I had to read it several times just to make sure I wasn't misreading it.
Editorial section of today's Sunday Oregonian. Front page above-the-fold column is a screed against Measure 37. Nothing unexpected about that.
But the pull quote, prominently displayed on the front page:
"Oregon belongs to all of us. Not just to those people with Measure 37 claims."
They really don't believe in private property, do they?
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6 comments:
Funny. The title to my house says nothing about Oregon having any claim at all. PGE gets to use part of my land but Oregon needs a warrant to come onto my property.
Fundamentally the whole purpose of buying land is for your personal use. Thats a fundamental right under the US Constitution.
Whats sad is the long history since SB100 that Oregon ends up before the US Supreme Court being smacked down for its land use policy.
I read that pull quote too, with amazement. Collectivism, pure and simple. And they aren't even bright enough to try and hide it.
The Oregonian editorialists are nothing if not well-trained Orwellians.
As in Animal Farm where Napoleon changed the slogan from "four legs good, two legs bad" to "four legs good, two legs better", The Editors now alter Hank Williams:
"This land was your land, this land is our land ..."
i've challenged folks on other sites to point to the section of the oregon or federal constitutions that provide my neighbors with the right to dictate to me how i may use my property. the idea that government can control how a private individual uses property he/she owns is anathema to the very premise of the constitution.
Where are "they" when I pay my mortgage, do yard work, shovel ice/snow off my driveway/sidewalk, etc etc.
If it's "their" property too, they're fired. Job abandonment.
Well, if its everyone's property, lets go pool hopping this summer. We'll stay as long as we want in the best backyards. Its our property, so raiding the fridge is ok- it's ours! Steaks, burgers, fries, beer, the works.
If a city enters into a contract to pay money in lieu of granting a waiver is that contract itself "property," where the owner of that property can alienate their interest?
Suppose that a city is dissolved. What happens to that piece of so-called property, the contract? Does that contract vanish or is it a piece of collateral to be delivered to a bond holder in the event of remaining unpaid bond debt? If there is no outstanding debt is the contract sellable so that the cash can be distributed to all the residents, except for the private party that accepted payment under M37?
Is it as odd as say the CoP obtaining an agreement from someone not to object to annexation?
Hussey v. City of Portland, 64 F3d 1260 (9th Cir 1995)
[blockquote]"We must decide whether the City of Portland's ordinance requiring non-residents to consent to annexation as a condition of receiving a subsidy, or reduction in hook-up costs, for mandated sewer connections, violates their federal constitutional rights to free speech or equal protection."[/blockquote]
Logic alone dictates that property and the owner of property are two distinctly different notions. It is essential to accommodate exchange -- even for exchange of garden produce with a neighbor for their eggs or meat. The precise parameters of any land use rule is quite irrelevant, or quite ineffective, at rebutting the notion that property and the owner of that property remain distinct issues.
In order for a payment under M37 to make any sense at all, under elementary notions of property law, the payment must be accompanied by delivery of the title. If SB100 were repealed, I would insist as a taxpayer that the city insist that a M37 recipient of money repay the money; and insist upon the same condition of repayment being inserted in the contract accompanying payment.
Teddy's SB505 offer to let someone get one house on condition of (effectively) a promise not to sue (just like the Hussy annexation case) or otherwise object is the rough parallel to the M37 inclusion of the payment option in lieu of waiver.
You can read more here if you really want more stuff to read, in defense of genuine property rights:
"buy Dorothy English's property then insist upon her right to privately contract for the sale of fee simple property to another"
The best political way to view the crazy M37 payment scheme is that it is designed to shake the weak holders of property by presenting a WEAKER than justifiable support of property than what one can today assert and get to the US Supreme Court in a FIGHT AGAINST M37 itself.
I am quite comfortable that I am free from the risk of libel by asserting that the so-called property rights advocates in defense of Dorothy English, the attorneys of record in the Oregon Supreme Court, have got their property rights wires crossed at least as to generally applicable laws. A property holder can hold out for a better deal later unless they can, like the M37 claimants, comparatively suppress the value of other property holders in violation of the EP&I clause. It is comforting to hear someone like Judge Posner note, as an aside, that not tapping ANWAR means that it is just saved for future use when it will be even more valuable. Same for land -- unless one thinks that population will decrease.
If by referencing Communism you refer to how it was been practiced, where some folks are more equal than others, then it applies equally to both sides of the clown show here.
I consider ANY payment under M37 invalid for, among other reasons, the reason noted in Hussey v. City of Portland, 64 F3d 1260 (9th Cir 1995). The sellers, by retaining the title, cannot be forced to not later bring suit (just as they cannot be coerced to vote a particular way) in the event that M37 is repealed or modified or SB100 limits (or rather local limits generally believed to be related to statewide goals and guidelines) are lifted. I'd force the M37 claimants that receive payment to cough up the title too, or there is no deal on payment, and simultaneously I would demand that the government find the illusive "public purpose" to justify the purchase (which I believe they cannot). The payment thing is so ripe with absurdities that it is just plain rotten. And in any event, Dorothy English did have the option, consistent with the judicial notion of finality of dividing her property, as with all of the M37 claimants and their predecessors, long ago at the time of purchase.
--pdxnag
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