Americans are raised with the mythology that the republic protects their freedom, and that the British Government was corrupt and outdated, and an impediment to the realization of the traditional liberty of the individual. The truth, however, is that the founding fathers instigated a revolution for no purpose other than to secure absolute control over the nation, for none of the founders were supporters of any kind of democracy. They invented a system of government completely from their own imaginations, with no basis in traditional law, and imposed it upon the American people without ever soliciting the consent of the American people. Today, however, the country is in the stranglehold of the institutions they created, which have no intention of allowing the American people to realize the freedom they enjoyed under the ancient constitution, the pre-1776 constitution of the Anglo-American kingdom. As evidence of the reality of this, the following article outlines the on-going struggle of individuals to use their property, who have suffered at the hands of local governments, which have used zoning "laws" to make their properties useless. Ironically, the press has virtually ignored issues such as this, because it exposes the truth that the government, from the federal to the local level, is not interested in the general welfare of the American people. Now that individuals are suing the government, the press has no choice but to cover the issue, but one can only wonder why it took the media so long to acknowledge the fact that Big Brother has been pushing around ordinary, powerless citizens for decades, who had no recourse. The media is now fully exposed as a collaborator with the power structure of the republic, and it can no longer claim to be an independent "fourth estate;" instead it should rightfully share the blame for the sorry state of the nation.

WHEN PROPERTY IS NOT PRIVATE OR PUBLIC

By Kathy M. Kristof

LOS ANGELES TIMES, BUSINESS SECTION

Bernardine Suitum seems an unlikely champion for constitutional rights. At age 83, she's blind, bedridden and living with her daughter in Sacramento. Her income consists of her late husband's military pension and Social Security. Yet Suitum is in the midst of a costly 15-year battle over her right to own property. (And don't forget, the people who financed the government's battle to deny Ms. Suitum of her constitutional rights are taxpayers like us. WFI Editor) A government agency has denied her the use of her land, so she is suing to get her property back or receive payment for it. Her case has traveled through federal and appellate courts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and back to federal district court in Reno, Nevada. In the process, it has depleted savings she had put aside to build her home and pass on to her children.

Meanwhile, several hundred miles away, David and Shelley Rose are girding themselves for a similar fight. Their historic South Pasadena home is in the path of the Long Beach Freeway extension - which recently won approval from federal highway officials. Already, some of their neighbors charge that California transportation officials have deliberately depressed local property values in an effort to buy up heavily populated land along 4.3 miles at bargain-basement prices.

These cases, and hundreds like them, serve as a rallying cry for proposed national legislation dubbed the Private Property Rights Implementation Act, which has passed the House and is pending in the Senate. It is aimed at making it easier for individuals to take government agencies to court when private property has been seized or restricted for a public purpose. (Of course, when politicians create legislation they also create exceptions, so that even while they are addressing an issue, they are creating backdoors for bureaucrats, so that the end effect is to nullify the original law. WFI Editor) Individuals usually face a grueling series of administrative hurdles when they attempt to seek legal redress after a city, state or national government agency says it wants their property to make way for a freeway or to save the wetlands, says Jerry Howard, chief lobbyist for the National Assn. of Home Builders in Washington.

The 5^th Amendment to the Constitution (of 1787) guarantees that "no person shall be…deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Still, the administrative process is often so time-consuming and costly that property owners simply give up, Howard says. (Which overlooks the fact that while the individual has limited resources to litigate with, the government has unlimited resources, some of which is derived from the very individual under attack, in the form of public funds. WFI Editor) This is especially true, he adds, when the reclamation is subtle - instead of putting a freeway through your land, the agency wants you to leave the land undeveloped to preserve a public interest, be it a greenbelt or an endangered species. "The concept of regulation to preserve the public interest is something that I think everyone can agree with," says Pat Cashill, a Reno-based attorney who represents Suitum. "But if you are going to regulate away the right of somebody to use their property, you have to compensate them." (This only highlights the fact that the Bill of Rights are unenforceable because of the real, absolute power that is invested in the government under the Constitution of 1787. WFI Editor)

Suitum's case may be the most troubling example of how difficult and expensive it can be to protect individual rights from public claims. Her story began in 1972, when she and her husband traded a three-bedroom home in Sacramento for a one-third-acre lot in a soon-to-be built subdivision in Lake Tahoe. They planned to build an 1,800 square foot home in a middle-class neighborhood about a mile from the water. But after Suitum's husband became ill and died, she put aside her plans until 1982. By then, her lot was surrounded by other single-family homes; hers was the only empty lot.

Over the years, she and her children made numerous trips to Lake Tahoe in an effort to get a building permit. She was unable to get a response until she hired an attorney in 1989. At that point, the Tahoe Regional Planning Authority informed Suitum that her property was in a "stream environment zone" - Tahoe officials say this is their term for an environmentally sensitive wetland area. Suitum's attorneys say the "wetland" is actually a foot-wide ditch that runs along the back of her land - and behind other houses in the subdivision - from a waste-treatment plant to the water. As a result, Suitum can't build; she can't camp; she can't so much as picnic on her land, says her attorney, Cashill. Although they haven't officially condemned the property, Tahoe authorities have in effect taken the land - and without paying her a cent. To make matters worse, because Suitum technically owns the land, she still must pay taxes on it.

Tahoe officials say they did compensate Suitum for restricting the use of her land, but not with cash. They gave her "transferable development rights," which means she could sell the rights to develop a single-family residence somewhere in Tahoe - assuming the other property owner has enough land and isn't in an environmentally sensitive spot - but cannot develop her own property. What that right is worth, if anything, is unclear. Even in big, highly developed cities, such as Los Angeles, there is no open market for development rights. (These "transferable development rights" are an outright fraud. The City is denying the use of property on the basis that it is giving the owner the rights to develop another undesignated property, that they could still deny development rights to once it is designated! WFI Editor)

Nonetheless, Tahoe development authorities successfully stalled Suitum's legal claims for damages with the argument that these rights were "just compensation" under the law. Finally, Cashill and the Pacific Legal Foundation, a national non-profit service that fights for property rights, took Suitum's case to the Supreme Court. She won. The justices unanimously agreed that her property had been taken without just compensation. But that's not the end of her saga. Now she's back in federal court in Reno trying to establish the amount of damages. Collecting from the Tahoe Regional Planning Authority, which has no authority to pay for property, will be another challenge, Cashill says.

The stress of the legal battle has left Suitum, a normally fiery octogenarian, feeling frail. She recognizes that by the time she finally prevails - as she's sure she must - it may be too late for her to enjoy her home. Even as her fight goes into its 16^th year, she continues her battle because, she says, you have to stand up for what's right. "Wrong is wrong and right is right. They did wrong," she says. "I can't explain it another way. If I kick the bucket, I want my daughter to take over." So that the fight can go on.

SOURCE: Reprinted from the 31 May, 1998, issue of the Los Angeles Times, Orange County edition, BUSINESS section. Reprinted in the public service of the national interest of the American people.

(WFI EDITOR: In Dana Point, the community lives under the iron thumb of Planning Czar Ed Knight, and his cronies, Kit Fox and Angela Duzich. These people have wrought nothing but bad fortune upon Dana Point, as they trample the constitutional rights of life-long residents to accomplish their ill-conceived plans. With utter and complete disregard to the most basic moral principles, they have caused the utter ruination of what once was a genuine community. Hopefully, the people of Dana Point will gain the courage to demand that their employment by the City of Dana Point shall be terminated, for the benefit of the general welfare.)