on citizens' rights and freedoms.
But this distortion machine completely ignores the real purpose of the Critical Areas Ordinance and Growth Management Act. If people were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their land, there would be no way to control sprawl and developments. There would be absolutely nothing to stop somebody from selling out their wetland to a Wal*Mart.
Property doesn't have rights. When you buy property, you are making an investment - much like you can invest money in the stock market. It's a risk. Chances are, you aren't going to be able to do whatever you want with that land.
If everybody had the freedom to do whatever they wanted with their land, our society would at the mercy of developers and landowners. In order to prevent unchecked and unmanaged growth, we need rules - hence, the Growth Management Act and the Critical Areas Ordinance.
In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning, reporter Jennifer Langston writes about the possibility of a ballot initiative that would restore "property rights" to landowners. A couple of excerpts:
The BIAW accomplished similar feats in 2002 with Referendum 53 and again in 2003 with Initiative 841 and the phony "Workers Against Job Killing Rules" politiical committee they set up to make themselves look like labor.
The article goes on:
We'll be posting more information at Permanent Defense in the coming weeks.
Indignant "property rights" activists (as if property actually had any rights) are furious about regulations that tell them what they can and can't do with some of their land.
If you look at it only through their narrow point of view, it seems government is an oppressive and nasty monster, acting unduly unfair and infringing on citizens' rights and freedoms.
But this distortion machine completely ignores the real purpose of the Critical Areas Ordinance and Growth Management Act. If people were allowed to do whatever they wanted with their land, there would be no way to control sprawl and developments. There would be absolutely nothing to stop somebody from selling out their wetland to a Wal*Mart.
Property doesn't have rights. When you buy property, you are making an investment - much like you can invest money in the stock market. It's a risk. Chances are, you aren't going to be able to do whatever you want with that land.
If everybody had the freedom to do whatever they wanted with their land, our society would at the mercy of developers and landowners. In order to prevent unchecked and unmanaged growth, we need rules - hence, the Growth Management Act and the Critical Areas Ordinance.
In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning, reporter Jennifer Langston writes about the possibility of a ballot initiative that would restore "property rights" to landowners. A couple of excerpts:
Sprawl watchdogs are already gearing up for a fight, preparing to combat the same kind of emotional campaign featuring 92-year-old widows and sympathetic landowners that apparently resonated with Oregon voters.In order to get their message to resonate, they'll try to pull stunts exactly like that one - tricking people into supporting the measure by playing on their emotions or trying to stir up false outrage.
Washington voters already emphatically rejected a measure 10 years ago that would have required local governments to compensate landowners when regulations reduced their property values.
The BIAW accomplished similar feats in 2002 with Referendum 53 and again in 2003 with Initiative 841 and the phony "Workers Against Job Killing Rules" politiical committee they set up to make themselves look like labor.
The article goes on:
Opponents here say support evaporates as soon as people realize that it leads to subdivisions plopped down next to farms, orchards or wineries. By giving individual landowners carte blanche, protections keeping rendering plants or porn shops out of neighborhoods are lost, they argue.There is a small but vocal minority of outraged activists that believe they should be able to do whatever they want with their land, society and regulations be damned. They claim a property rights initiative would easily pass in Washington State. But they clearly aren't in the majority:
They contend that Washington has little appetite for paying developers and landowners who want to maximize profits rather than to make reasonable use of their land.
"They pulled a fast one in Oregon, without a doubt. We will make sure people know what this is about -- creating loopholes for sprawl developers," said Aaron Ostrom, executive director of Futurewise, the advocacy group formerly called 1000 Friends of Washington.
Futurewise officials say a recent poll it commissioned of 400 likely voters across the state suggests those claims are exaggerated. Only 21 percent felt government had unfairly restricted the use of their land. Sixty percent said it's more important to protect neighborhoods from poorly planned developments than to protect the rights of individual property owners, according to the poll conducted by the Evans/McDonough research firm.When these "property rights" activists come knocking, there's going to have to be a huge effort to take sure their distortion machine doesn't manipulate people into forming false conclusions about the Growth Management Act and the Critical Areas Ordinance.
We'll be posting more information at Permanent Defense in the coming weeks.
