"The Colony"

John was a security systems engineer and he had designed a specialized security system for businesses, or for each home in an entire community that would be tied into a central monitoring station.   The security system came with features such as being able to lock every door and window in the house with the push of a button.  Another push of a button would shutter every window.  Outside cameras, lights, alarms, fire detectors and automatic calls to an emergency center were all part of this grand system. 
 
He sold the system to a gated community called "The Colony".  The developer of "The Colony" was so taken with John's work that he offered to buy John's house and move he and his family into one of the palatial homes in "The Colony", to oversee the installation of John's system in each new home being built.  John, his wife and two kids were ecstatic and eagerly moved into "The Colony", this unbelievable subdivision on a hill overlooking the ocean.  It was beyond their wildest dreams.
 
Each yard was manicured, with nothing out of place.  The lawns were watered automatically.  The streets were swept every evening.   High fences surrounded the entire community and there was an armed guard at the gate 24/7.  There were roving security officers in "company" cars who patrolled the streets day and night.  It had to be one of the cleanest, most secure and safest communities in the country.  No crime, no guns, no burglaries.  Except there was a deep, dark secret that belied this sense of well being and security.
 
The day after John and his family moved in, he decided to take a run with his dog.  As he was leaving his driveway to proceed onto the sidewalk, a "company" car drove up and dropped a huge book about 3 inches thick, on the concrete in front of his home.  In huge letters on the cover were,

 
"The Colony"
Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions.
CC&R's

 John looked at the front cover with little interest and jogged down the sidewalk, oblivious to the hidden dangers contained in this book.  About two blocks into his run, a security truck rolled up to John and told him he was in violation of the CC&R's because he was running on the wrong day for his address, his dog was unleashed and he was wearing the wrong "duds" for jogging, according to the CC&R's.  The security guard gave him a warning but said the next time it would come with a fine.  John shrugged off the encounter and continued his run.
 
"The Colony's" schools were extremely regulated as well, with each student being forced to wear a uniform.  There was no PTA.  The teachers and administrators had full control of the school and the curriculum.  Mommy wasn't too happy with this, but well, she "looked the other way".  
 
John found that his security systems were being modified and that the "company" had added wires to the system that weren't in his design.  One night he followed the wires in a home under construction and found they went to outside security cameras, installed in the automatic sprinkler systems.  He couldn't determine where the rest of the wires went.  He became suspicious, but well, he "just looked the other way".
 
Other out-of-place events were happening in "The Colony" regularly, but John and his wife continued to "look the other way."  After all, they felt so much more secure here.
 
One day one of the security guards came up to John and said that a neighbor had complained that John's dog was barking too much and that was a violation of the CC&R's.  The guard said they could "fix" the dog so that his barking would be weaker and less annoying.  John declined the offer.
 
A few days later the dog went missing and when it finally returned, there was a patch under the neck that had been shaved and sutured.  John's dog had been "fixed", without his permission.  John was miffed, but he continued to "look the other way."
 
John's daughter, deeply involved in computer technology, found a computer disc lodged in behind a "security" panel she had been investigating to see if she couldn't alter her cable connection.  She put the disc in her computer but access was denied without a password.  She had a program that would unlock the access code and started it running.  When the program finally cracked the password, it unveiled the deep secrets of "The Colony". 
 
A previous owner of the home had done his own investigation and found that there were hidden cameras in every room of every home in "The Colony".  Using the disc, John and his daughter were able to tap cameras in other homes showing what was going on in their neighbor's bedroom at that very moment and every other room in the house.  The man who made the computer disc and his wife were killed by the "security guard" of the Colony's developer because of what he had uncovered.
 
That did it.  John decided he had had enough of CC&R's and knew he had to move his family out of "The Colony" immediately, for fear they would meet the same fate as the previous owner.   They had to escape this over-regulated but secure community.  In the dead of night to escape detection, John and his family, with just the clothes on their backs and what they could pack, bolted this secure utopia, once and for all.
 
This tale was actually a movie entitled "The Colony", starring John Ritter.  We ended it a little differently, but the moral of the story is abundantly obvious.  When you try to create a secure paradise by regulating people down to the last vestiges of their free choice just to provide them with security, eventually the myth of security breaks down and some decide that security, absent liberty, (like John and his family) is only a choice for enslavement.  There are some of us who would rather be free than secure and we are willing to go to whatever degree is necessary to defend and maintain that freedom.   We reject "The Colony's"  CC&R's, wholesale.  We are free men in spirit and action and our freedom, a precious gift from our creator, is the guarantee and promise of our Constitution.
 
Meanwhile, the occupants of "The Colony" (America) shrug it all off and "look the other way", as the CC&R's get ever more onerous.  At what point in the loss of their freedoms will they break the CC&R's of "The Colony" and stand up and fight?
 
If you believe you are a free man or woman and have the courage, start resisting government's CC&R's wherever you can.  Those CC&R's are only there to control you, way beyond the constitutional limits placed on government.  Government is supposed to preserve, protect and defend your individual rights.  It is not their job, nor is it their right, to strip them from you. 
 
To give you an idea of just how one of your recent President's felt about the role of government, he said in an interview on MTV in 1993:
 
"The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people."   William Jefferson Clinton.
 
Note: Finally, we get a politician to admit it!
 
It would appear our current President has similar ideas about the role of government.
 
Take the time to let the government know that you are "Mad as Hell and You Aren't Going to Take it Anymore".  To resist in one small way, fill out NARLO's "Claim For Monetary Damages" and send it to a government politician or agency you think is responsible for not only over-controlling you with draconian "CC&R's", but taking away your freedoms and property rights as well.  Insert a dollar value on the claim form that is your estimate of how you have been damaged by government.  Don't be shy about the amount because the government has damaged you way more than you know.  The following is one example of those damages.
 
The Washington State Office of Financial Management stated in the voter pamphlet what it would cost state taxpayers if Initiative 933 (a Property Rights Initiative on the ballot in 2006) was passed.   They said it would cost taxpayers over $9,000,000,000.  (That's Billion with a capital "B") But turn it around.  This is the approximate amount that government "stole" from the people (mostly rural landowners) for not strictly adhering to the "just compensation" clause of the 5th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, thereby violating their solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend that very same Constitution.  Those stolen billions work out to about $1,500 for every man, woman and child in Washington State.
 
Here is what a rising 20th-Century, European dictator said about the people and their rights:
 
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration!  Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!" Adolph Hitler,  April 15, 1935
 
But in fact the people of Germany were stripped of their last remaining defense against the tyranny of government, while they shrugged it off and "looked the other way".  The rest is history.
 
Will America follow the lead of this brutal dictator?   Probably, if we let them and if the people find that the security of "The Colony" is worth being enslaved by tens of thousands of CC&R's, hidden TV cameras, warrant-less wire taps, library, internet and e-mail inspections without probable cause, gun registration and other draconian laws, upon laws, upon laws.

 Ron Ewart, President
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS
P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA  98027
425 222-4742 or 1 800 682-7848
(Fax No. 425 222-4743)
Website: www.narlo.org

Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO  80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com

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