Local Oregon Landowners Will Suffer Under Measure 49

It is sleight of hand in the most base political sense.

The exclusion of Republicans from the hearings was wrong Aerial photo of Oregon's capital by: Tim King

(SALEM, Ore.) - I have let the tides swirl a bit regarding the two main measures on the November 2007 ballot and it is about time to chime in on them. First Measure 49, Measure 50 comes tomorrow.

This is basically the political equivalent of a military 'Divide and Conquer' move. I hope it does not work but unfortunately with humans and voters being what they are, it well might.

I do not have a dog in the race as neither I nor anyone in my family owned property in Oregon prior to 1972, but I support Measure 37 on the simple basis of fairness.

Measure 49 seeks to give the sour grape sad sacks who lost TWICE yet a third bite at the apple. They have learned through their arguments that it's OK to screw people out of their property rights without just compensation as SB100 did back in the 70s, on the premise that "it makes Oregon pretty to have done so." It will not work... that dog just won't hunt as they say "back in the hills."

So they come up with Measure 49, which only screws SOME people. And since a lot of these "ok to screwed over" folks are said to be rich or live out of state, it makes it alright somehow. And they ramrod Measure 49 through the legislature after meaningless dog and pony show hearings that were clearly just for show by excluding an entire side of the chamber from any meaningful input. And for the record, this exclusion of the Republicans was wrong, regardless of which side it was.

Also, because the 20+ page document is so convoluted with obscure and arcane legalese it is doubtful many if any of the claims by its writers or supporters are, in fact, true. The overturning of Measure 37 is its only true goal.

It is sleight of hand in the most base political sense.

I am hoping that the voters are sick of the Legislature knowing what the voters want more than the voters do and vote NO on 49.

Or that the voters, sickened by the unvarnished partisan BS of excluding an entire side of the chamber from meaningful input, say NO to 49.

Or that enough of those who voted for Measure 37 are not the log-sitting hayseeds the Measure 49 proponents claim they are and knew they were voting for restoration of uncompensated property rights stolen by SB100 and not something as ridiculously narrow as just Dorothy English building her one house and continue to support the worthy ideal of citizens being compensated when their property rights are taken from them as was done by SB100 by voting NO on 49.

Or that voters who sat out the previous vote are so disgusted by the self-serving "I got mine!" measure 49 proponents who want their neighbors to involuntarily provide them with their farmland, greenspaces, groundwater and views rather than actually just buying the land THEMSELVES so they could rightly decide to put the land to such uses and come out in droves to support the concept of property rights and vote NO on 49.

As one can see, there are many reasons to vote NO on 49.

The only real reason to vote yes on 49, in the final analysis, is that such a voter feels the end justifies ANY means... that so long as the goal is good whatever measures you need to take to get there, regardless of who is harmed, regardless of who is wronged, if the end result works for you no crime is unworthy of commission so long as you get the goal you want.

If your goal is to feed the poor you might choose to take the poor to the local supermarket and force the store, at gunpoint, to allow the poor folks to help themselves to the products on the shelves. The goal of feeding the hungry poor has been satisfied so it is OK that the store owner was robbed of his property rights, the right to be compensated for his goods and services, were trampled, violated and ignored. Right?

And so much the better if you can claim you will not do such to local Mom and Pop markets, you will just do this to the large out of state owned big chains (the Evil Bad Guys) because that makes it easier since you are using the same "Divide and Conquer" model... those who might not go along with robbing the little guys might be OK with screwing over the Big Boys.

Whether the end result of SB100 is a good thing or not. it is not justifiable to create it by violating the property rights of some by stealing those rights, and taking without compensation is stealing.

If one person's rights, property or otherwise, can be stolen then no rights are safe from such pillage.
Vote NO on 49.