Your editorial on bringing democracy to Iraq was one of the finest pieces of writing and analysis I’ve seen in a newspaper. What would it take to bring democracy to our own state government? I guess that’s where we go next.
“No citizen is safe when the legislature is in session” was a popular saying in the days of our early forefathers. It is well worth reflecting on today when once again another land taking is in the making in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. This one aims to take beach property back, one property at a time, to restore it to how it was 200 years ago. Get rid of all those properties and the sand problem will be solved. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it.
The founding fathers constructed this republic to rest on the shoulders of the voting citizen. And the federal and state governments were to be elected by and serve that local citizen. Furthermore, the Constitution guaranteed the protection of property rights of local citizens to be sacrosanct against invasion by government power grabs. This was a favorite trick of European governments from which our forefathers had fled.
The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld these rights as being central to our democracy unless there is an overwhelming danger in which the whole common good is threatened. That has been the mantra of the more radical environmental groups supported by the dime-a-dozen “pop” scientists who boast a Ph.D. but not much else. These “pop” scientists claim that the flow of sand on beaches is impeded by man-made structures. Therefore the solution to diminishing sand on the beaches is to prohibit such structures built since 1976. Oh, would that the science of the ocean were so simple and would that “pop” scientists were not.
This power grab of AB947 is based on poor, unfounded science, undemocratic theory that the legislature is more competent to care for the land than the local citizens who occupy it, and most scary of all, that if there is a problem, the legislature just recommends and passes a law without ever consulting the local. That is ivory tower management of the worst sort.
We local citizens have had to fight power grabs under false names for all the years of our freedom. And this one threatens to be yet another one.
Georgianna McBurney