The Cellar - Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

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Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

Tell it bro

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As if a highly bureaucratic regulatory system was not already in place, 9/11 fueled renewed acceleration to eliminate freedom from the countryside. Every time a letter arrives in the mail from a federal or state agriculture department my heart jumps like I just got sent to the principal’s office.
And it doesn’t stop with agriculture bureaucrats. It includes all sorts of government agencies, from zoning, to taxing, to food inspectors. These agencies are the ultimate extension of a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process.

ON-FARM PROCESSING
I want to dress my beef and pork on the farm where I’ve coddled and raised it. But zoning laws prohibit slaughterhouses on agricultural land. For crying out loud, what makes more holistic sense than to put abattoirs where the animals are? But no, in the wisdom of Western disconnected thinking, abattoirs are massive centralized facilities visited daily by a steady stream of tractor trailers and illegal alien workers.

But what about dressing a couple of animals a year in the backyard? How can that be compared to a ConAgra or Tyson facility? In the eyes of the government, the two are one and the same. Every T-bone steak has to be wrapped in a half-million dollar facility so that it can be sold to your neighbor. The fact that I can do it on my own farm more cleanly, more responsibly, more humanely, more efficiently, and in a more environmentally friendly manner doesn’t matter to the government agents who walk around with big badges on their jackets and wheelbarrow-sized regulations tucked under their arms.

OK, so I take my animals and load them onto a trailer for the first time in their life to send them up the already clogged interstate to the abattoir to await their appointed hour with a shed full of animals of dubious extraction. They are dressed by people wearing long coats with deep pockets with whom I cannot even communicate. The carcasses hang in a cooler alongside others that were not similarly cared for in life. After the animals are processed, I return to the facility hoping to retrieve my meat.

When I return home to sell these delectable packages, the county zoning ordinance says that this is a manufactured product because it exited the farm and was reimported as a value-added product, thereby throwing our farm into the Wal-Mart category, another prohibition in agricultural areas. Just so you understand this, remember that an on-farm abattoir was illegal, so I took the animals to a legal abattoir, but now the selling of said products in an on-farm store is illegal.

Our whole culture suffers from an industrial food system that has made every part disconnected from the rest. Smelly and dirty farms are supposed to be in one place, away from people, who snuggle smugly in their cul-de-sacs and have not a clue about the out-of-sight-out-of-mind atrocities being committed to their dinner before it arrives in microwaveable, four-color-labeled, plastic packaging. Industrial abattoirs need to be located in a not-in-my-backyard place to sequester noxious odors and sights. Finally, the retail store must be located in a commercial district surrounded by lots of pavement, handicapped access, public toilets and whatever else must be required to get food to people.

The notion that animals can be raised, processed, packaged, and sold in a model that offends neither our eyes nor noses cannot even register on the average bureaucrat’s radar screen — or, more importantly, on the radar of the average consumer advocacy organization. Besides, all these single-use megalithic structures are good for the gross domestic product. Anything else is illegal.

ON-FARM SEMINARS & ‘AGRITAINMENT’
In the disconnected mind of modem America, a farm is a production unit for commodities — nothing more and nothing less. Because our land is zoned as agricultural, we cannot charge school kids for a tour of the farm because that puts us in the category of "Theme Park." Anyone paying for infotainment creates "Farmadisney," a strict no-no in agricultural zones.

Farms are not supposed to be places of enjoyment or learning. They are commodity production units dotting the landscape, just as factories are manufacturing units and office complexes are service units. In the government’s mind, integrating farm production with recreation and meaningful education creates a warped sense of agriculture.

The very notion of encouraging people to visit farms is blasphemous to an official credo that views even sparrows, starlings and flies as disease threats to immunocompromised plants and animals. Visitors entering USDA-blessed production unit farms must run through a gauntlet of toxic sanitation dips and don moonsuits in order to keep their germs to themselves. Indeed, people are viewed as hazardous foreign bodies at Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
Farmers who actually encourage folks to come to their farms threaten the health and welfare of their fecal concentration camp production unit neighbors, and therefore must be prohibited from bringing these invasive germ-dispensing humans onto their landscape. In the industrial agribusiness paradigm, farms must be protected from people, not to mention free-range poultry.

The notion that animals and plants can be raised in such a way that their enhanced immune system protects them from kindergarteners’ germs, and that the animals actually thrive when marinated in human attention, never enters the minds of government officials dedicated to protecting precarious production units.

COLLABORATIVE MARKETING
I have several neighbors who produce high-quality food or crafts that complement our own meat and poultry. Dried flower arrangements from one artisan, pickles from another, wine from another, and first-class vegetables from another. These are just for starters.

Our community is blessed with all sorts of creative artisans who offer products that we would love to stock in our on-farm retail venue. Doesn’t it make sense to encourage these customers driving out from the city to be able to go to one farm to do their rural browsing/ purchasing rather than drive all over the countryside? Furthermore, many of these artisans have neither the desire nor time to deal with patrons one-on-one. A collaborative venue is the most win-win, reasonable idea imaginable — except to government agents.

As soon as our farm offers a single item — just one — that is not produced here, we have become a Wal-Mart. Period. That means a business license, which isbasically another layer of taxes on our gross sales. The business license requires a commercial entrance, which on our country road is almost impossible to acquire due to sight-distance requirements and width regulations. Of course, zoning prohibits businesses in our agricultural zones. Remember, people are supposed to be kept away from agricultural areas — people bring diseases.

Even if we could comply with all of the above requirements, a retail outlet carries with it a host of additional regulations. We must provide designated handicapped parking, government-approved toilet facilities (our four household bathrooms in the two homes located 50 feet away from the retail building do not count) — and it can’t be a composting toilet. We must offer x-number of parking spaces. Folks, it just goes on and on, ad nauseum, and all for simply trying to help a neighbor sell her potatoes or extra pumpkins at Thanksgiving. I thought this was the home of the free. In most countries of the world, anyone can sell any of this stuff anywhere, and the hungering hordes are glad to get it, but in the great U.S. of A we’re too sophisticated to allow such bioregional commerce.

EMPLOYING LOCAL YOUNGSTERS & INTERNS
Any power tool — including a cordless screwdriver — cannot be operated by people under the age of 18. We have lots of requests from folks wanting to come as interns, but what do we call them? The government has no category for interns or neighbor young people who just want to learn and help out.
We’d love to employ all the neighboring young people. To our child-awning and worshiping culture, the only appropriate child activity is recreation, sitting in a desk, or watching TV. That’s it. That’s the extent of what children are good for. Anything else is abusive and risky.

Then we wonder why these kids grow up unmotivated and bored with life. Our local newspaper is full of articles and letters to the editor lamenting the lack of things for young people to do. Let me suggest a few things: digging postholes and building a fence, weeding the garden, planting some tomatoes, splitting some wood, feeding the chickens, washing eggs, pruning grapevines, milking the cow, building a compost pile, growing some earthworms.
These are all things that would be wonderfully meaningful work experience for the youth of our community, but you can’t simply employ people anymore. A host of government regulatory paperwork surrounds every "could you come over and help us . . . ?" By the time an employer complies with every Occupational Safety & Health Administration requirement, posts every government bulletin requirement, with-holds taxes, and shoulders Unemployment Compensation burdens and medical and child safety regulations — he or she can’t hire anybody legally or profitably.
The government has no pigeonhole for this: "I’m a 17-year-old home-schooler, and I want to learn how to farm. Could I come and have you mentor me for a year?"

What is this relationship? A student? An employee? If I pay a stipend, the government says he’s an employee. If I don’t pay, the Fair Labor Standards board says it’s slavery, which is illegal. Doesn’t matter that the young person is here of his own volition and is happy to live in a tee-pee. Housing must be permitted and up to code. Enough already. What happened to the home of the free?

Don't worry. According to Undertoad, everything will just sort of work itself out.

Salatin occasionally writes for Mother Earth News. His farm is spectacular. He is an innovator. We hate innovation.

Salatin's Polyface farm

The sound of our government failing will be muffled by red tape. I think it was Salatin who spoke out pretty early against handing the word "organic" over to the Feds. A bunch of left-leaning farmers who believed in government went to the Feds for protection from competition. The idea was to apply the word organic in such a way as to prevent the big guys from using the label. The Feds engaged the red tape machine, ratcheting up the rule making and fees and suddenly the big guys were in the driver's seat.

I told my cousin about my bureacratic nightmare in education then he told his tale of woe getting permission to clean out a "stream." It seems design and enforcement are two different groups who don't interact. It took all summer to get through the tape and a weekend to do the work. :mad2:

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It seems design and enforcement are two different groups who don't interact

I think that's a sad fact about a lot of government schemes/approaches.

A Tale of Two Salads asks whether we are really rich when our food tastes as it does? This is the kind of thing innovators are addressing but if we legislate them out of existence... To me it is interesting that we talk about choice being a value in our society but real choice is swept away.

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To me it is interesting that we talk about choice being a value in our society but real choice is swept away.

A similar situation is in play in the UK. Our politicians seem obsessed with offering 'choice' regardless of whether that's actually wanted, then each successive governent brings in measures which give an illusion of increasing choice whilst actually reducing it. We've seen it in education, health, transport etc. The idea is always to free these up to allow competition and choice to drive the market towards improvements. But, it's always done so cackhandedly that no actual choice or improvement ensues. In the case of health and education they sold us the choice concept, but didn't put in place enough of an infrastruture to deliver it. In the case of transport, we just end up with one major consortium or company running most of the transport in any one area and the independants clear up the scraps and fill in the blanks on the timetable. On telecoms, they basically allowed a monopoly to develop and the monitoring body have managed over a period of years to force them to loosen their grip on the market slightly (not before it had held us back in developing our internet usage, by several years).

If I go to a doctor and he needs t send me for a test, I really don't want a brochure...I want him to tell me which hospital/clinic will deal with my problem best and send me there. If I have a child starting school, a degree of choice is a good idea, but it's no choice at all if it's between a successful school and a failing school, especially since the schools which are more popular aren't able to take all applicants.

When I go to buy a train ticket, I ask for a ticket for the town to which I want to travel. He then hands me a ticket that takes me there. If I need to leave at 10am I leave at 10am, if i need to leave at 12:30 I need to leave at 12:30. I am really not taking on board the fact that the early train is a Virgin train and the later is Arriva. Nor, do I care that the tracks and stations and trains are all owned by different companies. Nobody says "which train companies are running trains to location x?" when they go to the ticket booth, they say "ticket to location x please" and the companies just work out the timetable between themselvles.

All these areas have been 'freed up' to pursue markets and choice, and a handful of people have become very rich in the process (stuff like rail travel and amenities were sold off practically to the lowest bidder, then heavily subsidised in the early years, costing the tax-payer money in the short term and removing their assets in the long term) meanwhile the customer/consumer is left with a reduced service at higher costs. Dismantling a primarily state-owned infrastructure (note just infrastructure, we're not anti-business inthe UK, we aren't called a nation of shopkeepers for nowt :P)

Basically I think I am saying that we (Brits) do American style capitalism as badly as people say you'd do European socialism.

[edited to note] Sorry...I went off on a bit of a drift there...:P

Drift is good.

We do see this thing differently. I'll have to consider this more deeply to see if there is a way to allow folks of opposing ideologies the choice they both crave.

Wow, that was a depressing read. :( The main reason why I don't eat meat is that the practices of the meat industry are so fucked-up. I hope that Salatin has some luck getting his message out -- it's not one that many people want to listen to.

Same guy on building a house

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BUILD A HOUSE THE WAY I WANT
You would think that if I cut the trees, mill the logs into lumber, and build the house on my own farm, I could make it however I wanted to. Think again. It’s illegal to build a house less than 900 square feet. Period. Doesn’t matter if I’m a hermit or the father of 20. The government agents have decreed, in their egocentric wisdom, that no human can live in anything less than 900 square feet.

Our son got married last year and wanted to build a small cottage on the farm, which he now oversees for the most part. Our new saying is, "He runs the farm, and I just run around." The plan was to do what Mom and Dad did for Teresa and I — trade houses when children come. That way our empty nest downsizes, and the young people can upsize in the main family farmhouse. Sounds reasonable and environmentally sensitive to me. But no, his little honeymoon cottage — or our retirement shack — had to be a 900-square-foot Taj Mahal. A state-of-the-art accredited composting toilet to avoid the need for a septic system and sewer leach field was denied.

When the hillside leach field would not meet agronomic standards and we had to install it in the floodplain, I asked the health department bureaucrat why. He said that essentially the only approvable leach fields now are alongside creeks and streams, because they are the only sites that offer dark-enough colored soils. Sounds like real environmental steward-ship, doesn’t it?

Look, if I want to build a yurt of rabbit skins and go to the bathroom in a compost pile, why is it any of the government’s business? Bureaucrats bend over back-wards to accredit, tax credit, and offer money to people wanting to build pig city-factories or bigger airports. But let a guy go to his woods, cut down some trees, and build himself a home, and a plethora of regulatory tyrants descend on the project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, frustrate, and virtually terminate. I think it’s time to eradicate some of these laws and the piranhas who administer them.

It would serve him right if he got that law repealed, and someone surrounded his property with trailer parks.

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Originally Posted by Happy Monkey (Post 381802)

It would serve him right if he got that law repealed, and someone surrounded his property with trailer parks.

I missed the part where he said he wanted to control everyone else. At least we've laid that whole left-wing tolerance thing to rest.

He doesn't need to want to control everyone else. The point is if planning regulations are set aside then that would apply to everyone and not just him in his yurt. He could well end up losing out to that if someone else successfully built a bunch of stuff that the planning regulations may have prevented. (Unless I have totally misunderstood the situation....)

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Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 381827)

He doesn't need to want to control everyone else.

Apparently someone does.

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The point is if planning regulations are set aside then that would apply to everyone and not just him in his yurt.

I don't remember reading set aside, it is, reportedly, possible to change dumb laws. I ran into the same idiotic regulations when I built. He and I both wanted to do the best thing environmentally, but the regulators insisted on an expensive failing technology.

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He could well end up losing out to that if someone else successfully built a bunch of stuff that the planning regulations may have prevented. (Unless I have totally misunderstood the situation....)

What he would lose, wasn't his. I understand some people need to keep undesirables away (trailer park is code for poor rural white) but reducing housing choice damages people's financial well-being.

Aren't there some good reasons for most of these regulations? If we became unregulated, like China, wouldn't we end up with the same type of unsafe products that we get from China?

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Originally Posted by Spexxvet (Post 381974)

Aren't there some good reasons for most of these regulations? If we became unregulated, like China, wouldn't we end up with the same type of unsafe products that we get from China?

Sure. There are good reasons to do this stuff. I would suggest however that in an information heavy society like ours, it is just as effective to expose Mattel for ineffective quality control. They cannot afford to lose their positive brand recognition.

As far as zoning regs go, if someone is engaged in activities that poison the air or water of their neighbor, they should be prosecuted for that trespass. If someone lives in a leaky yurt or a small house that is noones business but their own.

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Originally Posted by Griff (Post 381997)

...As far as zoning regs go, if someone is engaged in activities that poison the air or water of their neighbor, they should be prosecuted for that trespass...

Prosecuting after the fact might be too late, if the water table is contaminated, for instance. Better to be pro-active.

IMHO, there's a lot of gray area between obviously reasonable laws and obviously unreasonable laws. In fact, there's a lot of difference of opinion about what is reasonable and unreasonable. Most people probably feel that there should be no restrictions on themselves, because they will make "the right" decisions. Yet these same people probably want restrictions that protect them from other folks making "the wrong" decision. Where the line is drawn is the debate.

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Originally Posted by Griff (Post 381997)

As far as zoning regs go, if someone is engaged in activities that poison the air or water of their neighbor, they should be prosecuted for that trespass. If someone lives in a leaky yurt or a small house that is noones business but their own.

You're right, of course, but what about the gray area in between your two extremes? Do you have any problem with regs that cover safety? Like wiring regs or baluster spacing? How about standards of building, like ceiling height or space around a toilet?

I think if someone wants to build a house with a roof that falls on their head, they've got every right in the world. Of course it would be a cumbersome system, but the regulations this fellow is talking about were created with others in mind... he should be able to get special consideration from a judge. Laws are important and all, but they shouldn't be unbending, because of cases just like this one.

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Originally Posted by queequeger (Post 382034)

I think if someone wants to build a house with a roof that falls on their head, they've got every right in the world.

What if the house catches on fire, and a firefighter responds, but the roof kills him because it was built poorly? Or a girl scout knocks on the door to sell cookies, but the porch roof kills her?

It gets to the point where you can't create a law everytime someone's in the slightest bit of danger. Why don't we just mandate that everyone wears a helmet at all times? How about a national required Battle Buddy (for non-recent army types, the poor bastards in the army have to have someone with them at all times while in training)? I think we've gone too far with protecting people from accidents, because no matter what we do, they happen.

I'm not saying that employers shouldn't have safety measures for their employees, or that schools should hand out text books with razor blades on them, but in this guy's case? Have him put a friggin sign in front of his house saying "If you come onto my porch, there's a good chance it will kill you." I'm just tired of being babied.

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Originally Posted by queequeger (Post 382058)

Have him put a friggin sign in front of his house saying "If you come onto my porch, there's a good chance it will kill you."

Ah, the warning label. So you're a fan of warning labels on ladders and hot coffee?

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Originally Posted by Griff (Post 381821)

I missed the part where he said he wanted to control everyone else.

I missed the part where anyone said he did.

I read your trailer park crack as implying that he would control his neighbors, but was too short-sighted to do so. I've seen nothing in his prior writings to show such a lack of foresight.

I'm sure he wouldn't, as Mr. Libertarian, have any argument against it, but I doubt that he'd welcome it.

And "trailer park" is code for "ugly development with lots of houses smaller than 900 square feet".

...containing crackers.

I'll take your word for it. Not that that would be particularly relevant to the issue. Unless you are saying he's racist against whites.

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Originally Posted by Happy Monkey (Post 382097)

I don't know if he's a political libertarian.

ugly development with lots of houses smaller than 900 square feet = affordable housing

Very simple... if you're concerned with what's on the land across the street, buy it.

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Originally Posted by glatt (Post 382080)

Ah, the warning label. So you're a fan of warning labels on ladders and hot coffee?

Nope, but if someone's gonna raise a shit fit when I build my crazy house out of linkin logs, I'll throw a sign up, why not?

Would you rather wade through a sea of warning labels or not be able to do dangerous things?

affordable housing doesn't have to be like that though. Also, I don't know what it's like over there but in some areas of the Uk, what tends to happen is large scale housing developments, including affordable housing are built to the point of saturation in the urban areas, because a) it's easier to justify planning permission if it is in land already designated as Housing Land in the Local Development Plan and b) the well off tend not to live in these areas in such great numbers and it tends mainly to be the well off who end up sitting on planning panels.

So, you end up with what little open space is left in a built up area getting overbuilt.

The horrific corruption of the American government and the bureaucratic boneheads that run things in Washington are why I am skipping the country.

That, and the way the oil-dollar is going to die, just makes it all that much more important that everyone abandon the sinking ship known as "America".

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Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 382184)

affordable housing doesn't have to be like that though.

No it doesn't, but from what I've seen locally it is one way to transition from being a renter to an owner aka- the American Dream. You then upgrade the building or sell the place for enough money to put a sizable down payment on a prefab or other reasonably priced home. The size restriction says that it is illegal to go under 900 sqft which is imposing middle-class standards and costs on folks who are not there yet. It is one of many attacks on the owner-builder, trojan-horsed in zoning regulations. Some people (like me apparently thank God for Pete) do not fit in the economy as it presently exists, but can solve their food, clothing, and shelter issues in ways that maintain their self-respect.

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Also, I don't know what it's like over there but in some areas of the Uk, what tends to happen is large scale housing developments, including affordable housing are built to the point of saturation in the urban areas, because a) it's easier to justify planning permission if it is in land already designated as Housing Land in the Local Development Plan and b) the well off tend not to live in these areas in such great numbers and it tends mainly to be the well off who end up sitting on planning panels.

The original article and all my assumtions are based on a rural environment. The conflict here is people with urban middle-class sensibilities moving to the country and then legislating away the things they don't like about their neighbors. If they wish to buy up properties and then put deed restrictions in place that is fine, but zoning away their neighbors way-of-life is not.

As you may have guessed, this is a hot-button issue for me. I've gone round and round with tw on this because he doesn't believe people should be able to build the houses they need rather than the supposedly safe (and often shoddily built) assembly line house. If I lived in a township with heavy zoning enforcement, I wouldn't have been able to build on my schedule and eliminate the need for a morgage.

I hope I haven't been too testy on this but I lived in a 12'x12' shed with two kids and a wife, while building my house. Those were the best of times. If I had any zoning enforcement at all it wouldn't have worked. That is why my township supervisors own my vote despite some short-comings. They mind their own business.

Check out our lifestyle here. This is what zoning prevents.

That's a cool ass house, man. I really like your kitchen setup (with the blue cupboards).

Also cute goat.

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Originally Posted by Griff (Post 382963)

The conflict here is people with urban middle-class sensibilities moving to the country and then legislating away the things they don't like about their neighbors. If they wish to buy up properties and then put deed restrictions in place that is fine, but zoning away their neighbors way-of-life is not.

Absolutely. Not only on the small scale, but on the large scale, it further separates the rich from the poor, the black from the white, and pretty much kills any kind of interesting diversity in a neighborhood. Everyone has to have white curtains or blinds? I think I'd rather jump off a cliff.

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Originally Posted by queequeger (Post 383087)

That's a cool ass house, man. I really like your kitchen setup (with the blue cupboards).

Thankyou sir! It is actually further along than the pictures show.

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Also cute goat.

Keep your hands to yourself. ;)

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On the large scale you see it with people opening chain restaurants instead of their own places. An organization like Subway will help the franchisee clear the regulatory hurdles. Somebody that actually makes a nice cheesesteak but has no stomach for bureacracy won't even try.

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I understand *nods*. I think 'country' means different things to you guys than it does over here. We have this thing called 'Green Zone" which is necessary in planning regs because we've lost much (most?) of our wild lands. We have an entirely different relationship with space than yours I think *grins* just a whole other scale.

We'll get you in one of those American as a Second Language classes.:cool:

Places where you can't paint your house the color you want or your mailbox has to be be the same as everyone else, the curtains, the garage... those people are sick!

I can't say it appeals much to me. I lived in an apartment block some years ago and there was a residents committee that voted on shit like that. All the doors had to be exactly the same shade of green:P In fairness to them the block would have looked shit with multi coloured and styled doors and windows because of the architectural style...but it doesn't suit me.

My brother-in-law wanted a fence in HIS yard, he had to ask permission!
I thought he OWNED it?
Fuck them.

Did the fence have an effect on any neighbouring property?

Over here if you build a fence above 6 Foot high, or you wish to build anything that will have an effect on neighbouring properties you need planning permission. If you seek planning permission, notices are then posted around the area so that any neighbours who feel they have a reasonable case for objecting can do so.

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Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 383646)

On new estates (neighborhoods), gardens (yards) here are generally one large continuum of lawn, with no boundary markers between properties. No hedges no fences etc not even a flower bed. Most such estates have many rules about what you can and can't do to the outside of the property, to keep a sense of uniformity about the place. They are referred to as "cookie cutter neighborhood" I live in one. We killed our residents association who enforced the rules and they came back as zombies, enforcing long-dead style rules! I need out! Oh, did I digress? :lol:

Anyway, it's pretty standard that fences, sheds, satelite dishes, anything over 10' including flagpoles require permission from the association. Unless you have a dog in which case you are required to have a fence and people put these nasty metal chainlink things in..... oops off I went again...

Some of the very expensive cookie cutter neighborhoods, filled with what are known as McMansions go even further, with regulations dictating what colours (colors) you can paint your house. Really.

And yet you still hear comments about this being "the land of the free" and how people wouldn't like to live in a socialist dictatorship country like Europe. ;)

To avoid these neighborhoods, you generally have to choose to live in a smaller, older property with maintenance issues. When we bought here, we were told the association was disbanded and could not be revived and no-one would ever do that anyway.... we were told wrong...... :mad2:

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Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 383646)

No, because it was on his property only.
Standard privacy fence.

What happens around here is a chunk of land will become available and developers bid huge sums for them. Then they break it up into building lots which they sell, or more likely build houses on and sell. In the process of breaking up the land into individual building lots, they include covenants (rules) in the deeds, that strictly limit the buyer... and all future buyers.

An individual can't out bid them, so you have to look for a single lot for sale, or a house that doesn't have any covenants in the deed. That makes it very hard to buy a newer house.

Even if you find a lot or house that isn't restricted by covenants, the taxing authority still has zoning restrictions unless you move pretty far out into the sticks. My brother is in the process of buying 653 acres in Massachusetts and building a race track. The hoops and hurdles with federal, state and local laws are daunting. Wetlands, environmental impact, traffic studies, noise abatement, impervious surface, storm runoff, emergency services access, etc, etc, etc.

So, Rkzenrage...

People are completely and utterly free to do absolutely whatever they want with their property... unless it inconveniences you?

You can't have it both ways.

You are really too dim to see the difference between a business and a home?
Have I once stated that private homes should all be accessable?

No, but you have repeatedly stated that property is property. And I also recall you being extremely opposed to a government-mandated smoking ban in restaurants/clubs/bars, because the establishment is private property.
You can't have it both ways, dude, seriously. Either the government has NO business telling you what you can and can't, must or mustn't do with your property, or they have some business. How much business they have telling you what to do is debatable of course, but it's a fairly simple black-or-white, they can or they can't situation.

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Originally Posted by rkzenrage (Post 383831)

You are really too dim to see the difference between a business and a home?
...

This is your style of posting that people object to.

It was just a question.
Anyone who takes that out of context to not be a question must be an idiot.
Offended by a question? LOL!!!

That was my thought exactly.

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Originally Posted by Ibram (Post 383878)

However, I would never say that a business could say that a specific group of people cannot come into their business and smoke.
If you are ok with Jim Crow laws fine.
I am not.

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Originally Posted by rkzenrage

However, I would never say that a business could say that a specific group of people cannot come into their business and smoke.

What is they said a certain group of people were not allowed to come in there and breathe? People with respiratory problems, or "disabled lungs" if that terminology makes them more deserving. The smokers would be in there eating hotdogs, and blithely smoking away, while the discriminated-against "weaklings with sissy lungs" were outside duct-taping photoshopped signs to the window. Who would we root for?

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They can CHOOSE to come in or not. Same as they do with scented candle shops, BBQ restaurants, fragrance departments, the area of some hardware stores where they cut wood, tobacco shops, a shop where they fire pottery... get it yet?
How can this confuse you?

They can CHOOSE to go somewhere that might be harmful to their health. Not much of a choice for them. By that same token, you could CHOOSE to throw yourself out of your wheelchair and drag your ass into the hotdog shop. Not a great choice for you, either. Both cases could be prohibitively harmful. What's the difference?

Quote:

How can this confuse you?

Because it doesn't make any fucking sense.

Yup, you are confused.

I should sympathize with you, and your condition, but say "fuck everybody else" ... I'm not confused. That's bullshit.

I never said that nor implied it.
That you cannot see that people can choose to, or not to, go to those stores is a point that you choose not to see because it invalidates your point.
If you think smoking should be illegal, then all of EVERY type of business I mentioned should be as well, correct?
That is an insane assertion.
However, at least people have a CHOICE to go to those shops or not.
They are not being INTENTIONALLY excluded.
I could give a fuck if you sympathize with me or not.

You aren't being intentionally excluded, you just aren't being intentionally included.

Someone who would keel over and die in the prescence of tobacco smoke is excluded from entering those businesses. They are excluded by their health condition. Same as you. You don't want to be a selfish prick who only cares about yourself, do you?