|
New River Property Is A Test of Liberty
Letter to Editor, Charleston, WV Daily Mail
December 20, 2000
Regarding the Park Service's desire to take private land along the New River in for a parkway, the amount of property concerned is very small when compared to the total acreage this administration has taken or placed off limits during the past eight years.
While it is easy to find economic benefit ensuing from development of the parkway, there is an ominous downside -- further erosion of our right to life and liberty.
The right to property is a derivative of the natural right to life and liberty. Life and liberty can be maintained even if property is lost. Property lost can be regained; liberty lost can be regained also, but only with great, and sometimes violent, effort. Therefore, it is wise to be alarmed at the slightest inroads upon the rights of property.
The right to property serves as a kind of "early warning system" to invasions of life and liberty.
Government's demands on its citizens bear most immediately and visibly on their private property, either through taxation, confiscation, or regulation of its use.
Therefore, it is prudent to make property the test of liberty. The New River Parkway fails that test.
We vacation in that area every summer and are considering moving there once I retire, hence my interest in this matter.
Hugh M. Davis
Worthington, Ky.
