It is interesting to follow the developments of the newly liberated Iraq and to compare the activities there to those happening at home. The Iraqi Governing Council is tasked with the job of creating a Constitution and as Jay Leno has said, "maybe we should send them ours since we’re not using it." After all, how can we as Americans guide others when we allow our own government to infringe on our own basic rights here at home?
For example, is it proper for a parks commission employee with a gun to "coerce" private homeowners out of their own backyards while chainsaws are used to cut down their wooden decks?
That sounds like an extreme case of an overactive imagination, but this precise intimidation is taking place in Erie County, Ohio.
For more than 11 years, over 30 families have fought to keep what is rightfully theirs — their backyards. Their case is steeped in controversy and court action.
Unlike a host of other cases infuriating property rights advocates, the local government here did not even attempt to use eminent domain to seize the properties. The Erie Metroparks board simply drove right in with bulldozers and chainsaws (and guns) and sliced backyard decks and electrical wires.
How does Erie Metroparks justify its taking of the land? Through a complex set of land deed transfers that the parks board erroneously claims establishes its ownership. However, this is not the case. The land in question, along the Huron River, was sought by the Erie Metroparks board to build a scenic bike trail. Erie Metroparks attempted to purchase the land from a railroad company which leased it from a previous company that no longer exists.
However, it wasn’t the railroad company’s land to sell. A provision in the lease stipulates that if the railroad company stops using the land as a railroad, the land ownership reverts back to the original landowners. Moreover, some of the land in question wasn’t even subject to the railroad’s lease! In short, the land deeds establish that the current property owners (the homeowners) are in fact the rightful owners.
What has ensued is an immense amount of frustration on the part of the homeowners and nothing but pure arrogance and disregard for fundamental rights of private property owners by this Erie County government entity.
The courts have already indicated that the land belongs to the homeowners and that the transfer made between the parks board and the railroad company is void. However, that decision has not been enforced and has actually been blatantly twisted by an Erie County prosecutor who allowed the trail project to go forward.
Nearly $1 million in public money has been used by the Erie Metropark board during its attempt to seize the private property. The affected families have spent plenty of money of their own in legal challenges.
The 30 plus families, also known as the Citizens for the Protection of Property Rights, are now headed to court again. This time, a federal judge will be asked to finally put an end to the misery of these families and re-establish their right to the property.
The right to private property ownership is a basic fundamental freedom on which our democracy is perilously perched. Without ownership, we have nothing. How can we preach the fundamentals of democracy to the people of Iraq when we can’t even understand it within our own borders?