"The Fine Print", by Michael Schrader

<span style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>"The Fine Print", by Michael Schrader

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<span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>Whwhat Is the Rust

Governmental Zealousness Can Have Bloody Consequences

(Written and posted 12 February 2008)<o:p></o:p>

Prior to 1763, an excellent relationship existed between the British Crown and the American colonies. The colonies received the full benefits of the crown, and were given de facto independence to do whatever they wanted. It was a very sweet deal for the colonies. It’d be like having your parents pay for everything, and you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, without any parental interference at all. Sweet indeed! And the colonists had absolutely no desire to be away from the king. Yet, within two decades, the colonists were fighting a very nasty war of independence from the same king. What happened?

In 1763, the crown, needing money, decided that it would tax the colonists to pay for their defense and upkeep, kind of like a parent charging a free-loading child room and board. Of course, the colonists were furious – how dare the king end the free ride that they had become so accustomed to? Of course, the king was right – it wasn’t fair that the colonists should burden the rest of the empire with their upkeep and protection; they should have to share the responsibility. The problem was with how the king went about things. When the colonists got mad at the king, he got mad back, and every time he got mad, he decided that he should punish the colonists to bring them into compliance with the law. For the next decade, the king piled on one intolerable act after another – sugar taxes, stamp taxes, tea taxes, restrictions on where the colonists could live, restrictions on whom the colonists could trade with, restrictions on colonial currency. Of course, we all know what happened – the colonists became so angry with the king over what he was legally correct in doing, that they started taking out government buildings and government officials. It was very hard to be a government official in the heady days before the revolution, as to be an agent of the crown meant risking your life, family, and property. The cycle of tit for tat culminated in bloodshed.

Now fast forward to February 7, 2008. An ongoing feud between a government and one of its subjects ends in tragic bloodshed and the death of government officials. February 7, 2008, is when Cookie Thornton, after years of feeling progressively more oppressed by the city of Kirkwood, Missouri, had finally had enough, took the law into his own hands, and gunned down five city officials at a council meeting.

Thornton lived in a suburban enclave called Meacham Park. Now Meacham Park, despite being in the middle of an urban area, belonged to no one. It was not part of any city, but was an unincorporated island surrounded on all sides by incorporated cities. For the better part of the century, the residents of Meacham Park lived independent of city rules and ordinances. Being a relatively poor, mostly minority enclave, the residents of Meacham Park had come to accept that that would get virtually no help from the wealthy white cities surrounding them, and became a defacto independent city – still a creature of the county, but pretty much on their own. And it was this way for the better part of a century. Then, around 20 years ago, developers started looking at land in and around Meacham Park. Seeing as it had no control at all over what went on in Meacham Park, and that its “lawlessness” was discouraging development opportunities, the city of Kirkwood negotiated with the residents of Meacham Park to be annexed. (In Missouri, you cannot be annexed without your permission.) It was a win-win – Kirkwood would get control over this neighborhood on its border, and the neighborhood would get improved public services. So, in 1991, Meacham Park was annexed into Kirkwood.

For the first few years, code enforcement in Meacham Park was minimal, so to residents of Meacham Park like Thornton, things were pretty much the same as they had always been. Then the city decided it was time to crack down, and sent out the code enforcement zealots. Now code enforcement officers are probably the most reviled city officials, as they often tend to be bullies, or at least, perceived that way. There are important code violations, that really do impact public health and welfare (such as running raw sewage out into the yard, or structural dilapidated buildings), and then there are non-important violations, that really don’t endanger the public health but are merely cosmetic, such as parking a truck in front of your house, or having your grass more than three inches high or having paint peeling on the your house or having your fence six inches too far into the right-of-way. For some reason that I haven’t figured out yet, code enforcement officers love to harass people about these non-important cosmetic violations. (I speak from experience, having gotten cited for having my grass one inch too high – my lawnmower broke, and I hadn’t had an opportunity to buy a new one. Mrs. Schrader and I ended up mowing the lawn with a weedeater…..) Yes, I know that is important for a place to look good, as a nice looking community attracts investment which means increased tax revenues which means an even better city which means higher property values – everybody wins! But is it worth badgering your citizens to achieve this utopia?

When I lived in Little Rock, the neighborhood to the north of us was considered to be one of the snootier neighborhoods in the city, as the residents had a very strong neighborhood association and were very concerned with appearances. Into this neighborhood moves a lady from Louisiana, who upgrades her house and paints it in vibrant Louisiana colors. Now you’d think that the neighbors would appreciate that she upgraded her property; they didn’t, because they didn’t like the color scheme she had painted her house. In response, they fought vigorously to get restrictions on the colors of paint that could be used on houses within their neighborhood (as well as restrictions on the types of siding, windows, window coverings, roofing, doorknobs, light bulbs, etc.) Why is that important? Is someone’s life in jeopardy because a lady painted her house yellow with cobalt and magenta trim? Is someone’s life in jeopardy because I replace a flat window with a bay one or because I replace wood siding with vinyl? Give me a break. Unfortunately, that is the way things are in most cities – one person doesn’t like something, so they convince the city leaders to pass an ordinance against it, with the result being an inexcusably ridiculous body of useless laws regulating every nit-picky aspect of our life, ninety-nine percent of which don’t have anything at all to do with what is supposed to be government’s job – protecting the public welfare. Talk about oppressive.

Such nit-picky oppressiveness came to Meacham Park and Mr. Thornton. After the crackdown, he started getting cited for parking his commercial contractor truck in front of his house on a residential street. Why was that so important? Was parking that truck really that much a threat to the public safety, or was it just an opportunity for the egotistical code enforcement officers to show who was boss? Having been self-employed myself, and knowing how hard it was to survive on my income, I would be torqued if the government came along and told me I had to spend additional money I didn’t have over something trivial and nit-picky. Given that that actually did happen to me (in my case, I was using the name “Engineering” in my engineering business, which cost me several hundred dollars in additional expenses that I couldn’t afford), I can understand why Mr. Thornton, a small business man, would be upset at suddenly being told he had to park his truck elsewhere, at his expense. The difference is that while I was upset because having to change my name cost me so much that I eventually went out of business, I didn’t walk into a government building with guns blazing. Was I mad? You bet, and I am still resentful to this day, over a decade later, but I controlled my temper. Unfortunately, many people, Mr. Thornton include, let their temper get the better of them, and tragedy is the result.

Two things really inflamed the situation that lead to the tragedy in Kirkwood. First and foremost, the city kept piling on fine after fine after fine. You would think they would have enough sense to realize that if he wasn’t going to take care of the problem after the first citation, then he probably wouldn’t take care of it after piling on a bunch more. Piling on is wrong and dehumanizing, and you’d think that the city officials would have had enough decency and common sense to know that. But obviously they didn’t, so they kept piling on, coming across as first class jerks. We get upset when a sports team runs up the score on a hapless opponent; why don’t we get upset when the government does that to a hapless citizen? I think $20000 in fines is rather excessive; don’t you? Now add to that the high ranking city officials are affluent whites, where Thornton was a poor black. Talk about piling it on. Is it any wonder, then, that Mr. Thornton felt completely oppressed, and felt the need to take justice into his own hands?

I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to justify or excuse what happened; I am not. I am trying to illuminate as to why a person described by some of his neighbors as a hero in his neighborhood for all of the good and unselfish things he did before he let his anger control his mind could be driven to such horrible extremes. We should take this opportunity to take a hard look at our governments and how they operate. Do we really want the government to be so intrusive?

As someone who has worked for the government, I know many government officials who take delight in being nit-picky jerks. Why? Because they can. It is all about them and their egos, and the citizens can go to ….you know where. The government has become a perverse collection of petty fiefdoms run by officials whose primary purpose is to stroke their own egos and amass power, and if that comes on the backs of the average citizen, so be it. The only people many government officials serve are themselves. It isn’t about the honor of anonymously serving your fellow man; it’s about fame and fortune and narcissism and notoriety.

We do not live in some corrupt third world country; we live in the United States, the greatest nation on the planet. It is high time we take our government back. We can start by voting for candidates who are sincere about removing the government intrusion in our lives. We need less government regulation, not more. Our founding fathers knew that smaller government was better government, that the more regulations and fees and taxes that there are, that the less free we are; they saw it first hand with the bloated British government. The Revolution taught us that a free people can and will unite together to help one another, and that it is the big things, not the small nit-picky ones, that are important. We must again embrace the ideals of the Revolution and rid our government of petty officials and corrupt hacks to prevent the tragedy that occurred in Kirkwood from happening again.

Oh yes, remember my high grass citation? Well the city told me that you only have snakes in high grass; if the grass is cut, you never have to worry about snakes. Tell that to my daughter, the one bitten by the rattlesnake. It happened where the grass had been cut.

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