In 1989-90, I covered an area controversy for the Capital Times about a bunch of farmers and landowners in Dane and Green counties who took exception to the plans of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Houston-based Enron Corporation [now infamous for its iconic lies and fraud].
Enron’s Northern Natural Gas Co. wanted to build a natural gas pipeline through peoples’ private properties but didn’t bother to consult with the people.
The landowners’ reaction was swift and furious.
Enlisting politicians of all stripes from Denise Solie and the late Lyman F. Anderson, to Chuck Chvala, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, the landowners successfully waged a fight to change the route of the pipeline with the legal assistance of attorneys Mike Bauer and Ed Garvey.
The message was clear: Don’t tread on us and get your hands off of our private property. In person, some of the angry landowners were more colorful in their suggestions of where Enron’s pipeline could be sited.
In Dane County, there is an innate sentiment that neither government, nor large corporations nor anyone else should take a heavy hand in intruding on citizens’ privacy; not in their homes and not in their persons.
Such classical liberal sentiments animated the Bill of Rights at this country’s founding.
Twenty years ago, area politicians of all persuasions, at all levels of government were there to back up their fellow citizens should a Northern Natural Gas Co. intrude with a heavy hand
Not so anymore.
Today’s we have Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk telling her fellow citizens that if they wish to drive their cars, they are required to submit to police searches and roadblocks which Falk euphemistically calls “sobriety checkpoints,” not because of anything law-abiding citizens have done but because others have destructive driving records.
And Falk’s heavy hand is backed up by the State Journal and many other politicians and media.
For Falk it’s not enough now that we live a surveillance society seemingly with cameras at every stoplight.
Nope roadblocks are needed now. You say you’re a law-abiding driver, well then you have to prove it at a roadblock, says Kathleen Falk.
At yesterday’s debate, when the topic of Falk’s over-the-top, draconian, roadblocks proposed alcohol abuse initiative came up, Mistele responded with a considered response that personal responsibility and private action were critical.
“The effects of alcohol are a very serious problem, but I also think it's a problem that is a personal responsibility issue," said Mistele who volunteered that her grandfather was a founding member of Alcoholics Anonymous in Wisconsin.
Good for Mistele.
But from the reaction of the pro-Falk crowd you would have thought that Mistele was proposing giving 14-year-olds free bottles of booze and extolling the virtues of Hunter S. Thompson’s driving on the highway.
Falk’s foray into the more-police, more-criminalization, less-liberty and less-privacy politics is good news for the burgeoning substance abuse industry and the authoritarians who self select to work as cops. And it sure as hell makes me think twice about Falk's land use policies.
It’s bad news for those who feel our privacy and liberty are values to be cherished and need not be given up for the offences and sins of others.
- via mal contends
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