LA County's War on Private Property

[sanglant]

if you build a nice big firing range. then even if they takeover, you have a nice grandfathered firing range, that you can open to the public, and make enough selling to rebuild.

[gunsmith]

a friend built in northern nevada, he was worried about zones and code. its over one hundred miles from the county seat, with pretty much nothing in between and the bureaucrats hate coming all the way out. So he built to code and they drove to the property line, looked at it from a few acres away said "fine" and left.

most folks out here only get code inspections if some one complains.

[mtnbkr]

Where is that? I have a cousin in AZ who always wanted to live way out of civilization. He has built out (WAY out) in the boonies three or four times, then had to move still farther out as the unincorporated areas where he lived were gobbled up and subsumed by one of the incorporated municipalities. You can't always predict where such encroachment is inevitable.

My grandmother used to live in rural NC and was surrounded by farmland (small farms with few if any livestock) and modest homes on 1-5 acre lots.  She lived there for close to 60 years before moving into assisted living last year.  About 20 years ago, a guy bought a bunch of property on the other side of a 2 lane highway, about 200yds away from my grandmother's house, and set up a turkey farm (close enough you can hear the turkeys).  Now when the wind blows right or when the smell is particularly strong, you can smell it quite plainly from her front yard.  I guess he has the right to do what he wants with his property and there were no laws saying he couldn't, but it's pretty damn rude to build something like that in what is mostly a residential community (and right across the street from a church).   

Zoning is a response to such aholes.

Chris

[Perd Hapley]

People usually think of the Federal and State governments being responsible for most of the tyrannical laws out there, but a lot of folks don't realize that local governments can be quite a pain...as well.  Zoning and codes are some of the biggest infringements on our liberty.  Nobody has a right to enjoy the view of his neighbor's property.  

I'd love to find a city that doesn't have all these BS codes, but it seems to be a pretty much universal phenomenon among cities that are any larger than the "podunk" category. 

It's called federalism. As you move from the national to the state to the more local governments (even down to HOAs), tighter controls and stricter laws become more acceptable. What may be tyranny at the national level may be good governance at the local level.

[henschman]

It's called federalism. As you move from the national to the state to the more local governments (even down to HOAs), tighter controls and stricter laws become more acceptable. What may be tyranny at the national level may be good governance at the local level.

My views on the legitimate role of government do not depend on what level of government is involved.  If a government does anything other than protecting the liberty of its citizens, its actions are illegitimate, period.

The national government should only be doing this job in a handful of narrowly-defined ways.  The state and local governments should have more leeway, but they should still be strictly limited to that role.  At least that's how it should work in a free society.  Far from what we live in today, I know. 

[charby]

Did you look at the pictures?  This ain't rural Iowa.

If the land was greener it looks a lot like a lot small acerages of rural Iowa.

[Tallpine]

We bought way out where we did just because we wanted to be as far from anything as possible, yet still get a place we could afford.  We are about as far from the main highways as you can get in every direction.

If we had had more money, I would have bought 20 or 30 square miles up at the base of the Snowy Mountains and lived in the middle of it.  But there are no smaller parcels out that way - it is all big ranches which of course is the main reason that it's so remote.

Unfortunately we have some neighbors that would like to have a fine road through our area, but fortunately our county is so poor that it will likely be another 20+ years before we even get some gravel on the upper end.  You should have heard them whining to the commissioners when the river washed out the good end of the road. 

No building codes except for septic systems in this five county district (which is why I didn't want to buy in Jellystone County or anywhere on the I-90 corridor) and it's pretty obvious because you see some real interesting structures alongside some nice houses.   

When I was working out in Commiefornia, I drove out to Antelope Valley, and also up to the San Joaquin and Cuyama valleys, because I just wanted to see something other than city.  It's funny how one side of the mountains there are ten million people and forty miles away over the hills it is remote desert with a few ranches and homesteads, that could almost be Montana.  (except the SJ is all big ag)  But I guess the city folks just can't stand anyone living in something resembling freedom anywhere that they can reach their bloodsucking tentacles 

[sanglant]

yep.

[Perd Hapley]

My views on the legitimate role of government do not depend on what level of government is involved. 

Perhaps they should.

[230RN]

"...a few acres away..."

Heh.

I used to use a line like that as a joke: "five acres by ten acres."

[henschman]

Perhaps they should.

Initiation of force is initiation of force, regardless of the identity of the aggressor or the victim.

[MicroBalrog]

Perhaps they should.

Why?

[Perd Hapley]

Initiation of force is initiation of force, regardless of the identity of the aggressor or the victim.

You think I'm justifying the initiation of force?

[roo_ster]

My views on the legitimate role of government do not depend on what level of government is involved.  If a government does anything other than protecting the liberty of its citizens, its actions are illegitimate, period.

The national government should only be doing this job in a handful of narrowly-defined ways.  The state and local governments should have more leeway, but they should still be strictly limited to that role.  At least that's how it should work in a free society.  Far from what we live in today, I know. 

Thank you for highlighting the incompatibility of libertarian doctrine with the COTUS and classical liberalism in general.

[MicroBalrog]

Thank you for highlighting the incompatibility of libertarian doctrine with the COTUS and classical liberalism in general.

In what way is libertarian doctrine incompatible with COTUS?

The most conservative interpretation of COTUS will tell us that [at the barest minimum, and ignoring certain historical facts] COTUS is mostly a restraint against FedGov and the states against violating a narrow range of rights.

But even if I were to accept this position, just because something is Constitutional does not make it right or legitimate morally. It is not 'incompatible' with the Constitution to believe that local governments should follow libertarian views, and we have the tools to make them do so provided within the existing Constitutional framework, if there are enough libertarians.

[roo_ster]

In what way is libertarian doctrine incompatible with COTUS?

The most conservative interpretation of COTUS will tell us that [at the barest minimum, and ignoring certain historical facts] COTUS is mostly a restraint against FedGov and the states against violating a narrow range of rights.

But even if I were to accept this position, just because something is Constitutional does not make it right or legitimate morally. It is not 'incompatible' with the Constitution to believe that local governments should follow libertarian views, and we have the tools to make them do so provided within the existing Constitutional framework, if there are enough libertarians.

I agree with what you just wrote.

henschman went a bit farther, though:

My views on the legitimate role of government do not depend on what level of government is involved.  If a government does anything other than protecting the liberty of its citizens, its actions are illegitimate, period.

The COTUS does envision a federal system where the states (or other duly constituted govt's) can exercise legitimate powers not granted to fed.gov. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Libertarians with their doctrine down (and not just liberty-minded conservatives who appropriate the term "libertarian" for the chicks and a whiff of naughty radicalism) generally side with henschman's view, since that pretty much is the logical end point of much libertarian doctrine. 

[MicroBalrog]

Legitimacy may have other definitions other than 'constitutional legitimacy'.

[roo_ster]

Legitimacy may have other definitions other than 'constitutional legitimacy'.

OK...

(Most every time I hear "illegitimate" WRT gov't or gov't action, it is in the context of usurpation of powers, coup d'etat, etc.)

Which is kinda beside the point, since my contention was that henschman's libertarian assertions were incompatible with the COTUS...and you are stating that the COTUS is not the yardstick henschman is using to measure legitimate exercise of powers. 

It seems we are then in agreement, no?

[henschman]

Thank you for highlighting the incompatibility of libertarian doctrine with the COTUS and classical liberalism in general.

I do not believe that government or a piece of paper can be a source of rights, or can legitimately deny them to anyone.  I believe rights are inherent.  The Constitution is not the end-all -- like Lysander Spooner said, it has either authorized such government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.  However, I wouldn't say that the Constitution is "incompatible" with liberty -- it leaves the states unrestrained from perpetrating many violations of liberty, but it does not require them to perpetrate them, either.  Under the Constitution, a state would be free to limit its government to legitimate roles. 

I am not a big detractor of the Constitution.  I think that if our government were to start following it, it would be a wonderful step in the right direction, as it would require the cessation of many of at least the national government's activities -- but like I said, it would not be the end-all. 

You think I'm justifying the initiation of force?

You are if you advocate any level of government doing anything other than protecting the maximal correlative liberty of its citizens. 

In the context of this topic, I was referring to the government forcing people to make their yards pretty, forcing people to obtain their permission to build or add onto their house, forcibly preventing people from building certain categories of structures or undertaking certain categories of free association on their property, etc.

[MicroBalrog]

We must have ordered liberty.  We can't have them just doing what they want. 

Ordered liberty is the intellectual's way saying: "Well, I love freedom and all. There just ought a be a law..."

[MicroBalrog]

OK...

(Most every time I hear "illegitimate" WRT gov't or gov't action, it is in the context of usurpation of powers, coup d'etat, etc.)

Which is kinda beside the point, since my contention was that henschman's libertarian assertions were incompatible with the COTUS...and you are stating that the COTUS is not the yardstick henschman is using to measure legitimate exercise of powers. 

No, we are not. Libertarianism is still not incompatible with the COTUS, because COTUS nowhere mandates a specific kind of rule. It is constitutional (not 'a good idea', or 'wise') for you to install all sort of governments on the local and state levels - a welfare dystopia that enforces wheelchair access laws on camping tents, a hyperconservative horror with curfews for everybody under 21, or a libertarian madhouse with state pre-emption against zoning laws.

Were you to say that the Constitution does not mandate complete libertarianism everywhere, you would be right. But this is far from saying libertarianism is incompatible with the constitution.

[KD5NRH]

I've often thought that if I win the lottery, near the top of my "to do" list will be buying small chunks of land just outside the city's ETJ in every direction to put up everything I can think of that doesn't meet city codes.  If they annex it, they're stuck grandfathering it, and it would really put a knot in the drawers of the "build a fancy house just outside the city limits" crowd.