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By Steve Huntsman
Never before in the history of man have a people been so free, so prosperous and, yes, even so blessed by the hand of providence as we are in America today. We have the ability to freely communicate over the internet, via cell phone or computer with almost anyone. We have transportation choices beyond imagination from ultra light bicycles to space shuttles. We can own our homes and businesses and even vote in elections.
I feel grateful to be part of such a free and blessed people. I comprehend it is because we have a national Constitution in America, inspired in its conception by a free people under God which has promoted these blessings.
After the signing of the Constitution, as the delegates were filing from Independence Hall in 1787, an anxious woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well Doctor, what have we got ¾ a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic,” said Franklin, “if you can keep it.”
If you can keep it! What wise words from the sage of Philadelphia. This, then, I comprehend is our mission, to keep the republic or to keep the (democratic) republic free from corrupt laws and protecting the house of order established by our wise founders.
We need to begin a conscious habit of jealously guarding our rights and liberties if we are to preserve these freedoms.
The method used in America today to defend our freedom is to establish laws with a sound moral basis, which allow for the common good of the people to be maintained. I ascertain that common good in a society can be accomplished in two ways.
One method is to pass laws which protect individual rights and allows for free enterprise.
A second method is to pass laws which impose or force the common good. This means giving a leader broad discretion on a case-by-case basis to decide what is best for the common good of someone beside himself. I hope the reader will decide to choose the first reactive method rather than the second proactive method as these two are indeed opposites.
Let us scrutinize an example of each.
Many years ago our judicious legislators empowered state and local municipalities with the ability to pass regulation to prohibit individuals from stealing life and property from one another. Now both killing and thieving in Utah are considered to be punishable crimes. Law enforcers, as well as private citizens, are authorized to not only stop a crime but also to use lethal force in some cases to prevent the theft of another’s life or property. Thus the robbery laws follow the outline of being a sound constitutional code based upon a moral principle. These laws reactively promote our welfare by empowering the judicial system (and the people) to the maintaining of the common good. Law breakers are punished reactively for thievery. Thus the popular phrase: Do the crime, Do the time, but not vise versa.
Let us now look at a proactive law.
Remember a proactive law can give discretion to one to promote the common good for another where no crime has been committed. That might be the case with a new law revised in the 2005 legislative session (SB60, U.C.A. 10-9a-102). A close reading of this law allows city planners to dictate at will the, “height and location of vegetation, trees and landscaping … to protect the tax base and (to) secure the economy … and (to) provide for the health, safety, and welfare … of the municipality.”
Trying to plant a tree in your yard without a permit could be considered a class B misdemeanor if it is not the right size and exactly in the spot where the planner told you to plant it. Or vise versa, that is you could be fined for not planting a certain tree which you were told to plant. This is a proactive law, which imposes the promotion of good before any crime is committed.
What is wrong with this? Nothing, except this is what our founding fathers fought a revolutionary war over. That being arbitrary government.
When any official using the basis of law is allowed such broad discretion by applying their own personal judgments on a case-by-case basis with such non-formal guidelines as listed above, then that law is arbitrary and capricious and is of no moral value, and as such, unworthy of a society’s respect. Law cannot randomly harm one to promote the good of another.
Are we not all equals? Have we not all been endowed by our Creator with the ability to think, to plan ahead and to act on our own? Or have our legislators been blessed from above with the ability to decide what location, diameter and height of any tree, shrub or flower arrangement is best in our yard before we plant it?
Shall we not all be mortal enemies of arbitrary government as were our fathers and oppose any seeds of tyranny? Or have we let professional planning lobbyists and activists corrupt our legislator’s tables to now proactively force one’s idea of good upon another before any crime is committed? We do this when we promote a city planner above the property ownership of another man with a non-legitimate purpose.
Let us begin today to follow the prudent maxim, “Would you live with ease, do what you ought and not what you please.” While we still can lawfully, let us stand tall and do what we ought and oppose this baseless law. As Orwell’s “Animal Farm” fable now has freshing meaning — “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
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Via: Weber Sentinel News, by express invitation and permission of the author and publisher, for which courtesy we thank them.
Illustration by Stephanie Cole
Well...? Have any of our gentle readers ever tried to run a project by Ogden City's Stalinesque Aparatchik Central Planning apparatus without being "dinged" for badly-drawn trees on a site map?
Tell us your planning approval horror stories, gentle readers, please... oh pretty please.
