14 July 2007

[or_politik] What About Brian and Laurel?

870. The slowly unfolding story of the royal screw-over that Brian and Laurel Hines and their neighbors in the Salem Hills have to endure because of Measure 37 is a prima facie example of why M37 was a stupid idea and why it shouldn't have passed.

It's the tyranny of the majority in action.

Here we have everything the sorts of money that backs things like M37 kvetch and moan about: extra-judicial activism, dumb decision-making, playing politics with peoples' lives, health, and property values, big money and powerful connections. It's all in play here.

What about the Hineses? They're property owners too...don't they matter?

Groups like Oregonians in Action should stand up for them as well, if they expect me (as a voter, and, yes, a property-tax-paying property owner) to trust them or think of them as anything other than out-of-state-funded hypocrites.

I'm not, of course, holding my breath waiting for this to happen. It wasn't about any Oregonian's property rights to begin with: it was about greed and development. If you believe otherwise, you've been bamboozled. If you continue to buy the OIA line after reading the Hineses' story, then you have pudding for brains.

It really is that simple.

Until we can make uncritical credulity illegal, we can at least vote yes on Measure 49. In a perfect world, we could get rid of M37...but we don't live there, alas.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the support and dead-on accurate observations. Yes, people who live next to a Measure 37 claim have property rights too.

But Oregonians in Action and closed-minded politicians like Sam Brentano and Patti Milne won't recognize this obvious fact.

Measure 37 was billed as an attempt to restore fairness to Oregon's land use system. Actually, it's created much more unfairness.
--Brian and Laurel

Samuel John Klein said...

Thanks for the props and the link.

I really can't add much more except my diappointment at fellow Oregonians who keep getting (apparently) willingly snowed by this sort of thing, and irritation at people like Dave Hunnicutt and others who make a living out of ruining it for the rest of us.

Keep fighting the good fight.