Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 12, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 12, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 3
I played "A Mountaineers is Always Free" by PIERCE PETTIS. It talks about the immigrants who came to America in about 1730. There was this guy named James Oglethorpe who got this idea that having people in debtors prisons was a bad idea. He started Savannah, Georgia, in 1733 and brought many from the debtors prisons of England to his colony. Oglethorpe did a good deed, but he also was there to make a profit. He sold all the tools and seeds and other stuff to the colonists, then bought the agricultural products from them for export. The song talks of a man who wouldn't put up with that. He went off to the mountains and started his own homestead and raised stuff for himself and his family. The singer has his guy pull the tree stumps up with his hands. That takes some doing, I'm here to tell you.
The song kind of captures the American dream of owning your own land and being free from interference from a central control. In my grandfather's time the saying went, "It ain't much, but it's mine." I sometimes worry that we have lost that belief.
At this moment in time, we have a big discussion on property rights. The Supreme Court really screwed up lately by saying that a community can condemn a piece of land and sell it to a third party that promises to bring in more tax revenues. When land is condemned, the courts force the owners to sell it to the government. Then the government can turn around and sell the land to someone else like a large corporation. This sets the precedent that you own your land until someone else can prove to the community that they will use it better.
If you cannot keep control of your land, then where does it stop?
Another interesting problem is the use of the Endangered Species Act to dictate the use of a piece of land. You as a land owner buy the land to build on. A tiny critter is found on the land and you lose the ability to build. Great. Shouldn't the government buy the land for public use? Nope. It's as if the land were rezoned. Yet the rezoning requires a private citizen to bear all the costs of saving the environment, a public good. Why is that correct behavior?
You know... the only question I have about the phrase, "I took a Cherokee wife." I'm not sure the Cherokee had immigrated south to Georgia in 1733.
I played "A Mountaineers is Always Free" by PIERCE PETTIS. It talks about the immigrants who came to America in about 1730. There was this guy named James Oglethorpe who got this idea that having people in debtors prisons was a bad idea. He started Savannah, Georgia, in 1733 and brought many from the debtors prisons of England to his colony. Oglethorpe did a good deed, but he also was there to make a profit. He sold all the tools and seeds and other stuff to the colonists, then bought the agricultural products from them for export. The song talks of a man who wouldn't put up with that. He went off to the mountains and started his own homestead and raised stuff for himself and his family. The singer has his guy pull the tree stumps up with his hands. That takes some doing, I'm here to tell you.
The song kind of captures the American dream of owning your own land and being free from interference from a central control. In my grandfather's time the saying went, "It ain't much, but it's mine." I sometimes worry that we have lost that belief.
At this moment in time, we have a big discussion on property rights. The Supreme Court really screwed up lately by saying that a community can condemn a piece of land and sell it to a third party that promises to bring in more tax revenues. When land is condemned, the courts force the owners to sell it to the government. Then the government can turn around and sell the land to someone else like a large corporation. This sets the precedent that you own your land until someone else can prove to the community that they will use it better.
If you cannot keep control of your land, then where does it stop?
Another interesting problem is the use of the Endangered Species Act to dictate the use of a piece of land. You as a land owner buy the land to build on. A tiny critter is found on the land and you lose the ability to build. Great. Shouldn't the government buy the land for public use? Nope. It's as if the land were rezoned. Yet the rezoning requires a private citizen to bear all the costs of saving the environment, a public good. Why is that correct behavior?
You know... the only question I have about the phrase, "I took a Cherokee wife." I'm not sure the Cherokee had immigrated south to Georgia in 1733.
posted by aRandomTexan at
8:42 AM
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