Gary, good article, but anyone who actually buys a house to live in, in Detroit is literally playing with fire. You’d have to turn it into a fortress, the place is that dangerous. I was born there and grew up in the area. I could go on about forever, but won’t, other than to say I can still remember the plumes of smoke during the summer of 1967.

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We spent three marvelous days with Tex Norton at his lakehouse. To be precise, we spent three days at a magnificent bed and breakfast next door, since Tex is in the midst of remodeling two bedrooms himself in his beautiful place. The lake folk had a thriving tourism business…until the Colorado River Authority confiscated 30 feet of water from the 23,000 acre lake. Tex’s dock and the B&B’s dock are stranded inland, now, surrounded by grass, when normally the water comes up to Virginny & John’s enormous deck. There is only one private boat-launching ramp that is still functioning. The Vanishing Texas Rivers Cruises cannot run, the fishing guides are out of work, and hotel, motel, and B&B rooms are all but empty. The local grocery store and the beer, bait, and ammo shops are dying. Costs go on, but there is not enough trade to meet them.

Tourism would have been down due to the general economic situation, but what is killing the beautiful resort and ranching area is government intervention and bare-faced “legitimised” theft. The politicos in Austin, the state capitol, took the water to cater to voters and special interests there.

Water “rights” are becoming more and more of an issue, as folks in southern California found again earlier this year when the water needed to irrigate their crops was flushed away uselessly for the sake of some obscure critter. The crops died, produce prices went up, and the wretched whatever it was did not benefit. California has become increasingly desperate for hydroelectric power because the water is wasted in the name of the sacred salmon–who are harmed by attempts to “help” them spawn. This, in turn, lead to CA buying power from WA, which raised the price dramatically fo WA residents.

A bill before Congress intends to claim ALL water, from any source, as the property of the Federal Government. Already it is a CRIME to “harvest” rainwater which lands on private roofs in some areas. I am quite serious: it is a CRIME to catch water in barrels from drain spouts. The jackbooted thugs will come and kick in your rain barrel, spilling the water on the ground, and fine you to boot.

That is certainly absurd, but it portends even more serious problems. The two things which business (and, hence, individuals) must have to plan for the future and make it worthwhile to invest time, effort, and money are a stable system of law and water. Who would have built a resort had he known the government could destroy the lake? No one of any sense.

What will we do on the ranch when Washington claims that the water in the lakes we made by damming enormous gullies (at vast expense) belongs to IT? Our livestock and local wildlife drinks out of those lakes, and fish thrive in them and have for over sixty years. The Feds propose to claim title to the water rights which throughout history have been conveyed with property or sold separately, bare-faced theft from land owners. Doubtless the offensive myrmidons of the law will insist that they have the “right” to inspect our private wells, demand that we chlorinate them (poisoning a well is a DREADFUL thing to do, and I am allergic to chlorine), and charge me for the water which comes out of the well we paid for pumped by electricity we pay for, as well. In time will they limit the usage? Cities do, and/or charge enormous additional amounts for using more than the average in the neighborhood. “Civilization” is encroaching upon the ranch, having pushed smack up against our North and East borders. Our “ration” would be consumed by household use…leaving cattle, goats, pigs, dogs, chickens, horses, deer, gardens, and greenhouses which would still require large amounts of water. The problem is…government doesn’t CARE what it takes to run a business other than in terms of taxes and control.

Taxes, unions, and government intervention killed Detroit. The water grab and the Food “Safety” Act will destroy the remaining small farms and ranches–and that leaves you city folks at the nonexistent mercy of Agribiz, Monsanto, and rapacious tax lords. It is not really a joke that some day soon we will be growing carrots in closets under grow lights, hiding gardens as the growers of marijuana do their crops now. It is all about control and deliberate destruction of wealth. Precisely where in the Constitution does it say that the government can confiscate our natural resources on “private” property? Unfortunately, my land is their land. So long as we must pay Danegeld for it yearly we do not really “own” houses or land–and as Washington proved vividly 154 years ago, taxes can be raised to the point where it is impossible to pay them.

Short term I suppose an excellent investment is desalination plants. That will last only as long as it takes the Greens to have the seas declared the property of the UN to be preserved for marine life. Where does the madness stop? Presumably at the future Ayn Rand foresaw: when a few of the warlords and the new “nobility” live in ostentatious luxury, and the rest of us are dead or huddled in huts along the Ganges, the Mississippi, and the Colorado.

For many reasons every household should own a good portable water filtration system (I bought the Berkey, myself, the best I could find. As always, I have NO commercial interest there.), and stocked up on sodium chlorite (with a “T”, not a “D;” not table salt, in other words) which will render even pond and ditch water safe to drink…if you can manage to pilfer some in a world where ALL water “belongs” to the Feds. It does not require much knowledge of politics to see that “promoting the general welfare” will mean taking the water from red areas for the benefit of the blues.

Equal treatment under the law is a myth that disappeared long, long ago.

Linda Brady Traynham.