A new wine from enviros

Townhall.com ^ | 4/18/03 | Rich Lowry

[snopercod]

In fact, I might want to see it expanded to cover insects. I treat my property for fire ants, but they don't, so I keep getting them back.

I think there might already be a legal precedent here. Remember the medflies in CA and citrus canker in FL? IIRC, the state could go onto private property and spray and/or destroy one's backyard citrus tree to keep the infestation from spreading.

[Carry_Okie]

I don't see any significant difference in the intrusion on basic property rights whether it's a law enforced by government agents or whether it's liability to your neighbor when he sues you.

There are huge differences. First, there is no agency involved that possesses police power and survives off the existence of the problem. Second, if you and your nieghbor don't consider the weeds to be a problem, there is no action. Third, if you choose to live in a community where nobody cares, nothing happens.

I happen to live in a place that derives much of its wealth and property value from its surrounding beauty. If somebody doesn't do something about this mess, it will be destroyed in less than a hundred years. That's just a fact we have to face.

In either event, it's politicians deciding which plants you must eradicate on your property so that your neighbor is happy.

No, it's not. You can have all the plants you want. You are, however, responsible for them. You can pay your neighbor to deal with it if you like them. At least somebody does. What that creates is a legitimate weed buffer business. Here are the consequences:

Let's say, in my imaginary world, I choose to go into the park business because people like to visit nature. It makes a nice product, as anyone who likes natural parks will attest. One problem: it won't stay that way if it becomes infested with weeds.

Now, there's a guy who wants to grow something that is invasive. Fine. He pays the guy next to him to deal with it as a buffer protecting my park. He'd better be good at it too because someone might outbid him for the place if they came up with a more efficient process. Now there's a competitive business in developing specialized weed control processes instead of a system of university grants or taxing weed control districts that have no reason for the weeds to go away.

Remember, one process to control weeds is simply to graze or plow them. Consider how we wouldn't need greenbelts if ranchers and farmers around cities were in the weed buffer business. What this accomplishes is that ranchers and farmers get paid for what they've been doing all along, namely controlling the escaped plants from urban gardens, and protecting the wildlands beyond their properties.

If you drive along a freeway the case is the same. A weed buffer along the road would make a nice business and prevent the hellacious problems we are seeing today. At least we would have an efficient and flexible system capable of superimposed uses and guaranteed to work without the socialist solution of policing the poor bastard into poverty. I'll follow with a repost in the next frame.

[MattAMiller]

This isn't going to go as well as going after "tacky" working-class pleasures. California wines are very in right now.

[Dog Gone]

We are not talking the government requiring you to do anything or telling you how to do it.

You sure as heck are. If some politician passes an ordinance that makes me financially liable for any tumbleweeds that blow from my ranch onto yours, I now have to eradicate all tumbleweeds on my ranch, and I have to make sure no new ones grow.

Granted, the government hasn't specifically told me to eradicate them, but they gave you the right to sue me and win if I don't. The ordinance creating liability is indistinguishable from a law mandating me to do something.

The only difference is that enforcement is up to you, but you get to collect the penalty.

[Carry_Okie]

Source of the following post:

To: hedgetrimmer

Well, let's look at some of their handiwork, shall we? The white stuff you see in the following photo is water hemlock. It is a poisonous weed from the Middle East. The pollen causes birth defects. The quail that eat the fruit don't die, but the bobcats that eat them do. There are thousands of tons of it thanks to the Coastal Conservancy and the Pacific Land Trust.

All images in this post are copyright by Mark Edward Vande Pol. No retransmission reprinting or reuse without written authorization. Please, I want to use these for an article.

Here is what they want to save:

Here is what they are doing to it.
They are "preserving" it.
The highlighted areas are hemlock.
Doesn't it look a little rugged for weeding?

Here is more. Isn't it pretty?
It's mixed in with tick infested dwarf coyote brush, bush lupines, rare wildflowers, and poison oak.
Who's going to go get those weeds now?

And more right above Scott Creek, the principle salmon stream in the area. The clear area is where cattle graze...

And here's what happens when it really gets going.
It's the whole hillside above that building.
The seed lasts at least ten years. Is this an environmental impact?
Where are the air quality authorities?

Let's hear it for our environmental heroes, and their appropriately landscaped sign!

5 posted on 07/29/2002 11:29 PM PDT by Carry_Okie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

---

To: Libertarianize the GOP

Now here is what the farms do. They are weed buffers that protect nature from the weeds along the State Highway. If farmers got paid for weed control, would they be broke? Would land use be organized differently?

Would this...

...be preferable to this?

or this (the red stuff in the foreground is thistle)...

or this?

Want an alternative?

6 posted on 07/29/2002 11:48 PM PDT by Carry_Okie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

You see, the problem with invasive exotics is that it doesn't end at the fence line. If we don't deal with it in the yard or along the road, we really do risk losing Yosemite (the latest threats are knapweed and starthistle). We really are making a mess of the wild with this problem. The real culprit is government and I don't want a bureaucracy to deal with it because it will not only cost us liberty, it will surely fail.

If you open that book you haven't read DG, you'll find Part IV, Chapter 2 that deals with this mess without a single law. The system actually weighs the cost and threat of each species according to local circumstances. I would prefer it to what I am proposing with this simple ordinance and maybe some day we'll get there. In the mean time however, the eventual price tag is growing daily and I don't have the cash to establish InsCert, Inc. to get it started. I've been waiting for that patent now for over two years.

Weed importation operates as a trade subsidy that costs domestic producers. It is also becoming a new regulatory toy that could break the few who are left. I don't want either one. Remember: war, famine, disease, and PESTILENCE.

[Carry_Okie]

You sure as heck are. If some politician passes an ordinance that makes me financially liable for any tumbleweeds that blow from my ranch onto yours, I now have to eradicate all tumbleweeds on my ranch, and I have to make sure no new ones grow.

If and only if your neighbor thinks it's a problem and that it's serious enough a cost to him that he must finance a case and bring an action. That's a pretty high barrier, isn't it? If he already has tumble weed of his own, guess what?

You don't want to deal with your tumbleweed because you know it's difficult. Hooker didn't want to deal with Love Canal either. That's not liberty, it's irresponsibility. Liberty requires individual responsibility or it fails.

That's why I spent 500 hours this year dealing with catsear instead of bringing an action. That's why I have helped him control his weeds for the last ten years even though he won't allow me to use efficient means to deal with it. The problem is, that these new and more aggressive weeds may get so bad, so overwhelming, that even with that effort, I will fail. If I give up, that would cost me my home, my reputation, and my career, not to mention the $400,000 I deferred to make that investment or the thirteen years of time invested in restoring this place. I cannot afford the $2 million dollars it would take to buy his land nor will he sell the strip even if we could deal with all the legal crap that came with the transaction.

Granted, the government hasn't specifically told me to eradicate them, but they gave you the right to sue me and win if I don't. The ordinance creating liability is indistinguishable from a law mandating me to do something.

Nonsense. I've just explained several major distinctions.

[Carry_Okie]

I think there might already be a legal precedent here. Remember the medflies in CA and citrus canker in FL? IIRC, the state could go onto private property and spray and/or destroy one's backyard citrus tree to keep the infestation from spreading.

Correct. All the powers he fears already exist.

[Dog Gone]

You can't get around the fact that your system requires a private property owner to actively manage his own land to someone else's standards. Raw land without a caretaker becomes a serious liability.

Ideally, everyone would have the time and inclination to care for all their property in the same way they treat a prized bed of roses, but they don't.

People would either be forced to actively manage their lands, hire someone who would do so for them, or pay never-ending judgments for failing to do so. It certainly would keep the lawyers and courts busy, although I'd certainly admit that we would have a better environment than we do now.

[farmfriend]

You have the right to do what ever you want with your land. You don't have the right to mess up mine. Your property rights end at the boarder to your land. Yes, I should have the right to sue you if you mess up mine through your irresponsibility. Just as I would if your dog comes and bites me.

[farmfriend]

People would either be forced to actively manage their lands, hire someone who would do so for them, or pay never-ending judgments for failing to do so.

I think he's got it, he just doesn't like it.

[Dog Gone]

Don't ever go on vacation. If a dandylion should happen to be in your yard and go to seed, about 1000 of your neighbors could sue.

[farmfriend]

They already have them and they would have to prove they came from my land. You're not listening.

[Dog Gone]

I didn't say they would win. Why don't you listen?

You want to create a legal cause of action everytime a plant or a seed crosses a property line. Proving causation and actual damage is a whole different matter, but since you're the one who wants to be able to sue, that's your problem.

[snopercod]

I think the trouble is the ever-changing concept of what constitutes harm.

If your neighbor dumps trash on your property, it is well-accepted that he has harmed you. If he burns old tires and allows black soot to blow all over your laundry hanging on the line, then maybe he has harmed you.

If, however he allows the wind to blow weed seeds all over your property, that is simply an "Act of God".

[Carry_Okie]

You can't get around the fact that your system requires a private property owner to actively manage his own land to someone else's standards. Raw land without a caretaker becomes a serious liability.

No more than UL tells GE how to make lightbulbs.

You clearly haven't read it. Under the system there are more and less profitable uses given market conditions, but nobody is dictating.

Ideally, everyone would have the time and inclination to care for all their property in the same way they treat a prized bed of roses, but they don't.

Ideally we would be doing the best that is financially rational. I would assert that we have far passed that point and are headed downwards. Witness the current condition of Western rangelands under BLM control.

ple would either be forced to actively manage their lands, hire someone who would do so for them, or pay never-ending judgments for failing to do so. It certainly would keep the lawyers and courts busy, although I'd certainly admit that we would have a better environment than we do now.

Nice switch. Now you are talking an ordinance (that I said I didn't prefer) and not my system, but you still assert without having dealt with a single one of my arguments that people will sue eachother over weeds at the drop of a hat. That's BS, because the cost and risk threshhold of such action is quite high.

No, what you don't want is accountability. That is quite clear. Making an argument by repeating unsupported generalizations and ignoring the motivational mechanics won't cut it.

[farmfriend]

If, however he allows the wind to blow weed seeds all over your property, that is simply an "Act of God".

Do you have insurance? Flood insurance? Earthquake insurance?

[Carry_Okie]

I think the trouble is the ever-changing concept of what constitutes harm.

Yup. DG wants the right to assume that his negligence is without consequence.

[Carry_Okie]

You want to create a legal cause of action everytime a plant or a seed crosses a property line.

This is getting really disingenuous on your part.

Proving causation and actual damage is a whole different matter, but since you're the one who wants to be able to sue, that's your problem.

Correct, which is why people won't sue unless it's really serious. QED.

Don't ever go on vacation. If a dandylion should happen to be in your yard and go to seed, about 1000 of your neighbors could sue.

And don't you know what will happen? The problem will cost so much some nice creative person will invent a way to truly solve it and get rich. It's America.

[snopercod]

Yup. DG wants the right to assume that his negligence is without consequence.

Oh, I don't think so. It's just that the concept of weeds as negligence takes some adjusting to.

When you drive through any suburban neighborhood, some homes have pristine, manicured lawns, and others are grown up with weeds. Clearly the few unkempt lawns harm the value of the surrounding real estate. Should the majority of the neighbors hire a yard service for the few slackers?

[Dog Gone]

Negligence IS without consequence unless there is a corresponding duty of care. Both must be found, as a matter of law, before there is any liability.

It's not enough for you or anyone else to wave their arms and shout "negligence" even if you can point to specific harm. These are real-life legal principles which are part of our law, and you just can't blow them off like you're trying to blow me off.