ALLIANCE
FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS
ALLIANCE
FOR CITIZENS RIGHTS
PRIVATE PROPERTY!
by Ray Simmons
In Birmingham and surrounding areas we are seeing many communities signing on to so-called "Comprehensive Plans" that will control how the communities develop in the coming months and years. These plans are not exclusive with our area, not even with our state. The fact is they are being developed in local communities all across the nation and they are all growing from seeds out of the same pod. In most instances that pod is not identified nor its origin even acknowledged.* The "professional planners" who are called in to help local communities develop their plans might well be clones, for their plans all follow essentially the same pattern.
I have a friend who has been following this trend for some time and his research reveals a number of things. The plans, in addition to other things, all:
- call for the establishment of a planning board or commission composed of non-elected appointees who will be ceded the authority to draft rules and regulations governing future development in the area, thus removing the people’s ballot control over decisions made.
- call for major consideration of environmental concerns as interpreted by the board or the commission.
- place such concerns as pollution control, traffic patterns, unit size of buildings (including homes), etc. under the board’s/commission’s authority.
- emphasize the "sustainable" quality of all future development proposals.
While these plans all sound good and come with financial incentives that appeal to local elected officials, they are essentially a means of taking control of future development not only out of the hands of individual property owners but out of the hands of elected officials as well.
We all understand that when we live in communities with other people we may have to give up some of the privileges that come with private property ownership, but we should never have to give up our ability to participate in the decisions made about what will be given up. And control of those decisions should never be given to the unelected... who then become unaccountable to the citizenry.
A review of history shows that the concept of private property ownership originated with God. He promised certain land to Abraham and his descendants, from which we get the term "promised land." His laws even provided for the return of land lost through poor management every fiftieth year or the year of "Jubilee." (Lev. 25:10-34; 27:16-24)
It is this personal use of private property that gave our nation the ability to grow and prosper and to become the envy of the world. It made possible the growth of a middle class citizenry by giving them the right to retain the fruits of their labors.
Now we are seeing implementation of the socialist concept that all property should be controlled by the state for the benefit of the masses. When this happens, however, it is not the masses who benefit, it is the elite who do the controlling. Whenever we see man trying to put his system in place in preference to the one God has outlined, we can be sure things will take a turn for the worse. This seems to be a lesson we never learn.
*The United Nations Agenda 21 that grew out of the RIO Conference (1992) is the seed pod from which these things flow. Local communities are involved in implementing "Local Agenda 21" (LA21) but they are calling it by other names. J. Gary Lawrence, one of the key thinkers on sustainable development and an advisor to the US President's Council on Sustainable Development, said in a meeting in London in 1998:
"In the case of the U.S., our local authorities are engaged in planning processes consistent with LA21 but there is little interest in using the LA21 brand. Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy-fixated groups and individuals in our society such as the National Rifle Association, citizen militias and some members of Congress. This segment of our society who fear one-world government and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined the conspiracy by undertaking LA21. So, we call our processes something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth." (underlining added)(http://www.unedforum.org/publications/millennium/mill%20paper2.pdf)
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