Basketball Goals, “Sustainable Development” and Petty Martinets

By Gina Miller
DakotaVoice.com

The first thing I did was watch the You Tube video,  which almost made my head explode with anger.  The video was e-mailed to me by Monica Boudreaux, who is a leader of our local 912 Tea Party group, and who was just as incensed about it as I was.  It was a video out of Delaware of the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) confiscating basketball goals from private property.

You have to watch the video for yourself to get the full gut-punching effect of it, but in the video, which was taken near the end of March, husband and wife, John and Melissa McCafferty, appear in front of their home in an average, older, middle class neighborhood on a cul-de-sac, and they’re being interviewed by a Delaware news outlet.  He explained that basketball hoops were being taken by force from people’s yards in his neighborhood due to one person’s complaint.  His wife had previously run off the DelDOT confiscation crew by climbing to the top of the goal and perching herself there, refusing to come down, despite pleas from DelDOT workers and police.  The DelDOT crew left that time, but this time when they came back, they meant business.

While Mr. McCafferty was being interviewed, the Gestapo arrived.  There was a dump truck, along with a front-end loader and several workers, plus law enforcement officers.  There was also a young, female martinet, who appeared to be with a government agency, maybe DelDOT, although she was not identified in the video.  The man has an animated discussion with the girl who threatens him with arrest if he and his wife continue to obstruct the confiscation of his basketball goal which has been embedded in the ground at the same location, possibly since the house was built in 1950.

The young gestapette finally tells Mr. McCafferty that if he wants to keep the basketball goal, they will lay it in his driveway, so he agrees to move their minivan, which was blocking the goal, and allow the crews to pull up the goal.

Well, she lied—right on camera.  Once they ripped the goal out of the ground and secured it with chains to the front-end loader, they dropped it in the dump truck.  The man and his wife were furious, yelling that the girl flat-out lied to them.  Delaware State Police are currently investigating the incident.

According to the news site, Delaware Online,

“A 2005 state law specifically directs DelDOT to remove things that are in the right of way, which includes the small spat of grass before the curb begins in many neighborhoods. This is done to protect motorists and the people playing sports, according to the law.”

So, here we have do-gooder junior dictators attempting to save us from ourselves.  How did America survive all those decades of childhood basketball games played in the streets of our neighborhoods?  How did we live without the nannies in our federal, state, and local governments smothering us with law upon law to “protect” us?  How many of our freedoms have been steadily and stealthily taken from us under the guise of “safety”?

One of the great warriors of our time in fighting to preserve our national sovereignty and fundamental rights to private property and its use is Henry Lamb, who is the chairman of the Sovereignty International website. Mr. Lamb is a prolific writer and has repeatedly warned us against the sweeping agenda of global governance put forth by the United Nations in league with nongovernmental organizations.

On the Land Use page of Sovereignty.net,  part of the introduction states,

“Land is the foundation of existence.  Private ownership of land is the aspiration that led our forefathers to brave the oceans and the great unknown.  Private ownership of land is a fundamental principle of freedom, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.  Yet, private ownership of land is diminishing, and government ownership and control of land use is expanding.”

Mr. Lamb’s website contains a wealth of information which can arm citizens locally to fight against the creeping global governance agenda, part of which is the “sustainable development” movement that has hoodwinked or enticed many a local official into supporting legislation that steals private property rights and gives more and more control of citizens’ land use to local, state and federal governments.

Mr. Lamb also has a piece on his site that discusses federal land use control through ecosystem management.   In the column, among other things, he explains how the administrative expansion of the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 have each served as effective and onerous federal land use control devices.

The “sustainable development” movement can be traced back at least to Agenda 21, the full text and explanation of which can be read on the Sovereignty International site.

In one of his WorldNetDaily columns titled, “Confronting ‘Sustainability’ in Your Town,”  Mr. Lamb gives a brief rundown of the source of Agenda 21 and “sustainable development,”

“Four communities have rejected ‘Sustainability’ since the first of the year. More will surely follow. To confront sustainability in your community you should learn everything you can about it.

More than 600 American communities have entered into agreements with ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), an international nongovernment organization created by the United Nations. ICLEI-USA was formed in 1995. ICLEI is a tool of both the U.N. and the federal government, used to transform American cities into ‘Sustainable Communities.’

What is, and is not, sustainable is defined in Agenda 21, a 40-chapter document adopted in 1992 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. This document was translated into domestic policy through the President’s Council on Sustainable Development [PCSD], created in 1993. Originally, the program was promoted as implementing ‘Local Agenda 21,’ but soon ran into trouble.”

Mr. Lamb explains that the Local Agenda 21 moniker was met with resistance by American officials who, although they were implementing the Agenda 21 planning, did not like to be associated with UN legislation for local planning, so they just changed the names to protect the scheme.  Mr. Lamb continues,

“ICLEI took over where the PCSD left off, abandoning the LA21 brand but delivering the same effect through comprehensive land-use plans described as ‘smart growth’ or ‘growth management.’ With grants from the federal government, the American Planning Association produced ‘Growing Smart: Legislative Guidebook,’ which provided model legislation states could adopt.

This model legislation translated into law the recommendations in Agenda 21 and those from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, when adopted by states and local communities.

Sustainable development is the translation of the recommendations set forth by the U.N. in Agenda 21, and by the PCSD into regulations enforced by local, state and federal government.

Stated more succinctly, sustainable development is that framework of rules and regulations that limits the behavior of individuals, businesses and organizations to those activities approved by government.

By joining forces with National League of Cities, the U.S. Green Building Council and the Center for American Progress, ICLEI has created what it calls its ‘STAR Community Index,’ which it claims ‘is a national, consensus-based framework for gauging the sustainability and livability of U.S. communities.’

ICLEI’s STAR is a device to measure just how ‘sustainable’ a community might be. Stated more succinctly, STAR is a measurement of the degree of control a community has over its citizens.”

In his column, Mr. Lamb goes on to lay out an effective strategy that you can use in dealing with the scourge of “sustainable development” or “smart growth” in your community.

The story of the basketball goal thefts by government officials in Delaware is yet another example of these very issues of control over the people and their right to use their own land as they desire.  Under the pretense of public safety, private property rights are stolen and destroyed.  Some of you may say this one example from Delaware is reasonable, because that enticing word “safety” is invoked in making the overreaching law, but remember, if you continue to be willing to give up liberties for the idea of safety, eventually your freedoms will be lost.

There is no amount of burdensome laws that can be made which will protect us from stupidity or carelessness in our lives—it will never happen.  But, it seems that we as a nation have been programmed to accept, and even expect, that elected officials are not doing their jobs unless they are constantly creating new laws.

Why do we think this way?  I hear the argument all the time coming from those on Capitol Hill who complain about the competing political party slowing things up, creating obstacles to “getting things done” in Congress.  What do these people in Congress need to get done besides stopping and reversing the growth of the federal government?  With each new law and regulation, our government grows like an aggressive tumor.  It is already a ravenous behemoth that threatens the very existence of our nation with its dictatorial policies and economy and dollar-killing practices.

The Delaware example also highlights the importance of staying on top of legislation at the local and state levels.  I am guilty of focusing on national-level political shenanigans at the expense of keeping a close eye on what my state legislature is doing, not to mention my local city council.  The time for the McCaffertys in Delaware to protest the theft of their basketball goal was not when the crews showed up to take it, but it was back in 2005 when the law was proposed that would make DelDOT’s private property basketball goal theft “legal.”  By the time the law is on the books, it’s almost too late.

We must strive to be vigilant against the forces of globalization that seek to steal our freedoms and our private property rights away from us.  I know it can be a depressing and daunting task, overwhelming in its proportions, because the assault by the petty martinets in elected (and unelected) office is relentless on so many fronts.

It is essential that we collect knowledge from sources like Sovereignty.net and closely watch our elected officials at the local, state and federal level.  This battle for our rights and freedoms is not and will never be easy, but it is paramount that we remain strongly engaged if we have the least bit of hope for keeping a sovereign and free United States of America.

Gina Miller, a native of Texas, is a radio commentator and disc jockey. She also works with her husband installing and repairing residential irrigation systems and doing landscaping on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.