The U.S. Constitution has one founding principle – the principle of self-governance. What separates the United States from almost any country in the world is three words: WE THE PEOPLE. Ronald Reagan said, “Man is not free until government is limited.” A slippery slope to tyranny starts when our government starts to act like they are the rulers who know what is good for us and we are the ruled.
As the federal budget has almost tripled since the year 2000, government agencies have grown all-powerful. Many federal laws and regulations are interpreted and executed by unelected bureaucrats, which has the chilling effect of restraining individual liberties, restricting competitiveness on the world stage and increasingly making people afraid to express their opinions freely. A highly divided government with extreme partisan views on both sides is slowly but surely dividing the country. Nasty, social media cowards who spew their hate hidden behind a computer screen have intimidated a large portion of a decent population into silence for fear of becoming a target of cyber bullying.
In South Carolina, the same dynamic is playing out at the state and local level. Large agencies like the 3,500-person-plus DHEC bully and intimidate citizens who cannot defend themselves, take their property, threaten them with jail time and punishment if they don’t comply with illogical and ever-changing interpretations of regulations, impose draconian fines and private property restrictions that ordinary citizens cannot afford to fight and generally believe that they are not a servant of the citizens but their master and ruler. The same goes for SCDOT, for whom the expression “my way or the highway” was custom-made. If you disagree, I will punish you is the new government motto.
Then we have our dysfunctional local politics, where the Council members’ attitude is they can decide what is good for us and retaliate against anyone who challenges them or expresses a different view. Using their elected powers to attack, slander and punish citizens they represent is what the Founding Fathers always feared. First, Council assigned themselves jurisdiction over private property by asserting that they have jurisdiction over all waterfront to your back porch that exceeds the state’s jurisdiction. This is with two lawyers on the Council who apparently did not study the theory of pre-emption. Then they decide that on your private property, you may protect the foundation of your home but no need to protect your pool or yard because they deem that to be a “luxury item.”
The General Assembly in 2014 stated three exclusive uses for the Beach Preservation Fund that is funded by the accommodations tax: renourish the public beach – scraping is not renourishing – build, maintain and vegetate the public dunes and maintain the public beach paths. The public beaches are in total disarray, having dropped 10 to 12 feet, but none of the preservation fund is being used for the “exclusive” uses specified by law, defying the laws of fiduciary responsibility. As Michael Hornsby points out in a piece in the Commentary section of this newspaper, massive beach erosion and inland flooding can be directly attributed to a blocked Breach Inlet. Yet no permit has been applied for. The people all know it, but the government knows better. IOP Mayor Pounds took a victory lap last week and said IOP did not plan to do anything else with the public beaches for the rest of the year. The city’s strategy is to wait for the Army Corps dumping of spoils from the Intracoastal dredging, which the Corps is quoted as saying: “This project is unlikely to provide residents the near- term erosion relief they are hoping for.”
Finally, the government knows best when it comes to noise ordinances. Apparently, we will now use meters to measure noise. Seventy decibels on the meter for maybe 30 seconds gets you a ticket. Get five tickets and you lose your rental license, causing rental owners possibly six-figure losses and an inability to sell their home. What is 70 decibels? The noise on the inside of your car at 65 mph is in the mid-60s to 70 decibels. I get the need for enforcement and maybe fines. But when you substitute a meter for someone’s judgment, you are forced to enforce a draconian law. The punishment does not fit the crime, and rental owners should be up in arms. Once again, a very lengthy debate on noise ordinance, spanning much wasted time and money, results in a law that will only punish owners with very severe outcomes for something that may often be outside their control.
Folks, give governance back to the citizens. Your job is to represent our interests and make our life easier and better – not to rule over us and make our lives miserable.
Reddy or Not represents the opinion of MyLo News owner Rom Reddy but not necessarily the opinion of this newspaper. In keeping with our philosophy of publishing all opinions, we welcome responses, which must be limited to 400 words and will be published on a space-available basis.
