A falconer caught a partridge in his net. The bird cried out sorrowfully, "Let me go, good master falconer, and I promise you I will decoy other partridges into your net."
"No," said the man, "whatever I might have done, I am determined now not to spare you; for there is no death too bad for him who is ready to betray his friends."
There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking the law.
- Ayn Rand, in Atlas Shrugged
“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.”~ John Locke, 2nd Treatise on Government.
So stand up for your rights, make them get a search warrant.
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Put this in the category of
YOU KNOW IT'S NOT A FREE COUNTRY ANYMORE WHEN . . .
Growing soybeans is a crime. That's right, it's happening in Willoughby. The reason this is a crime: zoning.
A legal notice was published in the March 3, 2013 edition of the News-Herald. The notice announced a hearing to be held by the
Willoughby Zoning Board of Appeals. Here is the gist of the notice, with details on the property owner omitted:
The appeal of ( . . . ) located at the corner of Lost Nation Rd. and Hodgson Rd. in a General Business and Residential Multi-Family Low-Rise zoning district for NOTICE OF NONCOMPLIANCE of [code citations omitted] for using the site for farming soybeans, an agricultural use which is not permitted in these zoned districts.
How dare the property owner put their land to productive use, in a manner that harms no one and creates no infrastructure burden to the city.
Remember back in school when Teacher sang the praises of zoning, saying that zoning was a Good Thing that prevented someone from building a steel mill next to your house? Of course, Teacher neglected to mention that if a rich and powerful interest really wanted to build a steel mill in your neighborhood, all they had to do was bribe, I mean give campaign contributions to, the politicians who would then change the zoning laws.
Why didn't the government schools teach that zoning is an unconstitutional, draconian, tyrannical control over private property
that would become so perverted as to prevent property owners from growing food on their own land?
Is this why the Founders risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to break away from England? And why American soldiers gave their lives fighting fascism in WWII, and communism in Korea and Vietnam? So our own government could make it illegal to grow food on your own property?
What would TJ do? TJ being Thomas Jefferson. He provided the answer, in his famous quote about fertilizing the tree of liberty.
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More Mentor History
Since they are getting all nostalgic for 1963 for Mentor's 50th anniversary, it is appropriate to explore some more cryptic local
history.
This post concerns developers, specifically, the I&S Land Company. In the 1950s and 60s this company bought up large tracts of vacant land in Mentor, land that had been farm land and forests. They created two major housing developments: Living Homes off Route 615 and Pinegate off Hopkins and Hendricks Roads.
Near one of these developments was a pre-existing small farm engaged in animal husbandry. When people started moving into the development, they complained about the farm, and started a petition against it. They said the manure smell was so bad they couldn't sit outdoors.
The funny thing is, there were neighbors living closer to the farm, neighbors who were not part of the I&S development. These neighbors did not complain. Certainly the closer neighbors would have smelled the manure even more, if there even was a odor problem. Another funny thing: the I&S development was upwind of the farm, given the prevailing winds.
This strongly suggests that the complainers were paid to complain, to LIE, and probably were given a discount on the houses if they did.
If I&S did this, what else did they do? Think about the economic dynamics here. Each business has a supply side and a demand side. I&S provided the supply side, building houses. But where was the demand?
Why would people in Cleveland or the inner suburbs, say East Cleveland or Euclid, move out here? Why leave a familiar neighborhood in the city, with public transportation available, to move to Mentor and have to drive 20 some miles each way to work, even if there was a new freeway?
Sure, the I&S houses were new, and maybe a bit larger, and with somewhat larger lots, but was this worth the move?
Remember what was going on in city neighborhoods in the 1960s: blockbusting. A black person buys a house in a white neighborhood, and that triggers white flight.
If I&S had the capital to buy lots of land and build housing developments, certainly they had the money to buy houses in white
Cuyahoga County neighborhoods when one went up for sale. Maybe they then sold them to black people, maybe even at a loss.
The result: instant demand for what I&S was building in Mentor. It would not be surprising if I&S worked both the supply and the demand side.
The results of this: an influx of people from the city who wanted the same "free" government services they had in the city. These services are not free, they are paid for with taxes, so taxes went up.
These city people were obsessed with "property values." Remember, they fled their former neighborhoods in fear of declining property values caused by racial integration. So they thought they could force their standards on their neighbors who were here first. This is the root cause of a lot of code enforcement complaints.
Wildlife habitat was destroyed, leading to the "deer problem" which is now a hot issue.
These city people had lots of kids - it was the Baby Boom generation, and that flooded the school system. So new schools had to be built, and more teachers hired - meaning more taxes.
Too bad the parties that profited from this - the developers - were not forced to foot the bill for the problems they caused. Instead, the bill went to the residents, in the form of increased real estate, sales and income taxes. And the people who were here first, when Mentor was a rural, low cost-of-living area, got hit the hardest, relative to their ability to pay.
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2013 - What's to celebrate?
Here it is, now the year 2013. Fifty years ago, in 1963, Mentor Township and the Village combined to become the City of Mentor. Of course they have planned all sorts of hoopla to celebrate this anniversary.
I say, what's to celebrate? What has becoming a city done for (or to) us, particularly those of us who were township residents? It has resulted in more restrictions, less freedom, higher taxes, more people, more congestion, and more problems.
As the character Mal Reynolds in the film "Serenity" said, "That's what government is for, to get in a man's way."
So fifty years ago we got more and bigger government in Mentor. Instead of calling it the City of Mentor, maybe it's more accurate to call it Occupied Mentor. What they are celebrating is 50 years of occupation by corrupt, greedy government, in conjunction with greedy private interests.
An example of the long-term corruption: I have an uncle, now deceased, who, in the early 1960s, applied to become a Mentor policeman. The interview process included an unusual question: If he became aware of any wrongdoing in the police department, would he want the public to know about it? His answer was yes, the public should know about it.
Wrong Answer! That cost him the job. What word, other than corrupt, can describe a hiring process in a public agency that is designed to weed out applicants with honor and ethics, who might become whistleblowers?
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Why the Fourth Amendment and the right to privacy are important
This is taken from American Heritage, February 1962, "Then and There the Child Independence was Born."
The article describes the arguments of attorney James Otis against the English crown's general writs of assistance in 1761.
"Anticipating ideas that would be set forth in the Declaration of Independence fifteen years later, Otis argued that the rights to life, liberty and property were derived from nature and implied the guarantee of privacy, without which individual liberty could not survive . . .
Relying on English lawbooks to prove that only special warrants were legal, Otis attacked the writs as 'instruments of slavery,' whch he swore to oppose to his dying day with all the powers and faculties God had given him. Defending the right of privacy, he pointed out that the power to issue general search warrants placed 'the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.' The freedom of one's house, he contended, was 'one of the most essential branches of English liberty.' In perhaps his most moving passage he was reported to have declared:
'A man's house is his castle, and whilst he is quiet he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our homes when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court, can inquire. Bare suspicion
without oath is sufficient. This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain . . . What a scene does this open! Every man, prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house. may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defense; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and blood.'
With remarkable prescience Otis' words captured the mood of the midnight visitation by totalitarian police which would terrify a later era less sensitive to individual freedom."
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Does this not describe the spirit of code enforcement, which in Mentor, is urging people to report their neighbors to the petty officers and menial servants in the city's employ? in 1761 the child independence was born in a Boston courtroom, but has it died already in Mentor?
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Eastlake code enforcement officer resigns after INCEDENT EXPOSURE incident
http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2012/03/30/news/doc4f75d79dcb8ec371992216.txt
This is why these people should have thorough background checks and psychological testing.
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Mentor hires new code enforcement supervisor:
http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2012/03/10/news/doc4f5a12ff51b1a186208717.txt#blogcomments
Andrew Rose lives at 8027 Linden St., Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio.
Looks like a double dipper and politician to boot. SHUN mode: full on!
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Mentor runs ad for Code Enforcement Supervisor
on Christmas Day, 2011. How disgusting.
Let's hope Mentor reveals who gets this job, so that those of us who love liberty may SHUN this individual.
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Code Enforcement = Racism and Bigotry
The views expressed by some of the commenters on these news stories clearly show the hateful, racist motives of those who favor code enforcement:
http://news-herald.com/articles/2011/12/20/news/nh4881572.txt?viewmode=comments
http://news-herald.com/articles/2011/12/12/news/nh4853767.txt?viewmode=comments
If Ambrose Bierce were to update his Devil's Dictionary, he might include this entry:
Code enforcement: a method used to enforce racial, ethnic or economic purity in a community.
No need to use crude KKK tactics like wearing hoods and robes, or burning crosses. Just rat to code enforcement for the supposed goal of maintaining property values.
It's a way to keep the undesirables out (or force them out, if they were there first), or "there goes the neighborhood." Remember that phrase?
So, where are the ACLU, NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, Hispanic advocacy groups, fair housing groups, etc.? They should be suing cities for discriminatory practices.
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More tyranny in zip 44060:
This time, in Mentor on the Lake:
http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2011/09/16/news/doc4e73633681e94418902491.txt#blogcomments
UPDATE: the homeowner won! Always, always fight the tyrants.
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Great quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? [...] The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!" —Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (Chapter 1 "Arrest")
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Mentor Strikes Again!
Now they are targeting a family that has naturally landscaped their yard to provide wildlife habitat:
http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2011/07/28/news/nh4297893.txt?viewmode=default
And, of course, a snitch, a busybody neighbor, complained to the city, which is now persecuting them.
The N-H story mentions Mentor arborist Ben Askren. The Lake County Auditor's property records show that Ben Askren owns a home and property at 2519 Crestwood Drive in PERRY TOWNSHIP (but with a Painesville mailing address). He does not live in Mentor. If residency is required of city employees, his employment with the city is ILLEGAL. Anything he writes on a city letterhead is null and void. He is not qualified to testify for the city in court. Everything he does on Mentor's behalf is the fruit of the poisonous tree.
If residency is not required, then he is a hypocrite, as he is unwilling to live under the laws he enforces.
Fight back, people. The city is not God, and is not infallible. Use their mistakes against them.
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Is Mentor's Code Enforcement engaging in Unconstitutional Surveillance?
This information is from the personnel records of Mentor's code inspector. A troubling statement in these records is a 2010 goal of "develop an Energov program to monitor issues that are not yet code violations." Energov is a software system.
This sounds like a government spying/surveillance program to monitor citizens who have broken no laws. This is unconstitutional!
The Mentor inspector has been cited in a performance review for being unable to control his temper in dealing with the public. Quote: "Bob demonstrates quality internal customer service skills, but improvement is required in external custimer skills. More effort to be made in controlling temper when dealing with irrate citizens."
Yes, that is the actual horrendous spelling.
Sounds like this inspector has an axe to grind against citizens.
Oh, and, isn't it clever that they refer to their victims as "customers"?
It's time for us "irrate custimers" to rise up against tyranny.
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What is a Code Enforcement Official?
Yes, they enforce zoning codes, but what is their legal status? They aren't police, but have some degree of police powers.
They think they can enter private property at will, without a warrant. They think they can repeatedly inspect and photograph
private property, like a stalker.
Are there state or national professional standards for these people? Any official course of study for training or certification? Police officers have to have official training, so why don't these people, especially if they can invade the sanctity of your private property?
Are there requirements for background checks, including criminal, credit, psychological testing, and continual drug/alcohol screening? I want these types of screening for anyone who thinks they can enter my property.
Remember, Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, was a code enforcement officer!
How are these people chosen for the job? From media accounts, it appears that a politician's brother-in-law or other relative or double dipper often gets the job as a political favor in small communities. In Mentor's case, the individual was the administrative assistant for the former city manager. When that city manager was fired, his replacement apparently did not want the assistant's services, but, under civil service rules, he could not be terminated from city employment, so they stuck him in code enforcement. Is that the right way to fill the job, with someone they don't know what else to do with?
If local governments are to have these jobs, enforcing these laws, then do it right. When filling the position, have professional, objective standards. The job should not be a reward for a crony or a dumping ground for someone they
can't get rid of. Have full background checks. Require them to complete a professional course of study, just like the police have to go to school before becoming a cop.
Of course, it might just be easier to respect private property rights and abolish all laws that infringe on those rights.
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How the Snitch Stole Christmas - and Liberty
Twas the night before Christmas, but there was no joy in the house.
There was much anxiety, thanks to the louse,
The snitch, that reported me to Satan's * minions,
Because my mode of living does not match his opinions
Of how someone in Mentor should live.
And the coward, his name he did not give.
So where is my right to face my accuser,
Of that right and others, Mentor is the abuser.
This is the legacy of the culture of the snitch,
History is replete with the horrors of which:
The Inquisition, the KGB, the Savak, the Stasi,
And of course the feared Gestapo of the Nazis.
The Bill of Rights is supposed to prevent these abuses,
But cities can thwart justice with the label of nuisance,
A magic word that can justify any violation of rights,
All the city has to do is declare something a blight.
So now comes July 4th and I ponder the solution,
It is clearly time for the Second American Revolution.
With luck it can be peaceful, as in vote the bums out,
But if not, let me leave there no doubt
That change will come, and liberty be restored,
And the tyrants will trample on freedom no more.
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Is promoting a snitch culture that would be the envy of Stasi a legitimate goal in a free society? Especially in the realm
of code enforcement, where the laws involved are entirely mala prohibita and not mala in se. (Google the terms. In brief, we are not talking about real crimes, with real victims, like theft or murder, here.)
(* The enemy of your freedom is also the enemy of your soul. - a writer on Survivalblog.com)
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Are you facing aggressive and MALICIOUS code enforcement in Mentor?
These are some tips I have come up with for dealing with the code fascists:
1. Practice privacy and security. Loose lips sink ships, and keep anything that might be a violation out of plain view. This includes from the air. Assume that someone is watching from the sky (Google Earth, aerial photos, etc.).
2. Learn your 4th and 5th Amendment rights. I would recommend www.flexyourrights.org as a good start in learning how to deal with the cops and other government agents. Never consent to any searches, and don't talk to the police.
3. Post your property with No Trespassing signs. If an inspector (or the police) enters your property without a warrant, that is illegal, and you can have their evidence thrown out in court (fruit of the poisonous tree). What I have seen, the inspectors seemed to be in fear of No Trespassing signs, and fearful of trespassing. Having a dog with a Beware of Dog sign might scare them off too, but then, maybe that's another violation.
4. Put a gate, or chain, across your driveway. If you can, fence your property, or plant bushes and trees that can provide privacy from prying eyes.
5. If you get a letter from code enforcement, immediately hit them with a public records request pursuant to Ohio Revised Code Section 149.43. Request all records relating to any inspections of your property, a copy of the complaint, the identity of the complainant, and the personnel records of the inspectors. ORC 149.43 provides for monetary damages if the city does not produce all relevant documents, though you will have to sue them for this.
6. If you think the city was using Google Earth to catch you, write to Google and complain. Google Earth is intended for personal use only. If a city wants to use it, they have to get a license from Google and pay the appropriate license fees. A city on Long Island was using Google Earth to find unlicensed swimming pools. They stopped using it, even though they had collected about $75,000 in fines, after Google told them to get a license. They city didn't want to pay the license fees. (Address for Google: Google, Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94093)
7. Contact the various interest groups that deal with civil rights, property rights, etc., such as the ACLU and Institute for Justice. They may not take your case, but if enough people bring this to their attention, they might do something.
8. File a complaint with any state, federal, or local agency that investigates government misconduct or wrongdoing. Contact your state representative and senator.
9. Sue. If you find out who complained, file a lawsuit against the snitch (for conspiracy to violate your civil rights, among other causes of action). If your constitutional rights have been violated by the government, file a Section 1983 (42 USC 1983) lawsuit in federal court.
10. Consider going to the news media. Yes, most of the mainstream media is statist, but you might find a sympathetic reporter. It might help to portray your case not as a libertarian or property rights issue, but rather that you are being persecuted for recycling, "going green" or being healthy in raising your own food, depending on your situation. And consider the cyberspace alternative media. These illegal government actions should be exposed, as sunshine is the best moral
disinfectant. Government entities do not like negative publicity, so your goal should be to make sure they get the maximum amount of it.
11. If the city takes you to court, insist on a trial by a Fully Informed Jury. Challenge the constitutionality of their ordinances. Check out the Void for Vagueness link.
Yes, I know taking these actions will put you on the radar screen, when you would prefer to stay off it. But, if you are facing code enforcement, you are already on the radar screen. Fight back, never give up. They are counting on us being fearful sheep who will roll over and be slaughtered. If all their victims fight back and tie them up in lawsuits, they will be
gridlocked. Their inspectors can't do any inspections if they are in depositions every day. And maybe nobody will want these inspection jobs if they are held personally liable for violating citizens' civil rights.
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Does Mentor city manager Ken Filipiak really live in Mentor?
I believe residence in the city is required for city employees.