The Anger of Compassion

Yours, Mine, and "Ours"

From David Crowder's bylined story in the El Paso Times:

City Council approved a measure Tuesday to spend as much as $50,000 to include arroyos in an overall consultant study of how and where to preserve open space in El Paso.

Preserving arroyos has been a two-year debate at City Hall that has yet to result in any formal policies or strategies, largely because of the legal problems posed by trying to restrict the development of private property.

Well, I'll be damned...you know, if there are "legal problems posed by trying to restrict the development of private property," then maybe the city shouldn't be trying to restrict the development of private property?

"If there's one thing we learned, it is that analytical data is no help" in determining the value of an arroyo to the community, the city's Director of Development Services, Alan Shubert, said of an effort to create a matrix to rank the importance of arroyos.

He proposed establishing options to allow the city to buy properties, offer development incentives to protect arroyos, work with the Public Service Board on a protection policy and involve El Pasoans in the policy formation.

Maybe I can help Mr. Shubert and the City Council: hey, guys, the "community" is people. That's it. Any property's value is determined either by why someone wants to keep that property, or by what someone else is willing to pay for it -- if the original owner accepts that offer.

That's it. That's all you need to know about involving El Pasoans in policy formations, all you need to know about incentives, all you need to know about "the value of an arroyo to the community." If it's valuable to you -- you the individual -- then offer to buy it. Period.

I'm oversimplifying, of course. My solution is simplistic and Neanderthal and unrealistic, and if I had my shortsighted way, the entire planet would be paved. There would be houses and duplexes and apartment complexes and condos all over the beautiful, natural arroyos, so we can't afford to allow individuals to do what they like with the property they own. No, we have to do something about man's greed.

Well, how greedy is it to expropriate something that's not yours, for your own benefit -- even if that benefit is non-material? There are signs around El Paso as I write this, signs which read "Save Our Arroyos." By restricting or preventing the development of property, the arroyo activists are effectively stealing that property, in order to make themselves feel good about having done something.

I'll give you "simplistic": I don't own an arroyo. Those who do should do whatever they like with that property, and the City Council be damned.

I'll give you "simplistic": valuing the community over the individual results in the individual being crushed. Whether it's eminent domain or the next Five-Year Plan or the Great Leap Forward...or saving "our" arroyos.

Communities don't act. Individuals do. Let the individual breathe, and act on his own judgment. If his action is "shortsighted," he pays the price. If not, he benefits -- and so does everyone else.

Pave the planet. Asphalt the arroyos.

Posted by Craig Ceely at January 25, 2006 12:05 PM