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The Wired Curtain

by Zak Arthur Klemmer

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."

--Charles Austin Beard, historian

     One of my earliest memories concerning world affairs was the Berlin Wall being

erected in 1961 (I was 9) by the Soviet puppet state of East Germany.  In the same time

frame, the first wave of Cuban refugees came to Los Angeles, and I met a Cuban boy who

was placed in my classroom.  What kind of government builds walls to keep their people

from emigrating?  Now that the Berlin Wall has been torn down, and its people reunited,

I wanted to reflect on the meaning of it all, what it means to me and to my fellow 

net surfers; the issue of free speech on the Internet.

     My first exposure to the Bill of Rights was in Mr. Demetre's fifth grade class (this

the very same class where the cuban boy was placed), I knew then what I was for and to what

I was opposed.  Being able to speak and write freely on the Internet is a start, but it not

enough, and unless we can live our lives in freedom in the real world, we might as well 

measure ourselves for the locks and chains that the bureaucrats and politicians are planning

for us.  The chains will be purchased by our tax money and our fellow citizens will allow

them to be placed on all of us.

     As much as we like to think that the "Cyberworld" is so important and that George Gilder

will tell us how our future belongs there, we still must live in the physical world with

other people.  That is to say, others who are ignorant about these issues concerning freedom,

even hostile to the idea of individual liberty.  We must convince others of the importance of

being free to choose our friends and business associates, the necessity of property rights,

including voluntary economic exchanges between individuals.  In the political arena, every

issue will divide and separate someone from the many, we must not lose sight of our goals.

An example of this in Tucson, Arizona, is the property rights issue, i.e., the freedom to 

develope real estate.

     In 1992 Neil Simon of the Venture West Group owned a 7.1 acre parcel of land in Tucson, 

Arizona.  The subject property was at Broadway and Houghton, on Tucson's east side.  This

parcel has been zoned for shopping center use the entire eleven years that VWG has owned it.

Running through the middle of this parcel is a dry wash (approximately 3.2 acres), which

traverses into an existing culvert under Broadway Boulevard.  Many washes have been 

culverted along Broadway to accommodate commercial projects. 




     As a pretext to "save" the remaining "prime riparian habitat areas" within the city

limits of Tucson, no-growth activists lobbied the city council to pass the Environmental

Resource Zone Ordinance (ERZ) in 1990.  The ERZ Ordinance was intended to prevent the 

development of 53 miles of designated washes.  The parcel at Broadway and Houghton fell

under the ERZ.  Because its 600-foot-long wash bisects it into two less valuable parcels,

Mr. Simon sought a variance to allow the development of the shopping center.  This

process began in January 1991.




     By December 1991 the City Board of Adjustments unanimously approved the variance.

This lengthy process included, amoung other things, public hearings.  The variance, however,

was subject to design considerations intended to mitigate the impact of the development on

the wildlife habitat in the ERZ.  These considerations attached additional costs to the

project outside the control of the developers and their architects surpassing $100,000.  In

February 1992 the City Council of Tucson took up the issue and overturned the variance that

had been granted by the City Board of Adjustments.




     "We want to build the shopping center.  We don't want to file a lawsuit," said Mr. Simon

in reply to the City Council's reversal.  "The Council's action amounts to an illegal 'taking'

of property," declared Sy Shorr, Mr. Simon's attorney.  The VWG has filed a lawsuit of $2.5

million against the City of Tucson for the refusal to allow this proposed shopping center to

be built over a culverted wash. 




     It seems as though government agencies have an endless supply of time and money to 

obstruct citizens who expect these agencies to respect their constitutional rights to own and

use private property.  One may ask: When does regulation become an obstacle to productivity

and progress?  And, what occurs when a regulation becomes an end in itself instead of the 

means to an end?  When regulation becomes an end in itself, it perverts the law and usurps

the economic freedom that the rule of law is designed to protect, resulting in poverty and

decline.  The endless delays nad regulatory red tape which have been imposed on Mr. Simon's

project have not only been financially prohibitive, but have detrimentally affected the

economic health of the local community by the loss of potential employment. 





     The regulatory taking of property implemented by the bureaucracy plunders the rights of

property owners and produces a needless financial burden.  The hidden cost of complying with 

these laws is measured with the time lost in negotiating the nearly endless maze of local,

state, and federal agencies in the permit process, through applying for variances and design

changes, defending nuisance suits, and enduring delays in the legal process.  All of this 

dramatically impedes economic freedom for each of us by rising the cost of housing and

manufactured products, thwarting the production of new products, and eliminating employment

oppertunities.




     This is clearly a denial of rights through regulation.  Our main goal should be to 

convince others of its dangers to our future.  Author and philosopher Ayn Rand wrote:

"Intellectual freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free

market are corollaries."  All law, including environmental regulations, must be based solely

on out right to own and use private property.  The greatest danger exists in subordinating

our rights to the technocracy of the central planners.  What use is the Internet if all we

can do is send cryptic messages to each other?  The battle for freedom must be won

every day in the real world by convincing others of its value.   -ZAK  



"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
that I wish it to be always kept alive."

--Thomas Jefferson








Foundation for Economic Education

 
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