October 10, 2006

I Have been working on the A.C.E. database of persons around the country who have been seeking information on starting an A.C.E. Chapter in thier state and community.  During  that time all three of these editorials have crossed my desk.  Each one is very important and states hard facts that we all must look at and then act upon.  We must all work together to fight the corruption in our government and fight to regain our Republic.  We must elect new members into Congress.  The first editorial asks us some very important questions.  The second editorial points out some facts that cannot be overlooked.  The third editorial shows us the devious plans and actions of our elected government.  We must not and cannot tolerate this kind of action any longer.    Ken Pekarek Sr.

 

The Non-Negotiable Cost of Freedom:
Are Americans Still Willing to Pay?

By J.B. Williams

The high cost of freedom has never been negotiable, yet it seems many Americans wish to negotiate anyway. The historic depth of political division across America is proof of just how badly some want to negotiate the price of being free. Several elections have ended in close calls of late and the future of our nation hinges not upon partisan bickering, but rather upon the very real question of whether or not Americans still have the stomach to endure individual liberty.

It isn't enough to desire freedom. Every human being on earth seeks freedom. However, different people of differing environmental influences define freedom in different ways. Freedom means something very different to those who have only known tyranny, as compared to those who have only known freedom. For those who have lived in bondage, no price is too high for freedom. For those who have never known bondage, freedom often has little meaning.

Like life itself, which we assume will last forever on most days - we hardly appreciate freedom or life until we are on the brink of losing it. Then, often only then, do we grasp a deep appreciation for what we spend most days taking for granted? Must it come to the brink before we wise up? If so, I think we are getting close, too close for comfort anyway.

The price of freedom

It's not as if one can place a dollar value on this thing called freedom. If we could, we'd have to say it's worth every penny, down to our last. Ask anyone ever held captive for ransom. Their earthly riches seemed a pittance, hardly worth a thought, when compared to the notion of never being free again.

The price of freedom is the same for everyone, though some pay more than their fair share while others pay nothing at all. Throughout history, the price of freedom for all has been paid by a few who loved freedom enough to pay the cost for everyone, even as they were spat upon and rejected as brutal criminals, rather than the unselfish patriots they were.

Freedom is all encompassing. Limited freedom is not freedom at all. Don't confuse freedom with anarchy however. Those who seek to limit freedom always argue that complete freedom is anarchy. This might have been true in the old Wild West as the nation was being settled. It is also true that every communist state ended in anarchy, once the people overthrew their captors.

Financial freedom

Capitalism is nothing more than individual financial and social economic freedom. The price of financial or economic freedom is the potential for failure. Financial freedom requires individual risk taking. Those who have experienced success have also experienced failure at some point in their journey. In order to pursue success, one must accept the risk of failure. In order to succeed, one must endure and overcome those failures.

Those unwilling to risk failure are not in a position to grasp the brass ring as it passes. Their opportunity for success is governed only by their individual fear of failure. To escape the potential for total loss, one must forfeit all opportunity for complete success. In so doing, whether rich or poor, each has chosen thier own path. This is what it means to be financially and economically free. This is what it is to determine one's own financial destiny. This is freedom... and this is its price.

Religious freedom

How odd that unregulated religious speech would be deemed unconstitutional in a nation where the Bible was the very first textbook in every public school. How strange that those sworn to uphold and preserve the constitution would read the very First Amendment of that constitution, specifically written to guarantee a right of free religious expression, a free press and freedom to assemble, even when at odds with the government, as a form of restricting these freedoms.

The price of religious freedom is religious tolerance. In order to experience true free religious expression, we must accept and tolerate all religious views. We must not silence any religious expression, anywhere, any time, as long as such speech is peaceful in its nature. The founders only spoke of two restrictions on religious speech. The first, that only peaceful religious speech was to be respected and protected. The second, that the federal government could never establish any official state sanctioned religion by passage of law, nor prohibit any peaceful religious expression anywhere, at any time.

All other interpretations are inventions of those who seek to remove First Amendment rights, restricting or eliminating religious speech and expression from public discourse. This endeavor is wholly un-American on its face as it undermines our nation's most fundamental basis for all other freedoms and liberties.

Freedom to live

Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which established our national sovereignty as well as our founding belief systems, guarantees us, all of us who were endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, above all things, an individual right to life.

Make no mistake... A right to liberty and happiness are meaningless in any nation where one does not first have a right to live, to life itself. Yet many of those who again, were sworn to protect and uphold these ideals, have somehow reasoned that life is not in any way protected by our founding documents or those enumerated ideals.

The price of the right to life is the responsibility to live correctly, responsibly, morally and ethically. This has proven to be too high a price for many. So the right to life has been traded in for the right to live irresponsibly, immorally and unethically.

Freedom of individual liberty

Individual liberty means the right to make individual choices about private matters that affect only yourself and your family. Again, don't confuse this with civic duties, which affect everyone in the community, which we also have a right and responsibility to face.

Liberty is not guaranteed any certain race, creed or color in America. It is guaranteed every individual. It is not a government issued or regulated right. Our Creator endowed it, unalienable by even elected men.

The price of individual liberty is the forfeiture of any federal power to define and administer a greater communal good. In liberty, the power is entrusted with every individual, regardless of race, creed, color, social or economic standing, not in any central governing power that would use private resources to buy favor with voters and empower only the ruling class elite in control of individual financial standings.

The price of self-governance

America is all about freedom, life, liberty, individual rights and self-reliance. It's also about civility, a genuine concern for others, charity and common interests for a healthy, happy society. America is about responsible self-governance, not irresponsible federal power running roughshod over our nation's productive and responsible citizens to serve the needs of our irresponsible and non-productive.

The price of self-governance is self-reliance. To remain in charge of ourselves, we must control ourselves. To live void of federal tyranny, we must participate in private acts of charity. The price of self-governance is, when things go wrong, we have only ourselves to blame. If government is too big, too wasteful, too detached, too corrupt, too socialist and too un-American, it's our fault. We are a government of, by and for the people. Our government is no better or worse than our people allow.

The price of self-governance is - the buck stops here...

Many sworn to uphold these principles seek to undermine them today, negotiating the non-negotiable cost of liberty in search of some federally issued balance that better suits the greater communal good. The two ideas are mutually exclusive however. Federal power, to define and control individual standards of living, and individual liberty cannot co-exist. One first limits, and then eventually snuffs out the other. The list of American freedoms were once almost endless, too many to ever list or number. The Tenth Amendment of our constitution says it all really.

"The powers not delegated to the United States [federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Simply paraphrased, any rights not specifically assigned to the federal government via the written language of the Constitution, remained the individual rights of the people and their local representative bodies in each state. It's hard to say it any plainer than that... As an aside, this is the problem with using unwritten language when liberally interpreting the constitution. When the written words don't serve the socialist agenda, they depart the written word and lean on unwritten intent. But it is the written, the recorded founding principles that we are called to uphold.

In those written words, the founders did not entrust the federal government with any broad socialist form of power over the greater communal good. They did not entrust any central power with a right to regulate the financial, religious, political, moral or ethical governance of the individual. They entrusted the individual to govern themselves, every individual...

They assigned only those few rights written in the constitution to the federal government and with that assignment, a responsibility to carry out those orders in accordance with the will of the people and the states.

Socialists, marketing their agenda under the guise of "democratic progressive liberalism", tell us that anything less than socialism lacks social conscience. They use unwritten intent to circumvent written constitutional standards in that effort and nobody warned us better about this than Soviet Leader Khrushchev, who put it this way...

"You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism out right, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you fall like over-ripe fruit into our hands."

Today's Democrats have proven Khrushchev wise beyond his time... Today's "democratic progressive liberal" is neither liberal nor American, on the basis of their agenda and the methods they employ to trick American voters into voting for growing federal tyranny. Many of today's Republicrats are not much better.

At the end of the day, the choice is simple...Freedom or free stuff... Take your pick, because you can't have both! All roads lead somewhere. Nothing in life is stagnate. Everything is either growing or dying.

Freedom and liberty are either expanding or contracting... Capitalism and communism are the political polar opposites. Everything in between is socialism, varying only by degree.

Every American must choose between freedom, personal liberty, capitalism, self-reliance, self-determination and self-governance, and some degree of socialism on the path to communism. Too many think this battle for ideas ended when the Soviet Union fell and the Berlin Wall came down. That was one victory, one battle, in an ongoing debate. The war continues today, only the battle tactics have changed.

The "Reds" are not driving tanks into our cities, they have been slowly indoctrinating Americans to accept, even vote for socialism via Hollywood movies, daily press propaganda and the education system. Those already indoctrinated scoff at every premise in this column. Those who know I'm right, find nothing funny about it at all.

This is the choice Americans are making every time they enter a voting booth today. But it can all be boiled down to one simple choice -- federal free stuff or personal freedom. That's the choice. Make it carefully!

JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy. He is published nationwide and in many countries around the world.

JB. Williams can be reached at:
JBW@JB-Williams.com

This page printed from: http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/williams092606.htm

 

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Documents disclose
'shadow government'
Indicate U.S. far advanced in constructing bureaucracy united with Mexico and Canada.

 

Government documents released by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal the Bush administration is running a "shadow government" with Mexico and Canada in which the U.S. is crafting a broad range of policy in conjunction with its neighbors to the north and south, asserts WND columnist and author Jerome R. Corsi.

The documents, a total of about 1,000 pages, are among the first to be released to Corsi through his FOIA request to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, which describes itself as an initiative "to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three countries through greater cooperation."

"The documents clearly reveal that SPP, working within the U.S. Department of Commerce, is far advanced in putting together a new regional infrastructure, creating a 'shadow' trilateral bureaucracy with Mexico and Canada that is aggressively rewriting a wide range of U.S. administrative law, all without congressional oversight or public disclosure," Corsi said.

Among the initial discoveries, said Corsi, is the existence of an internal Intranet website that never has been revealed to Congress or the public.

"This private internal website," he claims, "undoubtedly contains a wealth of documentation that the FOIA request has so far intentionally excluded."

Corsi told WND the documents reveal hundreds of internal meetings, memoranda of understanding and other referenced agreements that have not been disclosed.

"We have here the beginnings of a whitewash," he said, "in which SPP evidently thinks the public will be hoodwinked by a 'Myths vs. Facts' document posted for public relations purposes on their public website."

Among the documents is an organizational chart accompanied by a listing of trilateral Mexican, Canadian and U.S. administrative officers who report on multiple cabinet level "working groups."

The government watchdog Judicial Watch announced today it has received some of the same documents, including the organizational chart, which can be seen in this pdf file, on page seven.

"There is no specific authorization for this massive administrative-branch integration with Mexico and Canada other than what amounts to a press conference jointly issued by President Bush, Mexico's President Vicente Fox, and Canada's then-Prime Minister Paul Martin on March 23, 2005, at the end of their summit in Waco, Texas," Corsi said.

Corsi added that even the "Myth vs. Facts" blurb on the SPP.gov website admits the SPP is neither a treaty nor a law.

"The Bush administration is trying to create the infrastructure of a new regional North American government in stealth fashion, under the radar and out of public view," Corsi claims. "Where is Congress, asleep at the wheel?"

The SPP organizational chart Corsi obtained shows 13 working groups covering a wide range of public policy issues, including Manufactured Goods; Energy, Food & Agriculture; Rules of Origin' Health; E-Commerce; Transportation; Environment; Financial Services; Business Facilitation; External Threats to North America; Streamlined & Secured Shared Borders; and Prevention/Response within North America.

U.S. administrative-branch officers participating in these working groups are drawn from the U.S. departments of State, Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Health and Human Services, and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The released documents affirm that counterparts from official governmental agencies in Mexico and Canada are combined with the U.S. administrative branch to form new trilateral "working groups" that actively rewrite U.S. administrative law to "harmonize" or "integrate" with administrative law in Mexico and Canada.

"What we have here amounts to an administrative coup d'etat," Corsi told WND.

"Where does the Bush administration get the congressional authorization to invite two foreign nations to the table to rewrite U.S. law?"

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If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.

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Related offers:

For a comprehensive look at the U.S. government's plan to integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada into a North American super-state – guided by the powerful but secretive Council on Foreign Relations – read "ALIEN NATION: SECRETS OF THE INVASION," a special edition of WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine.

 

 

 

BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN DENIAL OF 'NORTH AMERICAN UNION' PLANS

 

 

 

By Tom DeWeese
NewsWithViews.com

“Conspiracy theories.” “Fringe nuts.” “Lies.” “Myths.” These are the words being used by officials of the Bush Administration and others to brand those who have reported on the activities of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), currently operating out of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Opponents have charged the SPP will result in the establishment of a North American Union, much on the same lines as the European Union.

In response to its critics, the SPP has added a “SPP Myths Vs Facts” section to its website at www.SPP.gov. According to the “Myths Vs Facts” document the SPP is simply a “dialog” among the three countries to “enhance prosperity.” It goes on to say the SPP is not an agreement, nor is it a treaty. It says “no agreement was ever signed.”

The truth is, on March 23, 2005, President Bush met at his ranch in Crawford, Texas with Vicente Fox and Paul Martin (then PM of Canada) in what they called a Summit. The three heads of state then drove to Baylor University in Waco, where they issued a press release announcing their signing of an agreement to form the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).

This year, on March 31, 2006, Bush. Fox and new Canadian PM, Stephen Harper met in Cancun, Mexico. This time their press release celebrated what they called the first anniversary of the SPP.

The use of the word “dialog” is a carefully selected euphemism designed to make the SPP sound like an innocent discussion among friends. To admit that it is anything more would force the government to provide Constitutional justification for its actions.

Moreover, the SPP says it won’t change our court system or legislative process and that it respects the sovereignty of each nation. And, says the SPP Myths and Facts document, it strongly rejects the idea that it is creating a European Union-like structure.

That defense is almost laughable in light of the massive activity-taking place in the SPP office located in the Commerce Department.

First one must know that the European Union was also originally sold to the nations on the European continent as simply a trade and security framework. The idea, said proponents, was to create an economic structure to allow a combined European economy to compete with the United States and other economic powerhouses. Only a few years later nations were told they needed a common currency to provide seamless trade. At the same time, the working groups organizing the EU policy began to morph into what today has become a European Union parliament, which now is working to create a means of taxation, regulation of commerce and a court system.

Now, in offices buried in the bureaucratic structures of the United States, Canada and Mexico, twenty “working groups” are hard at work writing policy initiatives for the SPP, covering a wide range of issues including, the manufacture and movement of goods across the borders of the three North American nations: creating a common energy policy and common environmental regulations over the three nations; regulating E-commerce and information communications and technologies; establishing financial services, including loan policy and foreign aid policy; overseeing business facilitation, creating the rules under which businesses will operate in the three nations; establishing food and agriculture policy; and overseeing transportation and health policy.

These policy directives will infringe on every aspect of our lives. Can anyone seriously accept the Administration’s explanation that nothing really important is going on here? That this is only a friendly discussion taking place? That nothing will change in the way our government operates? If that were so, then why are we doing it? Why are so much time, money and energy being taken up in an effort that means nothing? The answer, of course, is that lots is going on.

It’s no accident that the SPP is working out of the NAFTA office of the Department of Commerce. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the precursor to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. According to investigative journalist, Jerome Corsi, a key part of the SPP plan is to expand the NAFTA tribunals into a North American Union court system.

Under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA Agreement, a tribunal conducts a behind closed-doors “trial” to decide the cases dealing with how state and federal laws may damage NAFTA business. If NAFTA investors believe state or federal laws damage their NAFTA businesses, under the tribunal the investor may sue the government and taxpayers will foot the bill. The NAFTA tribunal decision trumps the U.S. courts, all the way to the Supreme Court. Yet, the Bush Administration insists the SPP will have no effect on our court system.

The SPP says it is a myth that Congress is not involved or supportive of its actions. The truth is, to date, there has been no legislation passed by Congress to permit its actions. No taxpayer funds have been appropriated. One “hearing” was held in Senator Richard Lugar’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was a friendly affair with friendly “dialog.” No tough questions were asked. No one was held accountable for their actions.

Meanwhile, members of Congress are beginning to become aware of the SPP activities at the Commerce Department. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) is demanding the Bush Administration fully disclose the activities of the SPP, which he says, has no authorization from Congress.

Specifically, Tancredo wants to know the membership of the SPP working groups. To date, no one knows who is involved, or is performing the work to create the policies of the SPP. Geri Word, who heads the SPP office told World Net Daily that the work has not been disclosed because “We did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public.” Yet the SPP denies it is working in secret.

Additional congressional reaction has come from Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). He had introduced a bill, “The North American Investment Act” (S.3622). Incredibly the bill contains near exact language from the book by Robert Pastor entitled “Toward a North American Community.” Pastor’s book is largely considered to be the blue print for the creation of the North American Union. Much of the contents of the book later appeared in a report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) entitled “Building a North American Community.” That report was issued just a week before the Summit in Waco.

However, once these facts were demonstrated to Senator Cornyn, he immediately took efforts to assure S.3622 would not be voted on in the Senate. His spokesman stated that Senator Cornyn “is adamantly opposed to any ‘North American Union’ being formed like the EU had been formed in Europe.” Regardless of how the Administration spins it, there is no congressional authorization for SPP actions or spending.

The SPP denies that it is planning to create a unique currency some have called the “Amero.” However, on April 6, 2006, the SPP announced the formation of the Financial Services Working Group. According to its own news release, the Financial Group will focus on “enhancing processes for addressing banking, securities, and insurance issues.” It goes on to say, “U.S. financial regulatory agencies will play a critical role in the SPP.”

In truth, the SPP is being put into place incrementally. It will take years before everything is in place. It took the European Union several years to create the Euro. However, the guiding documents from Dr. Pastor’s book and the CFR report both call for the creation of a North American currency. It is obvious, if one dissects the double speak of the bureaucratic language of the SPP, in order for it to reach its goal to “reduce the cost of trade,” “combat counterfeiting,” and “facilitate trade” among three nations trying to act as one, the drive for a single currency will not be questioned.

And finally, there is the issue of the NAFTA super highway. NAFTA was the first step in creating a North American Union. It was sold as a means to enhance trade among the North American nations. All were promised greater exports, better jobs and better wages. In truth, NAFTA is an unmitigated failure for all but a very few. The U.S. trade deficit has soared to almost $1 trillion per year; The U.S. has lost some 1.5 million jobs and real wages in both the U.S. and Mexico have fallen significantly. Yet, the agenda is set and so our government presses on.

The latest objective is the NAFTA super highway on which construction is planned to begin next year. It would bisect Texas from its border with Mexico to Oklahoma. It will travel on to Kansas City where an “inland port” is now in the final planning stages.

Plans call for a ten lane, limited access highway to parallel I-35 It would have three lanes each way for passenger cars, two express lanes each way for trucks, rail lines both ways for people and freight, plus a utility corridor for oil and natural gas pipelines, electric towers, cables for communications and telephone lines. The highway will require the taking of more than 500,000 acres of private land and is estimated to displace a million Americans from their property. Eminent Domain will be the tool of choice for the massive land grab ­ now made easier by last year’s Supreme Court ruling in the Kelo case.

The Kansas City Smart Port will be literally the first checkpoint on a highway that will run all the way from Columbia through the Hartland of the United States. Mexico will have a facility on the KC Smart Port site that it now insists will be Mexican sovereign land.

To make the NAFTA super highway reality, the borders of the three nations must disappear. Immigration will simply become “migration.” Border laws cannot exist. “Harmonizing” of our societies is becoming the catch phrase.

The SPP says its purpose is to guarantee security and prosperity for the three nations. The NAFTA model has already proven there will be no prosperity. The NAFTA super highway is proof there can be no security as we pave the way for more illegals to flood the nation, as truckloads of illegal drugs fly up the highway and terrorists just hitch a ride.

The United States is the most unique nation on earth. We were created out of a radical idea that free people, with their freedoms protected by the government would be happy and prosper beyond imagination. The idea worked. Now, the Bush Administration is ignoring this historic fact to “harmonize” us with Canada and especially Mexico, which is not a free country; has no property and has just proved its unworthiness of conducting free and fair elections. At risk are our culture, our wealth, and the once proud American way of life.

Americans must now understand that the battle to stop the North American Union is the last stand for a free and independent United States. That’s not a “Myth” it’s the truth.

© 2006 Tom DeWeese - All Rights Reserved

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Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center and Editor of The DeWeese Report , 70 Main Street, Suite 23, Warrenton Virginia.
(540) 342-8911

E-Mail: apcmail@americanpolicy.org   

Website: www.americanpolicy.org

Steph in Montana August 23, 2006

Written in Stephanie’s own words.

Ken Pekarek Sr....prelude

Stephanie, a woman from Whitefish Montana wrote the following article.  She has been trying to start and run a goat milking business on her land about nine miles from the town.  This article is about a Town Meeting Stephanie attended to find out what the Growth Planning Board was trying to do and to protest the violations of her rights as a citizen   She and her neighbors have been alarmed by the Growth Planning Board and the Town Council who has been slowly implementing Agenda 21 policies.  These policies include the removal of individual rights over your own land and resources, and the take over of land use and who has the right to control it.  Read this impassioned account of a meeting in the town.  Listen to Stephanie’s words and utter frustrations with dealing with bureaucratic entities and individuals who are corrupt and are totally abusing thier power and responsibilities. 

            Read Stephanie's account; two days worth of a meeting and her thoughts that accompany any trying experience.  God Bless you Steph!  Keep up the good work.  You will be in my prayers.  Ken

In Stephanie’s Own Words:

I just went to an Agenda 21 meeting.  In the guise of a growth policy
 planning meeting.  The directors tried to ram some open space, “let
 everyone use/own/ determine your land type of claptrap”, down our
 throats, (actually published at a
http://www.co.flathead.mt.us/fcpz/growthpolicy.html address).

One guy stood up and clamed he wanted compensation for all
the rights that were being taken away by the new proposed regulations which include land use, water right, zoning restrictions, and others, all to secure open viewable space and other undefined aspects such as “quality of life” I stood up and mentioned that I spent $10,000.00 on a well and $230,000.00 on the land including water rights.  I paid taxes on the well three times.  If they tax me for the water that I pull from “my” well, which I bought and paid for without any assistance from county, and they are getting revenue from my well then I should be compensated for my investment.   I have paid taxes on the land when I bought it and have paid taxes every year since.

 This stupid smart growth Agenda 21 is an obvious power grab by county officials backed possibly well moneyed investors, trying to look good to their constituents.  Part of this ploy is to force farmers to keep their land as zoned open agriculture land, until they sell it, then the next guy can change the zoning to allow high density housing.  That way the farmers support the open land and the politicians look like saviors for saving it.  The next land owners who can afford to buy large chunks of this land at lower values can then get rich selling it a second time as subdivided provisional use parcels.

 I'm sick! I saw the most blindsided corruption I think I can stand in one evening.  I could tell not one of those paid off planning board zombie fools were listening and that they were all in somebody’s pocket.  

Sickening and corrupt!     Oh "expletive”!
 I'm going to milk goats! In my dress and high heals. "Expletive!"
 Steph in Montana

            Ok all, it's the morning after and I've had some time to think over the
 events of last night.   

            There is a massive land grab going on in my county and it's super illogical and sneaky. Flathead County has 85% of the land held by government or industrial entities as forest and recreational open space. There were no land maps of the county at the planning meeting so no one could be sure what they were talking about because, although there were lots of suggestions, there were no maps to define what part of the county we were talking about.

An example is my town of Whitefish, which has a city population of a few hundred houses in a cluster around a crossroad.  The "city" has openly planned to annex my farm which is 9 miles out of town and gets no city services but soon we will start being charged for getting sewer, gas, water, and garbage pick up like we were part of the Whitefish city infrastructure.  I am not allowed into the town meetings because I am not a resident of the city but the town council will be able to annex us because there were no objections at the meeting, mostly because those who would have objected were excluded.  This is happening all over Montana apparently.

There is the largest unincorporated town in the United States just 20 miles south of me. They have there own garbage pick up, septic, water, gas and the only recycling center for plastic glass paper and metal in the whole state.  Everyone takes their recyclables to this unincorporated towns recycling center and the center actually makes a small profit, so it breaks even. {They make about $20.00 a year profit}. The roads are paved with sparkly crushed glass mixed with gravel and the garbage is picked up by a farmer with tractor and wagon {at least it used to be, I don't really know now}.  The people pay a state tax and a federal tax but no city tax for operating their infrastructure.  They have no city employees and no town government.  They operate this way because the area has covenants written in every parcel sold, that the owners will do their own garbage, and pay a purchase price to own a share of the well.  It all stays in an account like a homeowners association, which is applied by the homeowners as needed through an agreement between themselves. The people of Evergreen love this situation and there are many affordable small homes, a school, a shopping mall, and some giant package stores. Kalispell is trying to annex and incorporate Evergreen.  Even though the citizenry of Evergreen has rejected Kalispell every time for 10 years, the subject comes up every meeting, as it did last night.

There is a massive growth policy being implemented on the Flathead Valley. There has been a document created with the comments compiled from many unfocused meetings with various economic groups.  I was at one of these comment sessions around 6 months ago and those of us in the session were frustrated because we all clearly agreed that there was a green agenda being forced on our farmland.  Things like open space, views cape protection, and zero impact housing were considered.  These are some of the things we must work around even though they have a detrimental effect on the productivity or value of our land. At that session with the farmers we were told that the population was so big that we would need to sacrifice some of our rights to keep the lifestyle of the valley.  With 85% government and corporate owned land all around they hold the value by how they manage thier parcels. Nothing is stopping the government from selling a bit to make a profit on taxes or to put thier land under protected status.  The new open space initiatives are being exercised on the actual land owned by middle class income medium sized property owners.  The really big property’s with vast amounts of property held all around them by government and industry are not even recorded, considered or evaluated at all during these meetings.  Those practices inflate the value of the land that can be sold, which is owned by the landowners who have modestly sized parcels like small farmers and business owners and retired baby boomers.  The taxes get inflated because the few parcels that can be sold go for inflated prices, thus increasing the taxable value of all the local property’s and the needed income necessary for local small farms to maintain thier tax burdens and cash flow.  The farmers are then discouraged from selling thier parcels at the inflated fair market value with the regulations and zoning restrictions preventing them from doing what the industrial developers can easily do through changes of the restrictions after purchasing the farms for less than market value.  We were told it is for the greater good of the community that we maintain these open tracts of land and that we should sell our rights, to develop our properties into a government protected land trust. 

One farmer mentioned that he put a covenant on his land and there by created the unincorporated town of Evergreen and that “he didn't need no stinking land trust to do it”.  He just wrote his restrictions into every single land sale and if the buyers didn't like it when they looked at their sales contract, they could opt at that time not to buy his parcel.  It also leaves him the option of changing his mind, should they choose to buy out the clauses and restrictions at the sale or on a later date. There were no hidden rules to pop up
 later in their title deeds or unincorporated city by laws.  This farmer gets up
 and says the same thing about avoiding perpetuity agreements with
 giant land trusts last night at the meeting.  He advocated instead using a more accurate and manageable deed restriction that remains in the control of those who wrote it.

 So, back to the meeting that happened last night.  There were no maps of the planned implementation of restrictions and rezoning. This made everyone wonder what land was being restructured. The land mapping guy who developed the mapping system for the county 10 years ago, complained that the system was more than capable of producing maps of their proposed zoning restrictions. He noted that it might not have been provided because there is something dishonest going on with the council’s behavior concerning full disclosure.  He ran a full page add in the local papers at his own expense just before this meeting alerting me and about 400 other residents of the meeting.  The ad announced where and when the meeting was to be held and a few legal concerns about the adoption of the proposed new growth policy.  When I looked up the document it is a jumble of confusing comments with no direction, no maps of proposed zoning changes, and lots of broad undefined terms like "Property rights" "view shed" and "zero impact housing".  There was no effort made to define the meanings of these terms. There were several attempts to get these terms defined through questioning the directors at the meeting in the comment session but unfortunately the meeting was arranged so the directors need only listen and no requirement was allowed for interactive discourse, but just one side of the comments from the citizenry was presented.  No members of the planning board offered or provided a definition. The man who spoke before me looked like the Unabomber and promised he would show them what property rights meant with a gun. That‘s only good enough if you do nothing with your land, but if your land is a business a gun war will reduce your productivity.

Everyone thought I was a simpleton “Greeny” when my turn to speak came up. I started by stating I was representing several landowners who elected me to speak
for them from the north of Whitefish. That we were alarmed at the outrageous annexation and taxation plan we were facing at the hands of the local town council. That 65% of the city of Whitefish is not served by city services and is in fact rural not city. That we were capitol investors in our own infrastructure and we should not be charged as if we were under the services of the city’s utilities.  We were not represented in the town
 planning meetings because we are not part of the city limits, so not considered residents.  That we were effectively being taxed multiple times with out due representation.
 

In the document it states that participation is voluntary, but that the document would be used as a living changeable constitutional document for land use. This is obviously untrue and open to manipulation by moneyed investors.  There were many who complained about the supposed voluntary nature being in fact not voluntary at all but a manipulative way to slide restrictive land use legislation under the radar of local landowners.  Suffering the consequences of the unapproved plan being implemented are those of us who have 100 acre or less parcels in semi-urban areas.  We are feeling the anticipated effects even before it has been printed or finished through voluntary and cautionary compliances with the growth policy, such as overbuilding septic systems and preparing for reduced opportunities to dig wells and draw water from a ground water source.
            The county administrator for septic approval mentioned that the proposed new rules for septic approval were overly restrictive, had no common sense and were in fact impossible to implement.  They would suffocate new building and business thus bringing the current growth of the valley to a grinding halt.  He recently has been helping me get the septic system for my cheese making business approved.  He is doing this because if I wait I will never be allowed to open my business as I have had the rules for my septic system changed 5 times in 18 months.
            There are many good people trying to get the planning board to make it a document giving power to the local entities involved.  Unfortunately the document seems to be implementing something agreed to in a predetermined universal document we cannot find or read.  Forest thinning and water quality is one example of the obtuse thinking.  It states that it is human use that ruins the water and also separately it is human use that ruins the forests but in fact everyone knows that by not thinning the forests it causes massive fires that cause runoff that chokes the waterway. This is only one example where the plan does not consider the interrelatedness of our natural resources and the need for quick local control to prevent multiple disasters.  They are pushing to get this implemented in October, with out maps, with out a document outlining the actual rules and with out definitions of the vocabulary being used.

 Of the 400 people present the majority were very unhappy with the current borderless and undefined document.  I didn't win a place on the evening news but was
recorded because I dress and look like a “Green Nazi”, and spoke without cussing during my comments.  We'll see if it's just a picture or if they include some of my impassioned speech anywhere in the TV piece about the meeting.
            After the meeting I was surrounded by a fan club of folks who agreed
 with what I said.  Because I am a member of the E-mail information group
 named after A.C.E. (American for Constitutional Enforcement), and I was informed on the issues through that group.  I was able to speak with more accurate information and also able to infer the results of the implemented proposed growth policy better than many speakers who were present.  Although none of us were nearly as articulate as the local candidate for the Constitution Party who clearly understands the tactics and misleading legal documents designed to negate our Bill of Rights and the National and State constitutions.

Steph in Montana

           

Another Growth Planning Meeting was held two days later and there were over 100 people in attendance.  Go to this site http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2006/08/12/news/news02.txt for the newspaper article listing several citizens’ comments. 

This is not just in Montana that this is happening.  It is happening all over the country in every state, city, town, and community.  The township councils, county commissioners, city councils, local commissions, State Departments of Natural Resources, are implementing it, including Departments of health, Water quality, and the list is endless.  The populace is not privy to what is going on because most of it is done in secret.   If not in secret it is done in such a way that those who should be there are omitted or not allowed to participate.  Much the same as Steph mentions above.  Steph and her neighbors are not alone as victims of these actions.  But without the people of this country getting involved they and we have no chance of survival at all.  By involvement I mean going to the meetings, becoming informed through whatever means is available to you.  Get together with your neighbors and form information seminars or learning sessions about how to fight the fight.  Steph and all of us are up against a big and powerful entity.  They have been working for many years with the help of your government elected representatives.  These representatives, your state and federal Senators, Representatives...your President, are not working for you.  Both the Democrats and the Republicans have betrayed us and do not deserve our “SACRED VOTE” Our VOTE is our only power and our SACRED RIGHT which should not be wasted on the likes of them...any of them.  They need to be removed from office, tried for treason and replaced with elected persons who TRULY believe in and will fight for Our Constitution, Our Rights, and our Sovereignty.