4.05.2006

And Another Thing: Protecting Your Rights

Some people wonder why I get so upset/paranoid about even the slightest encroachment on my rights. Only recently have I come up with a pertinent analogy.

In the township in which I used to live, old farmland is suddenly worth a lot of money as the surrounding areas explode with new population. Many farms are selling to land developers who are putting in half-a-million-plus homes. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart bought a big piece of land and announced the desire to build a superstore there. For a myriad of reasons, many citizens were incensed. They didn't want a Wal-Mart there, within walking distance of their expensive houses. They didn't want to have to look at the ass-end of it as they drove out of their subdivisions. They didn't want the traffic or the traffic problems. And so on, and so on.

Council hearings were held, plans were drawn and re-drawn, meetings were postponed and rescheduled, but eventually it became clear that, no matter what, that Wal-Mart was already a done deal. It was going to be built, regardless of what efforts the citizenry could muster.

The reason they couldn't stand against the Wal-Mart is because by the time they understood the threat to their expectations of their way of life, the structure of the laws had already been laid down. Wal-Mart wasn't doing anything wrong. Oh, sure, they might have put in too few trees or not quite enough greensward, but that was easily negotiated and updated. The groundwork for the Wal-Mart had already been laid down, at previous meetings, with previous councilmembers, during boring sessions about zoning updates and various other bureaucratic miscellany.

So, when I get incensed about the holding of Jose Padilla without trial or even charges, or with the random, unwarranted wiretapping, or the ability for the government to check out my library lending list, that's why. Not because any of those things actually affect me, but because I want to make sure that, by the time something does come around that affects me, the road hasn't already been paved for its inevitability.

Does that make sense?

posted by risser at 11:51

Nobody has anything to say.