[sicophiliac]

Apparently a vegetable garden is an eye sore in some communities and now this lady is possibly facing jail time for not paying the fines for her selfish, dangerous and utterly comtemptful use of her own property.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/0 ... 93516.html

[Pretorian]

One old lady already did time for not watering her lawn in Arizona or some other US desert. Why not this one?

[mattduke]

Now she's done it. She's questioned their authoritah. There is no aspect of your life not subjected to government restrictions.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Now she's done it. She's questioned their authoritah. There is no aspect of your life not subjected to government restrictions.

Interesting. If she were living in one of these fancy-schmancy neighborhoods where she had SIGNED AND AGREED TO some kind of neighboorhood development property standards, then I would say she deserves this.

However, this isn't mentioned in the article. If this is just ordinary city zoning laws, then this seems ridiculous to me. If there is some legitimate bug infestation or some such thing she is causing, that's one thing. If the whole issue is how her garden LOOKS -- then IMO, the city and her neighbor ought to go directly to hell, not pass go, or collect $200.

I'd like to see the ACLU defend cases like this instead of NAMBLA, BTW.

[AgentR11]

If you buy a house in a city with a specific code, you are basically agreeing to abide by that code.

Don't want someone telling you what your front lawn should look like, don't live there.

I suspect also, that she's being a pain and refusing to pay the fine for the code violation, thus the jail threat.

[Outcast_Searcher]

If you buy a house in a city with a specific code, you are basically agreeing to abide by that code.

Don't want someone telling you what your front lawn should look like, don't live there.

I suspect also, that she's being a pain and refusing to pay the fine for the code violation, thus the jail threat.

Yes - I agree with all of that. Where I question this is -- is it reasonable in general for it to be a CODE VIOLATION to have a vegatable garden in your front yard?

We now live in a society that is getting more and more tolerant of many kinds of behavior, of increasing political correctness, etc. etc.

How is a vegatable garden causing unreasonable duress to her neighbor(s)?

I guess it's just the libertarian in me leaking out, but I don't get this unless she signed some specific neighborhood property rules agreement.

[Expatriot]

Read the code.

It says "all unpaved portions of the site shall be planted with grass or ground cover or shrubbery or other suitable live plant material."

So the code uses a bulls***, vague word like "suitable," and then the moronic government piglets come running in to apply their interpretation of the word "suitable."

I'd love to be this lady's lawyer. I'd rip the town a new one. She's facing "jail" in the sense that, if found guilty, a judge could sentence her to prison within the state law parameters. And judge that did that should be disbarred.

This is just a small example of what happens when people vote to give their own government too much power - you have overpaid, underworked morons attempting to say that "suitable" means "common," and my G-d tomatoes are not common.

[PrestonSturges]

Our town will pay you to take up the fescue and plant tropical grasses or just mulch. I'm not sure about a garden, but I have apple, figs, persimmons, pears, jujubes, and blackberries out front. The apple tree is right behind the mailbox, and it has about 50 apples this year.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Read the code.

It says "all unpaved portions of the site shall be planted with grass or ground cover or shrubbery or other suitable live plant material."

So the code uses a bullshit, vague word like "suitable," and then the moronic government piglets come running in to apply their interpretation of the word "suitable."

I'd love to be this lady's lawyer. I'd rip the town a new one.

She's facing "jail" in the sense that, if found guilty, a judge could sentence her to prison within the state law parameters. And judge that did that should be disbarred.

This is just a small example of what happens when people vote to give their own government too much power - you have overpaid, underworked morons attempting to say that "suitable" means "common," and my G-d tomatoes are not common.

+1

VERY well said.

And just think, most people seem to think that what we need to solve our problems is always yet MORE government. I guess servitude is the price of being on the dole...

[dolanbaker]

Depends on what she's growing!

[mattduke]

She is not facing jail. She is facing death. That is what they'll threaten next if she refuses (rightly) to go to their cage.

[Expatriot]

She is not facing jail. She is facing death. That is what they'll threaten next if she refuses (rightly) to go to their cage.

When I try to explain to people that the ultimate threat to enforce the laws is always a gun to your head, they don't seem to get it.

[Cog]

pstarr never met a government bureaucratic process he didn't like or a tax increase he didn't embrace. Too bad for him the voters didn't see it that way in 2010.

[Sixstrings]

You people are nuts looking for gubmint boogyman under every flower bed. We're talking about a little minor petty bureacrat here. In some tiny town. And you paranoids have turned this into the freakin ILLUMINATI. Jeezusssss. Calm down.

I like food gardens, but that was funny pstarr. "Boogeyman under every flower bed."

You have a point this is democracy at work, you don't like it then get involved in your local politics. If people don't participate then the busybodies end up running everything.

What it comes down to is a clash of world views, cornucopian vs. doomer / green. The original idea of suburbs was to be a sanitized version of country living, get out of the city but no it was never intended for anyone to have chickens and corn in the front yard. Some people still think that way, so that's the clash going on here.

Personally I don't know.. it depends on whether the garden looks good or not. If the neighbor just tore out their grass and it all looked like crap then yeah that would be an eyesore. I don't live in a bad neighborhood, but it's sort of drifting that way so at this point it doesn't matter.. I'm more worried that there's a halfway house down the street now, empty bank owned homes, more renters, more poverty overall, and druggie / marijuana grow houses are getting to be a problem.

[PrestonSturges]

She is not facing jail. She is facing death. That is what they'll threaten next if she refuses (rightly) to go to their cage.

Jeeze, where were you on the other thread when I was saying how certain Libertarians don't recognize any "statist" system, including freely elected governments?

[Sixstrings]

Here's a pic of the garden:

http://assets.theagitator.com/wp-content/uploads/CM-Capture-21.png

It looks nice, better than grass assuming things are maintained. The city people are idiots, listen to how they define "suitable:"

However, Oak Park’s Planning and Technology Director Kevin Rulkowski says the city disagrees. He says, “If you look at the dictionary, suitable means common. You can look all throughout the city and you’ll never find another vegetable garden that consumes the entire front yard.”
http://www.theagitator.com/2011/07/07/does-michelle-obama-know-about-this/

So it's illegal because the dictionary says so! This overpaid city planner cucumber cop actually pulled out a dictionary on this one. Sigh.. well I guess if other people started planting veggies then the definition of "suitable" changes and they can let this woman out of jail.

(I guess what he's saying is that the law is all about conformity.. you can't have more veggies than your neighbor does)

[RedStateGreen]

Should send that official to Camazotz.

[TreeFarmer]

That is a nice looking garden, especially for her first year.

It is time to become a libertarian if you value any freedom at all. Why do I say that, because it is equally likely that it is a democratic or a republican administration in the town that is responsible for the charges. You just can't trust either party.

Peace