On April 3rd, we attended an evening meeting of over 30 rural landowners, in which a couple of auditors of a land use department in a Western State (King County, WA) were there to collect stories of government abuse, for the purposes of adding to their audit. They got an un-expected ear full. As the two auditors were leaving the meeting, one of them was overheard to say, "I had no idea it was this bad." One might ask how they could be so blind when the rural landowners of this county have been yelling from the roof tops for years, about the egregious injustices that are being foisted on them by an over-bloated, city-run, county council.

In the spirit of surprising civilized behavior, one by one, the landowner's stories came pouring out, sometimes punctuated with a few expletives that weren't deleted, sometimes with passion bordering on wanting to do physical harm to the perpetrators of their extended grief. Words like Gestapo, brown shirts, Nazism, communism and socialism were frequently on the lips of the landowners, as they related their individual experiences with land use code enforcement officers.

But what was entirely overlooked by those attending the meeting and by the auditors themselves, was that this was just a symptom of a much greater evil. An evil that is being perpetrated on an American minority, with little or no representation in the government process. An evil that is foisted on this minority by the tyranny of a majority (city folk) who have bought into the "green" lie that the environment must be protected, no matter how much it costs, or how many individual and property rights that the minority has to give up to implement what can be generously called, a draconian government policy. An evil that has all the characteristics of mass hysteria. An evil that totally ignores the rights protected by the 5th Amendment to our cherished Constitution, the absolute requirement by government to provide "due process" and "just compensation" when "TAKING" private property. An evil that violates another section of our constitution, the "equal protection clause". The rural minority is being asked to bear almost the entire burden of environmental protection, for the benefit of the constitutionally ignorant and naive urban dwellers, who have been duped into thinking they have the right to usurp the rights of their rural brethren.

But all this grief being dumped on rural landowners is coming from the top down. It comes out of a spineless U. S. Congress that daily violates their oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It comes from Europe and the United Nations with their fully expressed goal to take the land away from private citizens in America. It is written in UN documents that: "Private land ownership is a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice.... Public control of land use is therefore indispensable...."

America is a member of the United Nations and has ratified many of their social and environmental goals by executive order and Congressional legislation. Even one of the U. S. Supreme Court justices (Ginsberg) believes that we must look at European principles, when adjudicating American law or legislation.

This injustice, this evil cause of our local symptoms, is further extended into state and then local governments, as it filters down from the President (Executive Orders) and the Congress that pass "green" legislation that fully violate the constitution, if not risking our very sovereignty.

But let's be frank here. Let's say what many think, but don't have the courage to say. Had federal, state or local governments done what they are now doing to the rural minority 100 years ago, the guns would have come out and some government officials would be either shot, hung, or tarred and feathered and lost in the woods somewhere. As a matter of fact, such things did happen 100 years ago, when rural landowners wouldn't bow down to anyone, but especially they wouldn't bow down to government officials, politicians and bureaucrats alike, who would trespass on their rights, or their land.

In spite of this fact, we still abhor violence and do not condone it, knowing full well that it just leads to more violence. We can win without violence, but we will only win when enough people decide that freedom is more important than their assets. With government holding all the political power, all the money (our money that they use against us) and an enforcement arm (police) that will take on the people, but shield the politicians and the bureaucrats from the people, our task is formidable. That is why you see armed and uniformed police officers at almost every public meeting these days, in every small and large corner of America, to protect the politicians from the anger of the people. They fear us, but they don't fear us enough.

Unfortunately, today, the fight has gone out of the people. They want to be civilized, they want to be nice and avoid a fight. After all, if they fought they might endanger some of their creature comforts. So the job is left to the few of us who have the courage to stick our heads up above the noise level and call an injustice what it is, an injustice. Being nice, just enables government to do more against us.

But the hard truth is, that if those of us who are fighting, are left to our own resources to take on the almighty government, we will eventually be crushed. If they could crush us now, they would, but so far we still have the right of free speech and we can still call a spade a spade. But if government can take away one right, which they have, they certainly have the power to take away our other rights. If left alone, where the people do not hold government to its constitutional limits, the rest of our constitutional rights are headed for the garbage dump.

But then hey, it's your freedom to preserve, protect and defend, or not. What you do, or don't do, will have lasting affect on your children and grandchildren. We can certainly understand your desire to be civilized and be nice, so as not to put at risk your hard-won creature comforts. Just so long as you have your car, your boat, your home and your job, don't make waves. Let the other guy take the heat, why should you? Why indeed!

Sure we could use your help, but from past experience, we know that we, like so many of us who really care about America, are mostly left to fight Goliath on our own. But now, government has taken away our sling shots and our rocks. We are left to fight with pennies. Hardly a recipe for winning a war and make no mistake, it is a war.

Ron Ewart, President

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS

P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027

425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848

(Fax No. 425 222-4743)

Website: www.narlo.org