Private property

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=110 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Commonwealth Commentary Newsletter"><U><B><IMG SRC="18672320.jpg" border=0 width="114" height="50" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#0066FF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Commonwealth Commentary Newsletter</B></FONT><B>          </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Commonwealth Commentary Newsletter"><U><B> home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="ccn_writer___j__dori_callahan.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="J. Dori Callahan"><U><B>J. Dori Callahan</B></U></A><B>   ·   </B><A HREF="biography_of__william_e__nowers.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="William E. Nowers"><U><B>William E. Nowers</B></U></A><B>   ·   </B><A HREF="biography_of_j__michael_sharman.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="J. Michael Sharman"><U><B>J. Michael Sharman</B></U></A><B>   ·   </B><A HREF="biography_of_michael_h__smith.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michael H. Smith"><U><B>Michael H. Smith</B></U></A><B>   ·   </B><A HREF="biography_of_carolyn_wray.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Carolyn Wray"><U><B>Carolyn Wray</B></U></A></div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="biography_of_michael_h__smith.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michael H. Smith"><U><IMG SRC="131748a0.jpg" border=0 width="116" height="138" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>   <A HREF="biography_of_michael_h__smith.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michael H. Smith"><U><B>Michael H. Smith</B></U></A><B>     </B><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Verdana" ><IMG SRC="14574640.gif" border=0 width="116" height="100" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></FONT></div> <bR> <div> Private property is an essential right</div> <bR> <div> W<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Verdana" >ow!</FONT></div> <bR> <div> I never thought I'd see the day that TV news would cover fairly the issue of a runaway government. The seizing of power of this metastasizing government -- I thought that was the purview of any those "government haters."  You know, the "extra chromosome" types who believe (in spite of government paid "investigations" and show trials, that it is government that is causing most of the problems in the US today.</div> <bR> <div> It is not any government that is bad. Government is good and necessary. But people to gravitate to running other people's lives cannot be trusted with much power. For this reason our Constitution was supposed to limit -- severely -- the power given to the governing class. But clearly somebody needs to hit the "reset" button on government. Control, Alt, Delete -- to reboot the whole system.</div> <bR> <div> Perhaps those farmers, ranchers, and just plain folks who came from all over the rebuild the Garbage River road (is that really it's name?-- my ears aren't as good as they used to be) could be starting an overall movement to get government back inside the Constitution.  I pray it goes quickly -- and peacefully.</div> <bR> <div> For instance, where in the Constitution does it say that all the land </div> <div> belongs to the Government?  We only hold it at their sufferance?  They can take it away any time they want it?  I don't think so!  Now that they have more than a third of all the land in America, it is time to rethink the need for more than seaports and military bases.</div> <bR> <div> Parks are a good thing. Teddy Roosevelt was right to recognize the need to preserve a vanishing "pristine" American landscape. We could perhaps argue with his method. Why, 'frinstance, shouldn't the states own the parks instead of the Federal Government.  Why shouldn't the government have to pay taxes on the land it removes from local tax roles?  Why must we have a third of our land in parks, wouldn't (say) ten percent be enough? And (finally) why should we listen to the new "priests" of the extreme environmental movement -- the new home for Marxism?  People are more important than "nature."  We are the highest part of nature.  Private property is an essential right to a free people.</div> <bR> <div> Shenandoah National Park should be covered next by Fox News.  It was taken from its rightful owners under the most shameful of circumstances, in a kind of "ethnic cleansing" in which elites of the 1920's decided that some folks just shouldn't be allowed to live where their ancestors had settled some two hundred years before.  It should be given back to the survivors -- or they should be properly compensated.  Control should be local and regional -- not federal.  The Park Service has done a lousy job and is even now destroying much of the park by turning it back to a Sierra Club kind of preserve.  At the same time, and in spite of Congress's prohibition upon any further encroachments upon private property, the Park continues to scheme to get even more land than the millions of acres it already has.  And The Shenandoah National Park has been a lousy neighbor to the surrounding six Virginia counties -- preventing access to family graveyards and church sites and prohibiting communication across the mountains to cut off family members.  And now they won't even release research information needed by independent scholars -- except those totally hewing to the Park line. In short, there needs to be a full investigation.  </div> <bR> <div> Contact Children of the Shenandoah, Steve Woodward in Madison, Va., Bill Gimbel in Syria, Va. and they will lead you to other folks whose names I cannot remember. There are still survivors who remember the sight of the Park Service burning down their homes.</div> <bR> <div> Oh, and how do I get the video?</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="biography_of_michael_h__smith.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Michael H. Smith"><U><I>Michael H. Smith</I></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="More from Michael H. Smith"><U>More from Michael H. 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