Posted on 11/25/2007 6:31:07 PM PST by joanie-f
How many times have we heard about government abuses of the right to own property going on in neighborhoods across America, in the form of the invoking of the right of ‘eminent domain’, and the corruption of other legal concepts? Kelo vs. New London is probably the most publicized of such unconstitutional atrocities, but similar atrocities occur daily across this country.
How many of us have attempted to help the victims of such abuses of power? I myself have done so no more than once or twice.
I ask any FReeper who happens upon this thread to take ten minutes of his or her day to read about one such abuse of power. In terms of land area, it is a small abuse, and it affects only two ordinary American citizens who wield no more power than you or I. But its ramifications are enormous. If we’re not going to decide to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the two relatively anonymous Americans I’d like to introduce to you, exactly when will we decide that it’s time to unite in revolt against the growing ‘privileged elite’ in this country, and the menace they represent to us all? The so-called legal/justice system is using all manner of wicked precedent to commit major, obscene private land grabs ... all such crimes tracing back to a desire for more wealth and power on the part of those who already wield more than you or I.
Before inserting the precious words ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ into the Declaration, our Founders seriously considered using the wording ‘life, liberty and property’ (as originated by John Locke). I believe the latter to be a more powerful representation of our inalienable rights, but apparently the modern American government/judicial system vehemently disagrees with either expression.
Don and Susie Kirlin own a vacant lot, worth roughly a million dollars in today’s market, on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado. They purchased it about twenty years ago with the idea of eventually building a home there. It is located just down the road from their current home, they walk by the land regularly, and they have been paying taxes on it faithfully for the past two decades.
Unfortunately for the Kirlins the couple that owns a home adjacent to their lot consists of a county judge, Richard McLean, and his wife, Edith Stevens, who is also an attorney. McLean and Stevens have been active, and powerful, in Boulder County politics for decades. It seems that this ambitious couple has been using a portion of the Kirlins’ land to occasionally hold their own private parties, and, in doing so, they have also created worn pathways through portions of that land.
It also would appear that these two believe that, if the Kirlins build a home on the land they purchased for just that reason, the view of the surrounding landscape from their own home would be diminished.
When the Kirlins attempted to build a fence on a portion of their vacant land before beginning construction on it, McLean and Stevens had a restraining order issued against them, stating that, since they had been using the land themselves for some time, they had become ‘attached’ to it and they are claiming it as their own. The restraining order was issued within a few hours of their request for it. Apparently the wheels of justice move at lighting speed, if the person requesting the moving has the right connections.
As a result, McLean and Stevens have invoked the doctrine of ‘adverse possession’, which allows a citizen to claim another’s property simply by virtue of using it for a specified period of time, in order to declare one third of the Kirlins’ land as their own. A Boulder judge has ordered the Kirlins to hand over to McLean and Stevens one-third of their land, which will result in their no longer owning sufficient land on which to construct not only their dream home but any home at all.
As if the preceding weren’t evidence in itself of unmitigated chutzpah, McLean and Stevens are not only claiming to ‘own’ a large portion of the land in question (without ever having paid a penny for it, or any of the taxes incumbent in its ownership), but they are also asking the court to rule that the Kirlins must pay any legal fees that they incur in order to achieve this particular theft.
Thus, as is becoming increasingly common in Amerika 2007, two people in power have decided to use a corrupt system to steal from someone else of lesser political stature -- in this case, out in the open, and without conscience or remorse.
Needless to say, the Kirlins are appealing the ruling (and amassing large, and no doubt growing, legal fees in the process). But I wouldn’t be taking any bets on their success. ‘Fighting city hall’ is fast becoming an empty phrase anymore, because the concepts of government of, by and for the people -- originally made possible by public servants who value individual rights more than government power -- is fast heading for extinction, as corruption, greed, and lust for power achieve a momentum that has become virtually relentless and unstoppable. Not to mention the fact that both the eighth (re: coveting) and tenth (re: stealing) of the Ten Commandments have essentially been declared null and void.
This case vividly portrays the battle between the average American citizen and our modern American 'ruling elite'. Yet too many Americans are more interested in the comfort of our couches, and the proximity of our remote controls, than we are in the plight of the likes of the Kirlins -- victims of a system gone awry.
Unless we Americans start giving a damn about the abuses that our neighbors suffer under tyrannical government dictates, those abuses will someday affect us, and there will be nobody left who can turn the tragedy around.
The only difference between appeasement and surrender is the passage of time.
Contact Information for Boulder, Colorado officials (and thanks, in advance, to all who avail themselves of this source of redress):
Cindy Domenico, Boulder County Commissioner
Ben Pearlman, Boulder County Commissioner
Will Toor, Boulder County Commissioner
Joan Fitzgerald, Colorado State Senator, District 16
Brandon Shaffer, Colorado State Senator, District 17
Ron Tupa, Colorado State Senator, District 18
Alice Madden, Colorado State Representative, District 10
Jack Pommer, Colorado State Representative, District 11
Paul Weissmann, Colorado State Representative, District 12
Claire Levy, Colorado State Representative, District 13
Dianne Primavera, Colorado State Representative, District 33
Resources:
Legal Landgrab Should Be Overturned on Appeal
Boulder Couple Accuses Former Judge, Mayor of Land Grab
Hard Feelings on Hardscrabble Drive
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
Well, which judge here are you comparing him to?
Get a grip. Trespassing on another’s property does not mean I can take their land for my own. Not where I live. While I have no claim to a legal degree........I have common sense.
What about this case is indicative of a broken system? How did the system break down here?
No, but if you prefer to not associate with righteousness, but instead seek to empower the unrighteous and spend time espousing them, you might just reap what you sow.
Welcome to the USSA, comrade.
You must learn to love Big Sister.
Another sermon. No facts, logic, or reason.
I suspect the dual of your question would be easier to answer, which indicates the entire society is becoming more and more corrupt.
When the consequences of your system defend unrighteousness and disallow righteousness, what good are they?
HUH??
The legal purchasers and owners were keeping this land against the day when older that they could build on it. The theives were using it, tresspassing without permission and are now invoking this law so they can not only take the land for themselves, but keep these people who paid for the land, and who maintained their taxes on it for all those years (which, from the government's perspective should be construed and considered as productive...much more production for that land than what they have not gotten from the other party), from building on it.
These interlopers have not used it productively from a societal standpoint in the least and everyone knows it...they have tresspassed for their own purposes and interests and now a colleague is rewarding that tresspass with ownership, taking abject advantage of good people who were simply naive and unknowledgable about this law...something officers of the court by creed and ethical code are not supposed to do. (As if that mattered a whit these days...shameful)
It is a foul thing, it is an immoral thing, and it has nothing to do whatsoever with the public good or the productive use of land.
The people who bought it and were saving it for their retirement and ultimate home are the ones who have exhibited not only much more responsibility for that land, but have also done so in a wholly legal and upright manner...irespective of their being taken advantage of. To somehow paint their efforts and interest in this land as the "wrong" is simply turning the entire episode and affair completely upside down.
All legaleze aside, this is a plain, simple, straightforward wrong and "taking" as in theft to anyone applying common sense and conventional moral foundation to the episode rather than legaleze which would color outright theft as legal.
I will continue to contact anyone I can to try and help these people and right this wrong.
Oh but land grabbers don't trespass they merely visit the property. How rude of you to not recognize their right to trespass and steal property as the law allows them to do. /sarcasm Of course the likes of some wouldn't call it trespassing either.
How did the black-robed thieves “improve or take care of” the land they stole? The land paid for (and taxes paid on) by an American citizen?
Other than by cutting through it, AKA “tresspassing?”
This stinks to hell, and if you are on the side of the black-robed thieves, you are on the other side from me.
It is immorala, it is a travesty, and should not be allowed to stand...and by God, I will do all I can to help reverse it.
Productive use of the land is not the issue here. An immoral action of taking what someone else paid for and has maintained for twenty years simply because they can do so for their own self interests is the issue here.
I pray that there are enough Americans with a sense of propriety, honor, justice, and right flowing in their viens to hear about this (and it will be up to us to get the word out) and be as outraged about it as I am...irrespective of the color of law and legaleze that these other people are willing to stand on in the act of this theft.
From the article reagrding the Kirlins, the owners of the property: “They purchased it about twenty years ago with the idea of eventually building a home there. It is located just down the road from their current home, they walk by the land regularly, and they have been paying taxes on it faithfully for the past two decades.”
Your implication that the owners neglected and didn’t even set foot on their property for 20 years doesn’t match the implication of the article.
Why do you seek to defend those who are unjust?
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