Column for April 15, 2010

One can not scream "Iceberg, dead ahead!" loudly or often enough. Not only is April 15th a day we dread as income tax deadline day, the passengers on the Titanic sure wish they had heard the words shouted earlier on the night of April 14th. In the wee hours of the 15th, the "unsinkable" Titanic made its way to the bottom of the sea.

Here in America, I have been shouting "Iceberg!" for years. I have done it on the internet, on radio, in this column, and in conversation. The iceberg population has grown significantly. More and more icebergs lately bear the sign "property rights abridgment". Whether at the local or national level, I yell the iceberg warning when I can.

I posed this question on my facebook.com page a few days ago. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:17 "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And what about where there is no liberty or liberty is diminished?

This morning I was doing my regular news hound thing and ran across a few articles about new attacks on property rights. Liberty is being attacked yet again under the guise of environmental concerns.

Just in case you have not caught on to the scheme, socialists, so called progressives, and control freaks that love governmental control over the citizenry have flocked to the environmentalist movement. Under the guise of protecting our allegedly fragile environment, we often get punitive, liberty killing, and costly regulation.

I believe in being a good steward of our planet. I believe God gave man dominion over it and therefore we should not totally disregard protecting it. However, in His infinite wisdom, God also gave unto us the entire earth for our use. There is a balance betwixt the two concepts and I believe the balance is to bend further towards the latter rather than the former.

The latest abridgment comes in the form of "cap and trade" legislation. This is a boondoggle of a concept and it is based upon false science. It was major news recently that the data upon which the climate change believers relied was falsified, yet this did not stop Al Gore from giving speeches defending his fallacy. Nor has this truth stopped cap and trade legislation.

The insidious part of the legislation about which I comment is that it contains provisions that require you to submit to a warrantless search of your real property, should you choose to sell it. This is another method of government control to be able to condemn personal property or fixtures that will be out of compliance with guidelines set up by an un-elected bureaucrat such as the Secretary of Energy. This would effectively make a Cabinet member one of the most powerful men in America, probably second behind the President himself.

Can you imagine an inspector coming to your house that has just been listed for sale and told that you have to comply with a long list of energy expensive, efficiency improvements that some pencil pushing pinhead in Washington, D.C. regulates by mere decree? That is a lot of authority to grant someone and a whole lot of liberty that is being taken away from property owners.

My home was built in 1950. I know that there are appliances, fixtures, windows, and insulation that could probably be replaced with more efficient ones. Little bit by bit, I have been upgrading my home as I am able to afford to do so. However, should I choose to sell it, I should not be required by some desk jockey in big government to make changes to the house before I can even think about selling it. If someone wants to buy my modest little home as is, that is their business and my business alone.

Should this legislation be passed, we will have Energy Department inspectors requiring new appliances, water heaters, etc. all over the nation. Of course we have to bankroll these inspectors and their efforts. Basically we will pay people to take away our freedoms. The legislation has already passed the House of Representatives and is likely to be rammed through the Senate this year.

This is why we need to throw people like Congressman Bob Etheridge out of office and restore sanity to our government. Keep this in mind when voting in the upcoming primary and in the November election.