People often talk about their home as if they actually own it. Unfortunately nobody in this country actually owns a home or property because the government can come in at any time and either confiscate your property (either with some compensation as with eminent domain or without) or demolish your home because the bureaucrats don’t like it. Uncle posted a story that does an amazing job of demonstrating this fact. In Los Angeles County the local government is actively moving to demolish peoples’ homes because they don’t meet arbitrarily set codes:
The men demanded her driver’s license, telling her, “This building is not permitted — everything must go.” Normally sassy, Marcelle handed over her ID — even her green card, just in case. Stepping out, she realized that her 1,000-square-foot cabin was surrounded by men with drawn guns. “You have no right to be here,” one informed her. Baffled and shaking with fear, she called her daughter — please come right away.
As her ordeal wore on, she heard one agent, looking inside their comfortable cabin, say to another: “This one’s a real shame — this is a real nice one.”
A “shame” because the authorities eventually would enact some of the most powerful rules imaginable against rural residents: the order to bring the home up to current codes or dismantle the 26-year-old cabin, leaving only bare ground.
Why did the agents have their guns drawn? Because forcing people to obey is much easier when you have a demonstration of force. Still I digress as the main point is the fact that the cabin has been there for 26 years and now the government is saying it must either be torn down completely or updated to meet county code.
L.A. Weekly found in a six-week investigation that county inspectors and armed DA investigators also are pursuing victimless misdemeanors and code violations, with sometimes tragic results. The government can define land on which residents have lived for years as “vacant” if their cabins, homes and mobile homes are on parcels where the land use hasn’t been legally established. Some have been jailed for defying the officials in downtown Los Angeles, while others have lost their savings and belongings trying to meet the county’s “final zoning enforcement orders.” Los Angeles County has left some residents, who appeared to be doing no harm, homeless.
Just stop and think about that for a moment. The government is claiming the right to come in, deem that the land use hasn’t been legally established (even though nobody was using that land in the middle of the fucking desert), and then demolish your home and toss your ass in a cage.
Read the entire article. It’s long but interesting and scary at the same time. It demonstrates without question that you don’t truly own your property and are able to live on it only so long as the government is OK (usually they’re OK so long as you keep paying them property taxes).