Story here. In other circumstances, such as water rationing, you get arrested for watering your lawn.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/7183/70-year-old-woman-arrested-for-brown-lawn/
70-year old woman arrested for brown lawn
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…but stuff like this is just the price of all the other freedoms we enjoy.
Like the freedom to be forced to pay more for low-cost high-quality imports. And the freedom to be hated by the foreign countries that we bomb (hopefully someday soon we’ll have the freedom to be forced to go over and pull the trigger yourself, or else you can have the freedom to be put in prison). And the freedom to not be allowed to grow certain plants. Also, the freedom to not be allowed to cover too much distance in too short a time. And the freedom to have your dollars gradually become worthless. And the freedom to be lied to. And the freedom to be obedient to your overlords.
All of these freedoms come at a price unfortunately. Ask any neocon, they’ll disabuse you of your free-lunch foolishness. Freedom unfortunately has its price. And sometimes that price has to be paid by discipcable grandmothers and their appalling brown lawns.
I agree that law enforcement went over the top on this whole thing with the lawn; however, I have a feeling that there’s more to this than meets the eye.
The fact that the water’s been turned off for nine months throws up a red flag. Now would be a good time for any friends or family she might have to step forward and find out what’s wrong.
It may be that she couldn’t afford the water bill or it could be something like Alzheimer’s or dementia. I will tell you this, Alzheimer’s patients can be quite a handful when upset.
When dealing with the elderly, there’s a very fine line between respecting their privacy and making the decision that they are no longer able to care for themselves.
Arrested for failure to maintain landscaping? What a gross violation of property rights! Imagine the absurdity: “My neighbor’s not maintaining her plants. I can’t stand to look at it. My sensibilities have been abused. Woe is me. Arrest that swine! WAAAAAAAAAH!!”
Whoever was involved in enacting such a law should have been horse-whipped at the time, and drummed out of office.
A question about property rights…
What if the next-door neighbor’s property was so poorly maintained that it caused the devaluation of your property or interfered with your ability to sell your property?
IMHO,
What if the the landscaping of your neighbor were so outstanding that it raised the value of your property at sale? Would your neighbor be entitled to a cut of your profit?
What if the next-door neighbor’s property was so poorly maintained that it caused the devaluation of your property or interfered with your ability to sell your property?
Here are some non-violent options:
1. Choose your neighbors better.
2. Execute a covenant with your neighbor that gives you the extraordinary right to control their lawn. (Of course, this requires the offender to agree.)
3. Offer to pay your neighbor’s costs of lawn care. If the costs are less than the amount of the “devaluation,” then you will at least have mitigated your losses, might have cost very little, and you may even build neighborly rapport and develop a local reputation as a great guy.
4. Build a wall, fence, row of bushes.
5. Deal with it.
During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose. She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her.
Oh sweet lord, help me… I’d like to bitch-slap each and every officer involved with that struggle.
IMHO,
1) Not having water turned on should not be a crime.
2) Having a brown lawn should not be a crime.
3) If she has committed no crime, she should not have to spend any time whatsoever with any representative of the State or have to give her name.
4) If the woman was disturbed perhaps how she was living should have tipped off anyone who cared for her to act of their own accord. It’s part of the disease of our culture to resort to (perhaps mild) forms of force first.
Would I want a neighbor such as this? No. But what strikes me most is just how blithely force is used, or threat thereof, or just how high profile members of the executive branch are in our lives, whether the gendarmerie or the regulators, from the brown lawn brigade to the spider patrols along the interstates to catch the most vile among us, the “ten mile an hour over the speedlimit” deathmongers.
I guess if we can invade other countries to make sure our collectivist money remains sound, then knocking around the old lady next door, so our property values don’t go down, makes sense too.
And let’s not ignore the line in the original blog entry “In other circumstances, such as water rationing, you get arrested for watering your lawn.” This is nearly “that which isn’t prohibited is mandatory” the libertarian’s worst fear. Shall we have micomanagement of our lawns? Huge television screens telling us when we shall water and when we shall not? How about a whole bureaucratic department making regulations as to what shade of brown or yellow is a misdemeanor? And if it’s a misdemeanor today, is it long before their is felonious lawn mismanagement? Is not using weed and feed to be a crime soon too?
Lastly, this just goes to show what happens if any resistance is offered against the establishment. Just a few generations ago treatment such as this would have brought wrath on our leaders. Today, harassing an old woman is commonplace, and we assume that she must have a mental problem. As long as we default that the government is always right and look at who they persecute in a bad light instead of the other way around we will continue our slide into a complete Statist society.
The movement towards regulating aesthetics by local government falls under the “Quality of Life” justification. Unfortunately, human beings have an innate drive to control other human beings. The greatest threat to liberty & freedom comes not from those who break the law but rather, from those who write the law. To combat these violations of individual rights stronger challenges to authority must be implemented.
Thanks for your answers. Permit me to up the ante. Would your answers be the same if:
1. Your neighbor had so many feral cats, that on hot days there would be an atrocious odor.
2. Your neighbor had a woodpile that was attracting rats.
3. The bank foreclosure had fallen into such disrepair that the toilet was no longer working and the tenants were relieving themselves against the trees.
These are all situations that homeowners I know have encountered.
I live here in Utah, not too far from Provo. Here, such things are regulated very closely. My parents cut down some branches off the tree in there front yard, to make it look nice. A few months later someone came knocking on there door. It was a city official telling my mother that they were to be fined a couple hundred dollars if they did not move the branches in 2 weeks. It turns out, the city hired someone to go around and document anything needing to be fined. I think the city was just looking for a way to make some money.
IMHO,
I think an obnoxious odor invading my property might be an actionable tort.
The others seem to me to be things you have to live with
Brad,
I think you completely misread what I was trying to do, which was to evaluate the situation.
First, I expressed disapproval about the cop’s behavior.
Second, I didn’t say that having a brown lawn should be a crime. My inquiries about property rights was an attempt to better understand libertarian thinking.
Third, please don’t try to turn me into a bad guy for being concerned about the woman’s health. Diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dimentia are not just “mental problems”, but are organically based and are frequently overlooked or simply ignored. And for a person so afflicted who does not have the suppport of either family/friends, a run-in with the state can be disastrous.
You’re equating wild, possibly rabid, animals and pests with brown grass? Perhaps this is the root of the problem?
No Brad, I am not equating rabid animals and pests with brown grass. Jeez! I am simply trying to better understand the parameters of libertarian thinking.
As for Yancy and George, thank you for your helpful responses.
All government law/regulation, no matter how minor or unjust {…shabby lawns ??}, is ultimately enforced by violence.
Usually the mere threat of fines, arrest and prison makes most citizens servile & obedient, but government agents with truncheons & guns will readily attack those who refuse to cooperate with any government edicts… and ultimately kill those who might choose to defend themselves from such violent attacks.
Thus, any law enacted is a fundamental call for violence to address some real or supposed problem.
Most Americans would say that violence is a last-resort for solving any problem — but invoking the tool of legislation & regulation makes it a first-resort.
Law-making should be a sober and rare activity, but apparently no amount of government violence & excess will curb the thirst for ever more laws.
“A question about property rights…
What if the next-door neighbor’s property was so poorly maintained that it caused the devaluation of your property or interfered with your ability to sell your property?”
The error your is that one own’s the value of their property. They don’t. They own the property itself, but not its market value (otherwise we’d end up outlawing competition as well.)
Jeff,
I think you underestimate the totalitarians.
It is possible that you could be arrested for watering your lawn, _and_ arrested for not watering your lawn. No contradiction is too absurd.
Making a lawbreaker of you no matter what you do means you can be ruled absolutely.
For IMHO:
Hrm, peeing in sight is already an offense and always has beed: indecent exposure. No-one has to accept that and if they (ahem) mark your territory, then it’s criminal damage.
Likewise, someone who is collecting cats is not doing themselves and the animals a favour, and given that those cats are feral, they are your cats as well as anyones. Contact the local cat charity and ask if they can help/advise. Most of the do the Trap Neuter and Return routine, which cuts down on smelly spraying toms and caterwauling queens, and most importantly, the kitten supply.
However, it’s very different to the eyesore of a brown lawn — compare this: suppose are queuing behind me in the supermarket and I have a most gross dress with fluorescent flowers that bite your eyeball. Would you demand that I’d arrested and frogmarched out of the store for my ‘brown lawn fashion sense’?
What if someone finds your clothes too boring and demands the same thing?
As for the cop — he is a dangerous idiot to get into a fight with a granny in her own home. If you are a cop, be sure that this guy isn’t your partner…
Please be advised that there is NO such thing as property rights in the US or Canada.
In the US its called eminent domain, you never actually own any property, you just rent from the government .
Stop paying your taxes and see who owns what >?
Same in Canada. property can be expropriated for the common good here, but in the US it can and has been expropriated for commercial interests(GM for one stole homes form polish immigrants in Detroit so they could build another plant)
All this with the wonderful lawful courts approval.
Please be advised that there is NO such thing as property rights in the US or Canada.
In the US its called eminent domain, you never actually own any property, you just rent from the government .
Stop paying your taxes and see who owns what >?
Same in Canada. property can be expropriated for the common good here, but in the US it can and has been expropriated for commercial interests(GM for one stole homes form polish immigrants in Detroit so they could build another plant)
All this with the wonderful lawful courts approval.
Having one’s water turned off for nine months is not a crime. However dumping human waste somewhere around the property is a health hazard. I had a loving old aunt that was schizophrenic. My uncle had always taken care of her but when he died there was no one within miles to oversee her on any regular basis. She turned her water off and began dumping human waste out her back door, when she was not walking three miles to a Dairy Queen to use their facilites.
This woman most likely just needs some help and is too proud to ask. She does not need jail time.
Having the water turned off, especially for someone on fixed income, can save a fair amount of money BECAUSE water (at least in Phoenix) comes “packaged” in an expensive bundle.
My last water base fee was $4.64, with a usage fee (over base) of $2.50. But the whole bundle–sewer, environmental “mandates”, trash and city, state and “other” (not enumerated) taxes came to $43.33. (Cities pretend to tax their own monopolies? Ha! Another big lie!)
The trash pickup is more than 1/2 the total, but I am not allowed discontinue it and to use private pickup which can be had (outside of Phoenix) for less than half what city government charges for their monopoly “service”.
I have been pricing used water tank trailers with the idea of going “off grid” while living in the middle of the city, just to avoid all the other charges.
We have similar laws here, and no complete property rights. I read an interesting book the other day, about land ownership, and it turns out that Her Majesty queen Elizabeth 2, as the embodiment of the Crown, and as titular head of the Commonwealth, technically owns it all, Canada and Australia (and Australia has claimed 2/3 of Antarctica), and all the other countries still connected to the Crown! about a 1/5 of the land area of the world….
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