Resolve to Learn More About Your Rights in 2003

 

By Joyce Morrison (jmorrison@illinoisleader.com)
The Illinois Leader


Tuesday, December 31, 2002


OPINION -- How about making the study of "property rights" a New Year’s Resolution this year? Beware -- it will be like taking the lid off Pandora’s Box. Once you really get into it, you will wonder why you didn’t see what was happening all around you before.


If our legislators understood property rights, decision making on legislation would be a very simple process and they would know what destruction lay balanced on their votes such as "smart growth."


". . . [I]t is better to try to understand our fate, regardless of its awful implications, so we can direct our energies into useful rather than useless causes; and above all, it helps us distinguish between good and bad, and right and wrong," said Dr. Philip Atkinson September, 2000 - www.ourcivilization.com.


Dr. Atkinson points out there has been a move to divide our rights. On one side is "human rights" and the other is "property rights." This distinction has been accompanied by the claim that "human rights" are superior to "property rights." If you do not understand property rights, you will never be fully effective working with human rights as "property rights are basic to all rights."


Property rights researchers spend their time reading the fine print in U.N. documents and in U.S. government bureau and agency reports. In pursuit of "Global Governance," U.S. agencies are actually implementing U.N. treaties (signed and unsigned) that effect every part of our lives.


Very clever programs are launched to deceive even the most discerning. If they did not sound so attractive, we would not accept them. Isn't that the way the old devil works? Incentives (grants) are used to "save" the earth . . . but does the earth really need to be saved from you?


It is essential to know how to discern legitimate needs or a "takeover" of property. Whenever you are trying to decide, ask yourself - is it constitutional? Secondly - how does this effect the sovereignty of the United States?

1. Individual ownership of property is constitutional.
2. Government owning or controlling massive acres of property is not constitutional (Constitution says government can own property "for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dock Yards, and other needful Buildings."

Private property ownership could be explained as "I work for it - I pay for it - I pay the taxes - and it is mine . . . so I want to take care of it."


Government ownership or control of property can be called socialism or "for the good of all." I still work for it. I still help pay for it - I pay higher taxes because of it, everyone else gets to use it . . . and no one is really concerned about taking care of it.


An illustration would be - you are a straight A student and study hard to achieve. I am an F student because I am not concerned about working for a better grade. Why should I? I get to share your A anyway - we both soon lose our incentive to achieve.


This is what is happening to property. People who have worked hard for ownership are finding the government is taking the land or restricting the owner’s use by regulated controls. Stakeholders with no vested interest make decisions about the use of private property by using the endangered species act, viewsheds, conservation programs, watersheds, wetlands, and many other property invasive measures.


Far more tax dollars are allocated for the government's acquisition of land than for the maintenance.


You will find words being used in a whole new context with the use of global terms. Delphi technique (consensus), stakeholders, buffers, corridors, benchmark, smart growth, ecospheres, biospheres, communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the list goes in the "new vocabulary."

Do a self-test to see how much you really know about each of these words.

What is really interesting is that our national parks all over the U.S. were established for the public to use for recreation and enjoyment and in recent years, they are being closed to the public because "YOU" are destroying the eco-sphere.


There have been recent trail closings in the Shawnee Forest in southern Illinois. This National Forest was originally intended for public use, but now the trails are closed. If we are not permitted to responsibly "use government property," then we need to ask who is the government and who are they saving the parks for?


Well-funded environmental organizations are major stakeholders in land-use controls. Partnering with government agencies, you will find them lurking behind almost every move against private property.


Are we a free nation or are we a socialist nation? This is actually up to us and the decisions we make as we participate on committees and boards and in the representatives we elect. We may think we are well informed - but are we? Could we be contributing to the selling out of America by our uninformed consensus decisions?


Coming up to where we are today started many years ago. In fact, for a great "Timeline to Global Government" beginning in 1891 to 2002, go to www.sovereignty.net.


An attack on land use was fully unleashed in 1992 following the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro under the Clinton/Gore administration. See Agenda 21 .


Sustainable Development through the United Nations Agenda 21 was born in the U.S. in 1992. At the same time Al Gore wrote "Earth in the Balance" and behind his book, was an agenda. Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 came on the scene at about this same time. Watch for the 1992 time frame in your research.


We now have Al Gore’s Clean Water Initiative as well as his "Livability Agenda". Clinton was known for his "Lands Legacy." These programs are still progressing in one form or another.


If you dare mention the U.N., immediately you are labeled "radical." Isn’t that interesting? All anyone has to do is go to the U.N.’s websites and find the information. It is readily available, so what are they trying to cover when they slap a "demeaning" label on you for repeating their information?


For a start, check out the following websites: Agenda 21; U.N., UNESCO; Commission on Global Governance


Former President Clinton initiated "The President’s Council on Sustainable Development" following the 1992 Earth Summit meeting.


There are many books published through the Government Printing Office on the findings of this Council. The money and programs were put into place and they are moving ahead at a lightning speed - without Clinton and Gore in office.


Control comes in as Smart Growth, soil and water conservation programs, the farm bill, ecosystems, biospheres, through non governmental organizations such as The American Planning Assn. and environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club.

Every phase of our life is touched in some way and we still do not recognize what is happening.


The Sustainable Development "Agenda for Action" is the design for educating the public. All the way from the "School to Work" program to TV cartoons such as "Captain Planet" and "The Mighty Morphin Rangers" are programs designed to take the minds of your children.


Are you informed enough to protect your children from being indoctrinated with propaganda?


These excellent, well researched websites will be a great help as you get started on your New Year’s resolution: www.freedom.org (Henry Lamb); www.discerningtoday.org (Why Property Rights Matter -- Dr. Michael Coffman); www.propertyrightsresearch.org (Julie Smithson); www.americanpolicy.org (Tom DeWeese).

Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable; It is a positive good in the world: that some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another. But let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
-A. Lincoln
March 21, 1864


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Joyce Morrison
Joyce Morrison lives in Jersey County, Illinois. She is a chapter leader for Concerned Women for America and she and her husband, Gary, represent the local Citizens for Private Property Rights. Joyce is Secretary to the Board of Directors of Rural Restoration/ADOPT Mission, a national farm ministry located in Sikeston, MO. The group's SOWER Magazine features Joyce's writing. Joyce is an activist and serves as a member of the agricultural advisory board of U.S. Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL).

 

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