Vermont Meddlers vs. Guite: Update

Since I first wrote last year about the plight of Michel Guite -- a man in Vermont who wants to move a small cemetery on his property, with the blessing of the only known distant relative -- I have noticed a fairly consistent amount of search traffic coming to the blog as people obviously are still curious about the story. When I wrote about it just under a year ago, Guite had been taken to court and he won -- despite the petty and snarling statements of the judge. Now it turns out that there is a new development, and his plans are being blocked by the Vermont District 3 Environmental Commission, who is stupidly applying an environmental statute to deny his permit just because they feel like it, which is how the EPA and all other jack-booted environmental thugs operate.

I learned of this because last night, someone coyly named "Anonymous" made two new comments on my July 2008 post. He (assuming it's a 'he') said he is waiting for my reply "with baited breath," so I thought I'd compose a new post to address his comments. Anon said:

The other side of the coin.

I am writing on behalf of all of those who have been active in protesting Mr. Guite's plans to disinter the Aldrich-Kendall Cemetery in Hartland, Vermont.

I am not against landowner rights at all....

Interesting start. He's been protesting what Guite does with his own private property, and yet claims to not be against "landowner rights" at all. Let's deal in fundamentals here, and call them property rights, shall we?

The rest of what he writes is but a long, drawn out invective against the very property rights he claims to have nothing against, as well as sniping personal attacks against Guite himself. He makes snide remarks about well-paid lawyers finding loopholes, obviously meaning that being wealthy enough to pay lawyers is bad, and that any attempt to avoid onerous and burdensome government legislation is to be frowned upon. Anon appeals to authority, saying that many newspapers -- champions of individual rights that they are -- are reporting Guite's obviously terrible exploits "truthfully... to a fault," whatever that means. Anon even tries to show that Guite isn't a real American because he was born in Canada, and states that "as an American, I am feeling very used."

Finally, in his second comment, Anon aims his criticism at Guite's attempt to circumvent Act 250, and then calls on the private property rights he spent a few hundred words contradicting to say, in reference to his actions to get the cemetery moved, "Also, he has removed private property from those families that he has no permission to have removed."

So, are property rights inviolable or not? And didn't Guite get the blessing from the ancestor of the family in question? Well, yes, he did, but Anon then claims that Guite bought her off.

Finally, Anon, after having edified us all, asks whether I "don't find a little of this just a bit unpalatable." Well, yes sir, I do.

I find your entire meddling stance, your view that your opinions matter when a man wants to dispose of his property as he sees fit, and your incessant and unsubstantiated claims of legal knowledge unpalatable. You have shown yourself to be a small-minded pest, reveling in the use of government force against someone you don't like, whether it's because he's richer than you, or because he's Canadian, or because you don't like his smile.

As I said at the beginning, we're dealing in fundamentals here, and zoning laws, Act 250, the wishes of the community, and your own myopic and irrelevant opinions all fall flat in the face of the inviolable individual rights of life, liberty and property. Your needs and wants do not constitute a claim on the life or property of Michel Guite or anyone else. It matters not if he is the most moral man in the world, or a degenerate philanderer.

This undoubtedly will fall on deaf ears with you, Anon, and you'll cling to the supposed illegality of violating this or that Vermont law. But because a law was passed and is being enforced does not, by necessity, make it right. Remember... fundamentals. The Founding Fathers -- men from the same era as the purported war vet buried in the cemetery -- would have understood this implicitly, immediately.

The opponents, most more articulate than our fair commenter, follow in the mold of the judge who ruled on the initial court case, who said, "Perhaps, it is time for the Vermont Legislature to consider protecting the sanctity of old cemeteries because of the strong community sentiment expressed so eloquently by so many Vermonters who continue to have that strong sense of community, faith, and tradition."

The man (mentioned above) buried in the cemetery is Noah Aldrich, who whether or not he served in the war, was alive in the early years of our nation, and this is what I had to say about him and the Vermeddlers' appeal to community and tradition:

Yes, they have a strong sense of tradition. Unfortunately, it's the wrong one. They instead should refer to ideas from the time of Noah Aldrich and the War of 1812 that they have apparently abandoned; they would then be able to see that property rights trump all their whining about "lust" and "greed" and "heartfelt opposition." In fact, I'd bet that if Aldrich were able to speak up on the matter (and if he were a good old obstinate and no nonsense Yankee) he'd say "Leave the man alone! It's his land; let him do with it as he sees fit."

Instead, we're left with meddling gnats who believe that their wants, emotions and "strong community sentiment" are a necessary claim on the property of others.

See, Anon? None of your muddled information and confused argumentation has changed my tune. If the man owns the land, the man owns the land. That's all there is to it. Now mind your damn business.