UPDATE before publishing: Apparently, Judith has responded to Ken and invoking both International Law and the World Court? That’s only by email, but THIS I have to see!
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Our mission here at the ‘Grok is to promote and to protect Individual Freedom, Liberty, and Rights. Period. Sure, we do other things as well, but that is our main focus and raison d’etre. I’ve been focusing on that my last few posts as the Federal mandate of the Sustainable Communities Initiative by the Federal Government (HUD / EPA / DOT) has, all of a sudden, climbed its way up the ladder from the muck in which it was derived. And muck it is, and it has spread.
As Ken Eyring has pointed out, the Granite State Future Plan is being spearheaded by the NH Legislature spawned 10 Regional Planning Commissions with the intent, now funded with Obama money, to override local control here in NH by pushing for new zoning laws (back up with threats of lawsuits). These are a fourth level of Government, creatures totally created by legislative statute that have no connection to the NH Constitution. It is staffed by locally appointed members (for instance, my DPW department head is my town’s representative on the Lakes Region Planning Commission) with some paid staff. They get State funding and also go around grubbing for town taxpayer monies by “billing” on population (e.g., “you have X number of people on town; based on $XX.XX / person, you should give us a total of….”). Starting off as simply a way to “coordinate” transportation usage, they now do all kinds of things (when did road management make them experts in broadband deployment?) that stray far from their original mission (like all good bureaucracies do!).
One of the things the zoning changes are going to do is push for higher density “center of town” living; whether or not it makes sense, these Federal clowns want “livable centers” where you can walk from your home above places of business, walk to work, and walk to work. Need to go somewhere else? IF you take the time, you will find out that you will be “nudged” to use public transportation. Mass transit isn’t even ‘sustainable’ in cities already – how would that work out here in rural NH – Oh yeah, they have a solution for that, too, but that’s for another post.
And it will be done, bit by bit. In a later post, I go through and use some of what the Water Sustainability Commission and others have said, in their own words, to “shape the battlefield“. In the mean time, let’s start with what has already been posted. Even Judith Spang, in her response to Ken, starts with the individual but then immediately goes to the Town level, as if the individual Right never existed:
1. Groundwater Law in NH is based on Common Law, not statutory law. The common law (dating back to English Common Law) says unequivically that a riparian landowner has the right to “reasonable use” of water flowing under or abutting his land. “Reasonable use” is a limitation: you cannot take so much water that you are depriving someone else who has riparian rights to the same groundwater or surface water. Neither you nor a foreign water bottling company who may own the land next to you has the right to take so much water out of your (or their) well that it dries up abuttors’ wells.
2. When the Commission talks about the need for a water policy that respects the inter-municipal nature of water supplies, it is based upon the above legal principle.
And then explicitly denies the Individual their property Rights:
4. Based on the above facts, it is clear what the Commission means when they say water is a shared resource, not something that belongs exclusively to one person accessing it through their own well.
All your water are belong to us! Don’t believe my interpretation? She goes on to say:
you can’t say “it’s my well, so it’s my water” the way you say “it’s my private land”.
Once again, we see a Governmental Official attempting to sever the relationship between the private person and their landed Property Rights and transfer that Right to the governmental level – the local municipality. Does that mean that even though I paid for the digging of the well, the provisioning of the well, and the septic system handling the waste products, as well as the cost for pumping it out (bundled into the price I paid for my home), my local town now owns it?. Does she disagree with Article 2 of the NH Constitution, or is she pulling an Obama? Is she also going to demand, if Ken were to find a valuable mineral deposit under his land “too bad – that belongs to all of us? But thanks for finding it…”.
Does this mean that there has been a taking of my property? Does this mean that Government must pay me fair value for that? And who then determines it? And if I disagree, is my only recourse is to turn to the Government that took it in the first place? And this is being done by a Commission that was appointed by a Governor that, after doing some research, has no regulatory or RSA authority to do so? How is this any different than when the Minutemen revolted against a tyrannical King?
And then the condescending part comes in:
The statements made by the Commission that you find offensive are actually based upon a more realistic concept of where your well water comes from
You poor fool, Ken, we in Government are just so more enlightened than the average ward citizen person; we know what is best for you. Now run along quietly and live your life – WE’LL take care of the complicated bits for you….
