Quote:
Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
If I inherit 40 acres from my grandfather with a couple old cars and a chicken coop on it, I don't want anyone telling me the old cars are junk and the chickens have to go.
The only thing that prevented me from sticking a couple animals in my old suburban homestead was the zoning. Fact is, the social contract in the Boston 'burbs as a whole eliminate entire ways of life as an option in favor of uniform dullness. Zoning isn't so much contracting (like private restrictions) as it is enforced conformity of the minority by the majority.
And, on the forms of social control, bitch please. It is the Rs who are fond of social controls these days, whether the issue is abortion, free speech, or school mandates. Spanky is the one who thinks teachers should not be free to unionize. The Rs are the ones who want to mandate testing, eliminating curriculum choices for the local schools.
I would provide much more complete funding for education, and have nothing against getting that funding from a fair tax system, but that's why I say I'm the closest thing to a libertarian on the board. A true libertarian would slash education funding and home school.
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I agree with you on zoning. It is an infringement in the real estate market which allows the majority to get rid of the minority cheaply, where they'd otherwise have to pay the chicken farmer or junk lot owner a premium for his land to get their blessed little Hamlet just the way they like it. Zoning's another populist gift from govt which allows midle class people to live like the wealthy and protect their real estate investments. Say you've got a junk dealer near your development whom all your whitebread neighbors want to have thrown off the land. Wouldn't the cagey move be to fund his short term cash flow and help him shake down the neighborhood for a huge payout?
Of course it would, and in a real free market, there'd be a race to see who could buy an interest in that fellow's land. But that doesn't happen most of the time. Instead, the local town council passes an ordinance throw the junk farmer off his land. Where money should change hands in the private sector, it was instead spent bribing councilmen.
There's money in innovative thought, and it's money better handed to a clever bastard than passed in a paper bag from a developer to some town council member who'll just blow it on a new Lexus and a tit job for the secretary he's fucking.
