Really amusing how those who caused all the problems and created all people-unfriendly, property-rights-hostile policies that resulted in Measure 37's robust popularity in the first place are now the ones who claim to truly understand what voters wanted in 2004 (even though they vehemently opposed it at the time). Now they've devised a densely complicated, entirely partisan "fix" that will solve everyone's problems and make everybody happy...except, of course, the very people who actually wrote the most successful citizens' initiative in Oregon history in the first place, and most anybody associated, affiliated or who identifies with the political party in Oregon that has traditionally championed property rights and rural values.

Sounds like a textbook fox-guarding-the-henhouse situation to me. A little like having Dick Cheney and a bunch of Exxon execs rewrite the Kyoto Protocol.

So, Charlie, since I'd like to buy five acres someday and build myself a small house and set up a small organic farm outside any UGB area, you're comparing me to a Nazi?

Your attitude also reminds me of good ol' boys in the South who for some time "protected" the Alabama they loived, and the Mississippi they loved... all by squashing other people's rights. People who are not harming anyone (of course they're not -- just ask any progressive who already has a place in the country).

Bob Tiernan

That is correct Bob. Don't you know that you're supposed to live in a row house next to a Max station? If you don't conform to that then you can't be a good person. Only the really selfish people have yards where their kids can play. And where do you get off thinking you actually own anything? Don't you know that the collective owns all of the land and that personal ownership is evil?

Yeah, I've got 5 acres. Worked my butt off for it as a kid. After I got it the eviros lied and changed the 'rules'...I'm almost a senior now and I'm still trying to build one house on it. Sad to think they all feel grass and weeds are a better crop than what I could do if I were there.

Last place out there without a house on it....yeah, saving the farm land....I'll just lean over and ask my neighbor for some sugar in my coffee....

"The 13 enviros"... you've got to be kidding with that name, right?

Several initiatives in 2004 got more votes than Measure 37.

Name one.

Never mind, you can't. While a number of ballot measures received more "yes" votes than Measure 37, they were all legislative referrals (like Measure 49 is), not citizens' initiatives. Measure 37 garnered more favorable votes than any other citizens' initiative in Oregon history.

Kari:

Hey Bob -- If you're going to accuse someone of using the N-word, could you provide a source or a quote?

Bob T:

Sure, it's the article heading itself: "We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them at the U.G.B.", mostly borrowed from Winston Churchill's statement regarding how tough and determined the British would be regarding defending their Nazi-free island.

The use of that phrase was unfortunate, and shows that most if not all of you are determined to treat Oregon's UGB system as a fight against some people who are "violating" the rights of everyone else.

Sorry, but in a free society you're going to see a lot of thing you don't like, even if those activities do not violate anyone's rights. Too bad you guys don't see it that way. When I hear someone say, while pointing to a large pasture, "Let's get a law passed to keep it that way", I hear the voice of someone who's uncomfortable living in a free society.

I usedto feel that way, too, while looking at rural settings. I got over it. I became tolerant. I became more liberal.

Bob T

Is the Oregon we love massive clearcuts and mono-culture forests and farms? Is it aerial pesticide applications on clearcut moonscapes poisoning rural residents and polluting our waters? Is it vast fields of burning grass spewing pesticides and noxious fumes into the air? Short answer is yes.

The statewide planning goals are mostly about protecting the interests of big-ag and big-timber they aren't some perfect instrument aimed at preserving Oregon's environment.

Measure 37 was a nightmare, so is the status quo, so is the "fix" as it largely preserves the status quo. Oregon needs to take a hard look at where it wants to go in the future and ask how we get there. I hope the answer would be that we want to move to a sustainable future. Part of the probvlem is that people like 13 enviros think that the planning goals are about the environment when they aren't. These groups attempt to use a tool for a job for which it was never intended. The planning goals do much to encourage the destruction of Oregon's environment and to stymie progress towards a more sustainable future. Was Measure 37 the answer? Definitely not. But the status quo isn't working either. Try being a middle income person dreaming of an Organic farm. Your probably out-of-luck unless you are lucky enough to find the right amount of land already built upon. What if you wanted a communal farm/living situation--well you are out of luck too. Co-housing and food production within the UGB--no way, it won't meet planned density.

A good start would be to "fix" the system by appropriately zoning property. I have seen innumerable properties with horrible soil (Class VI-VIII) but productive for Douglas fir zoned EFU. Those properties should be zoned F-2. If you are going to have strict rules as to what can and should be done on a property they should be based on the reality of that property. That type of thing might alleviate some hard feelings. As Oregon is doing that, we should be looking to the future and trying to find ways to encourage not just forestry but sustainable forestry, not just agriculture but sustainable agriculture. If we did that, Oregon's land use system could go along way towards protecting and more importantly, improving the Oregon that we love.

Evan, would you consider it "innumerate madness" for me to point out there was no Measure 26 in 2004?

And to put that into perspective, George Bush got more votes than any other candidate in US history in 2004. Think there's just a TOUCH of buyer's remorse on that one?

Not enough for Democrats to grow the spine to try and impeach the Napoleonic freak, apparently. And let's not forget either that Bill Clinton's wife proudly did her bit to enable the most disastrous foreign policy blunder since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- given that we probably all agree the primary reason for the president's long overdue fall from public opinion grace has been the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq. What's truly sad, pathetic and more than a little nauseating, however, is all those allegedly "antiwar" lefties who're still going to vote in droves for that crazy cuckolded harpy anyway come November 2008.

Btw, really about the only similarity I see between Measure 37 and the Iraq War is that in both cases the media fell all over itself hyping nonexistent threats in order to fan the flames of fear and paranoia, per the wishes of their political masters in the halls of government power.

In reality, anyone who buys or inherits property does so as part of a political community which creates and defines property rights. No state, no property. Property is created by law.

I'd love to hear you explain the morality of your conception of "law" to an American Indian -- or for that matter an African American.

Indeed, what about life and liberty? Are they merely entitlements bestowed by government, too? After all, it says in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution that neither life, liberty nor property shall be deprived "without due process of law." It seems a little paradoxical and nonsensical to require government to have to go through the time, expense and headache of proving a case for taking something away when the government created the privileges in the first place. Slavery? If government is the grand designer of all rights then it's hardly problematic for it to declare that certain people can legally "own" others (subject to provisions of law outlined by the political community which creates and defines those rights, of course).

So much for certain truths being self-evident, I guess.

Capitalist private property, far from being "natural," is in fact a great departure from property systems of overlapping use rights (i.e. not exclusive private rights) that have characterized virtually all human societies until about 300 or 400 years ago, and most until much more recently.

Translation: Oregon "progressives" are pining for the halcyon days of medieval feudalism.