Property rights...who needs them? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Government regulatory agencies, environmentalists, liberal politicians, courts and proponents of the "common good" have worked hard during the past 30 years to make property rights less important if not eliminate them all together where they could. Modern teachings (a.k.a.: Agenda 21) tell us we are in this together and we need to give up our property rights for the common good. They say feeling the pain of others regardless of how extreme their opinions are is a the duty of all citizens. All of this is pure poppy -cock and is the first step on the slippery slope to socialism. Nothing in this kind of thinking goes to support the principles of capitalism and American Constitutional Government. Nor does this support the principles of self reliance, and the virtues of work to take care of yourself and your family or to save rather than borrow. Socialism does not encourage personal self-reliance. Socialism is based on central planning and that means individual rights are pushed to the back.

    Property rights are at he core of several local issues that the press has done a good job of making some members of the public believe they have a vote in deciding the future of these private property. Some of these issues are the Martin Marietta stone mine, the increased sulfur operations at PCS, and the wind mill farm. All of these are financed entirely by private capital, with investors taking the risk, not taxpayers. True there are subsidies and tax advantages for investors in the wind mill farm. I will address that in another paragraph. It is legitimate for people who live in the area of these projects to ask questions and to inquire as to how much risk there may be to their property and living conditions. Among these concerns are air quality as well as surface and ground water impacts. We have laws on the books to protect ourselves in these areas of concern.

    There are very few laws in the United States that allow public officials to ban industries. Those that do are based on purported extremely high risks to public health. Risk to property and public health in the United States is handled by regulations that restrict the hazard to certain areas and require safety appliances and fixtures. The best examples I know of are the use of electricity and automobiles.

    There are no laws that deny the use of wind mills to produce electricity. Almost all laws promote the use of wind power. Denying all use of wind mills use by zoning will not work because we would have to have at least one zone in which wind power is permitted.

    I fully believe the subsidy of wind mill electricity is bad if for no other reason than we are using the police power of the government to take money from those who earned it and give it to others who simply want to make money. It is redistribution of wealth. This subsidy policy raises the cost of electricity for all and mutes the need for invention to produce electricity from the wind at competitive prices. It is a harmful subsidy. However, I as a county commissioner, cannot vote on this Federal law. The proper place to apply pressure to remove the subsidy is to Federal officials. If the entire Board of Commissioners voted not to support the wind farm it could still be built. Commissioners' intervening into commerce and business is bad polity. If we were to stop one business someone will surely want us to stop another next week.

    The issue of public policy is different from property rights. Some have confused public policy with property rights. My opinion is that it is bad policy to subsidize any thing with tax dollars. Elected officials are then picking winners and losers. Ultimately, the market place will decide who the winner is. The market place vote worked well until socialism took hold in the United Sates about 70 years ago.

    Ethanol is an excellent example of the unintended effects from a subsidy. Local hog producers are going out of business because of high corn prices which are driven by corn being used by ethanol producers. Ironically, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than the amount of energy ethanol itself provides. People are starving is some parts of the world because of high corn prices.

    Protecting the environment is a legitimate government function. But it is not the duty of the County Commission. It would be bad if each county tried to regulate the environment in each county. That is a state function and state regulations should apply to all counties the same. Those who are seeking to use county government to do what the state will not do are making a bad mistake.

    If I voted against the wind farm because I don't like the way it is financed or the business model upon which it is based, I would be violating my responsibility to protect private property rights. It is not the County Commission's role to judge how such a project is financed as long as no county funds are being used.

    I try to make my public decisions to favor the constitution and private property rights.