Since When?

Vietnam is not Communist anymore? Red China is our enemy? Maybe you're right, I should pay more attention to the news. I suppose I'll have to look that up this weekend before I start spouting off about it but, as of now, I've never heard of such a thing.

Cheboygan kids must be different than Chicago kids because my experience with them is that they are amoral, devious, and manipulative. I don't know how they relate to puppets, but that's the way they interact with adults and each other. Okay, I've been off that job for 10 years now, so maybe they've changed, but I doubt it.

One reason I bought swamp land is that it's unlikely that anybody will ever try to kick me off of it. It costs about twice as much to build on land like this, and government regulations would make it difficult to site any kind of large scale commercial project on it. When they first passed those wetland laws, back in the 70s, you couldn't even build a house on land like this, but my friend Reagan saw to it that those laws were relaxed just enough for my purposes, but not enough for the fat cats to build condos and shopping malls. Of course there are ways around that, but the legal expenses, added to the construction costs, would discourage most developers. Commercial and industrial development in Cheboygan County has been stagnated for some time anyway and, if it ever picks up again, there is enough good building land still vacant in the area to make my little swamp unattractive by comparison.

In the unlikely event that the government ever wanted my land for some public purpose, they would have to pay me fair market value for it, which my tax assessment says is about a hundred thousand dollars. I doubt that I could sell it for half that price in today's market but, if the government says that's what it's worth then, by God, that's what they would have to pay for it if they wanted it. I told them so too, when they raised my assessment shortly after I bought the place. Michigan passed a law by ballot initiative some time ago that says the government can only exercise eminent domain for purely public purposes. For awhile they were forcing people to sell to the government, and than turning around and selling the land to private developers, but we put a stop to that.

Come on Uncle Ken! Are you telling me that you would rather have gained your condo by combat than by purchase, and that you would rather defend it yourself than trust the legal system to do it for you? Isn't this inconsistent with your anti-war and anti-gun positions? Be that as it may, "the system" has always been rigged to favor one group of people over another. In the Stone Age, it was rigged in favor of the guys who could throw the biggest stones. Later, as weapons and social organizations became more sophisticated, the advantage went to the guy who could command the loyalty of the biggest army. Nowadays, it's money that calls the shots. At any time in history, there has always been a class of people who had very little chance to advance themselves economically. In your Socialist People's Paradise of the future, it will be the commissars or the bureaucrats who tell you where you can live and what you can do there. I prefer the current system myself. It may not be as fair as it could be, but it's certainly more humane than a bunch of people hacking on each other with swords for a living.

Have a nice weekend.