And what is the result of their promotion? A huge segment of our population have lost their pride, their dignity, their honor and their self-confidence to control their own lives. We have allowed our government, in any form, to heap heavier and heavier regulations upon us. We have done nothing while our government increased our taxes to a point that far surpasses the motivation behind the Boston Tea Party. In fact, at the time the Tea Party took place, it would have turned into open revolution had those same people been inflicted with the taxes we pay today. By our abdication to be responsible for our own lives we have given the power over to the government and they have seized upon that power with a vengeance. To fund this power, they designed social engineering and started collecting the money for it through the IRS. We all just sat back and turned our heads.

Then came radical environmentalism. Environmentalism started out with the laudable goal of cleaning up industrial pollution from our lands and waterways. Soon thereafter, U. S. environmentalists teamed up with radical international environmentalists at three major conferences sponsored by the United Nations in Sweden, Brazil and more recently, South Africa. The attendees to these conferences came away with environmental and social agendas that attempt to merge the U. S. into the One-World scenario, rendering portions of our Constitution irrelevant and our very sovereignty at risk. From these conferences came the environmental buzz words SMART GROWTH, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, WILDLIFE CORRIDORS, BIOSPHERES, URBAN SPRAWL, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE and much more. These radicals went way beyond the goal of industrial clean up, to land domination by limitation, restriction and outright confiscation. Their rationale was that humans are a stain on the face of the planet and that forests, seas, mountains, animals, insects, plants and trees have more rights and granted a higher priority than people. Their weapons against us (now listen to this) are the Endangered Species Act, The Salmon Recovery Act, The Clean Restoration Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, The Fisheries Management and Conservation Act, the Winters Doctrine, the Public Trust Doctrine, the Wildlands Project, the Boldt decision, the United Nations Agenda 21 doctrine, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Marine Fisheries Division and in the State of Washington, The Growth Management Act, the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, the Department of Ecology, Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Forest Practices Act, the Water Pollution Control Act, the Shore land Protection Act, the Columbia Gorge Commission and now CAO's. These are just a few of the laws that negatively affect private property owners. How many property owners are familiar with any of these acts and what they mean and who has the power to enforce them, much less knowing what the penalties are for violations? And no one knows what the cost is, but it is easily in the trillions of dollars of lost revenue and lost freedom.

Environmentalists have become so successful and powerful they have infiltrated every level of government, all the while pushing ever-more radical agendas. As I have said many times, in a few short years, the environmentalists wiped out almost the entire logging industry in the Pacific Northwest based on the spotted owl that turned out to be endangered for natural reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with logging or loss of habitat.

If you own 160 acres, or less, in Oregon, you cannot get a building permit to build a house on your agricultural zoned land, unless you can prove to the Government that you are making over $80,000 per year in agricultural revenues from that land. Why the landowners in Oregon did not resist or protest against this “taking” of their rights, I’ll never know. This is only one hundreds, if not thousands, of the “takings” of rights in Oregon. The environmental extremists have literally taken over in Oregon and govern all land use decisions. And guess what? In most cases, the Federal Government funds their extremist agenda and activities. But then along came a giant backlash under the guise of Oregon's Ballot Measure 37 and things began to change. Washington is next.

Near Klamath Falls environmentalists had stopped the removal of water from a lake to protect some kind of sucker fish, to the detriment of the local farmers who could not obtain sufficient water for their crops. Conservancy groups were buying up the farmer’s land at fire-sale prices, in that agricultural land without water is just shy of worthless. Thus was born the Klamath Falls Basin Organization to resist this travesty. These are just a few egregious examples of what government, driven by extremist policies, is doing to our freedoms and our property rights and we now live under the tightening "yoke" of radical environmentalism.

We don’t own our land anymore as the founding fathers envisioned the ownership of land. We only have the right of occupancy and the requirement to pay onerous taxes, which rise every year. I attended a public meeting a while back wherein a King County council member (Cynthia Sullivan), in response to a question from the audience, told a property owner that his rights were limited to the quiet possession of his land and to pay taxes on that land. Of course Ms. Sullivan was implying that any and all other rights belonged to the “state”.

Even though the government requirement to maintain wetlands or habitat buffers are for environmental reasons and are clearly for the benefit of the public and the Constitution requires compensation to the landowner for the “taking” of lands for public use, cities, counties, states and the U. S. Government continue to regulate wetlands and buffers on private land as untouchable, thereby depriving the landowner the use of his land without compensation for the loss of that use.

In spite of all this, I still passionately love America. I love its unique geography, sea to the Mountains, to the shining sea again. I love its small towns and rolling farm lands that are inhabited by gracious, productive and generous people. I love its magnificent mountains and the vast grass plains. I love its rivers and picturesque shore lines, where land meets ocean. I love its varying and diverse cultures. I love how generous, we as a Nation, are. But mostly what I love are the guiding principles under which it was formed. I have a deep and abiding respect and awe for our Founding Fathers that crafted our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence under extreme circumstances. I love that these guiding principles are what stand in the way of and shield us from socialism, communism, Marxism, a dictatorship, or a reigning monarchy, if we don't give up those rights by apathy and inaction.

The basic and supreme premise behind the Constitution was that individuals were to hold the rights, not the Government and that all political power is inherent in the people and governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. The framers, in creating the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had in their minds a method by which all peoples could save, protect and defend the rights of the individual. They called these individual rights, inalienable as endowed by their creator. All of these rights were bestowed upon and applied directly “to” the individual, not “from” the government. It was the government’s responsibility, liability and obligation to defend and protect these individual rights by each officer swearing on oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The fact is, the government has failed in their duty to protect our rights and more egregiously, we have let them and abdicated our claim to those rights.

It is my firm desire that this great good that exists in all of us, will be catalyzed in the will and the resolve to return this great land of ours to a Constitutional Republic and the rights, benefits and obligations of its citizens, bestowed upon us by our Constitution, will be restored to the vision of our Founding Fathers. Rest assured. My passion and my rhetoric are guided by principle and a love of this Country and not by unbridled, irrational ranker. And should there be no doubt, I will continue to emit regular and persistent harsh, acrimonious, abrasive, (sometimes satirical) and biting rhetoric about my observations of the operation of government in general and some politicians and government employees in particular as well as the radical environmental community, as it suits my fancy. On our website at www.theruralmajority.org, Preston Drew and I have set down 18 principles that are directly aligned with our Constitution. They are simple and basic. It is our goal to bring alive and restore these principles to the people of the United States, one way or another, starting with property rights. I ask that you please join Preston and I in this quest, under the banner of THE RURAL MAJORITY.