To conservatives, land use regulations are like the old joke about lawyers

Which old joke about lawyers?  The one that goes "everyone hates lawyers, until they need one. "


We saw this principle in action in the recent fight over the proposed private landfill in Bennett.  Recall that Bennett is a conservative part of the county where there is no zoning and the residents like it that way.  


How conservative is Bennett?  In the 2010 general election, the Republican commissioner candidates all received over 80% of the vote in the Bennett precinct.  In the NC Senate election, Republican Roger Gerber got 66% of the vote in Bennett while getting only 45% countywide and getting just 40% of the votes in the Senate district overall, in an otherwise great year for Republicans.  So I think we can stipulate that the voters of Bennett are rock-ribbed property rights conservatives. 


Well they are until someone wants to build something they don't like, like a private landfill.  Then they look just like the liberals, pinkos, and property rights haters of Eastern Chatham.  In fact their arguments against allowing a private landfill in their community could easily have been written by any liberal eastern Chathamite.  Two of their arguments in particular stand out.  They were both made, among other places,  in this post on the Chatham County bulletin board by poster mary51802, who is of course a staunch supporter of our conservative, property rights commissioners:

we found out in Chatham is one of the counties were the Shiners are endangered in our Cape Fear River basin, and a report on livestock revenue for the area along with a federally protected Woodpecker lives here.

We also have proved that he cannot change the frontline or road on 902 because of the Scenic Highway designation. It also states that any business that appears on it has to fit in with the area and it will not. 

Here's what's most interesting about these arguments. 

1. The attempted use of the endangered species act, which in any other circumstance conservatives would at best sneer at someone else using that to protect themselves from a project, and at worst that they believe should be repealed anyway. I mean seriously, can you imagine what Mary or any other Chatham County conservative who supported her on this  would say about an Eastern Chatham resident saying that a major development or shopping mall should be stopped because of endangered shiners and federally protected woodpeckers?    
2. The use of the Scenic Highway designation which results in a requirement that any business should "fit in"  (remember this is an unzoned part of the county).  This one was particularly rich, as these are the same people who oppose allowing another part of the county to have a corridor ordinance to protect their quality of life, then are quick to use a highway corridor law to protect themselves from development. 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad the landfill was defeated.  The hypocrisy of its opponents doesn't make this landfill a good idea.   But now that Bennett's conservatives (with the support of our conservative property rights commissioners) have used progressive and liberal arguments to defeat a landfill in their own backyard, the question becomes:  


Did they gain a new appreciation for how these types of laws and regulations can help protect citizens, or will they now go right back to working to make sure no one else can benefit from the same protections they just used for themselves? 

Have a Shot of 'Spro, or should we attack peoples' livelihoods over their political views and actions?

Recently on the Chatham Chatlist, Tina Meeks who owns the Shot of Spro mobile expresso van wrote in a P.S.:

I will probably have about a dozen customers or concerned local business owners stop by to let me know that I have just caused myself more alienation of my business by speaking out because I am NOT a supporter of some previous or current leaders. It amazes me how you are judged based more on your political beliefs than you are on what you have to offer as a business.

I doubt I agree with Tina on just about anything politically, as she is a supporter of Brian Bock and the Republicans, but I agree with her on this sentiment.  Personally, I don't patronize the Shot of 'Spro van simply because I am never in Pittsboro when they are.   But if the van were around me and I wanted a coffee, I would not hesitate to buy one from the Meeks' and their political views would not enter into my purchase decision.

As some other examples, I have in the past  hired Heather Johnson to do some Quickbooks setup for the charity I am treasurer of, and I have also patronized Bunkey's Car Wash.  Once when I was at a Bunkey's Cary location getting my car washed, I ran into Barbara McCoy who was surprised to see me there.  But I needed a car wash and the location was handy to me.  I'm not going to drive across town just to avoid giving Bunkey my $10 and it would be silly to do so. If Bunkey's does a good job at a reasonable price, I will use them.  I have since had other minor, non political interactions with Bunkey Morgan that were perfectly pleasant  (I will probably get my liberal card taken away for saying that).   I've patronized other businesses in Chatham that I'm pretty sure are owned or run by people I work against in the political arena, but I don't bother to find out and if I did it wouldn't matter.  I'm a capitalist and I will patronize the business that gives the best product at the best price.

So what? 

The reason I mention this is that I think one of the things standing in the way of civil discourse in politics is the tendency to take everything completely personally and think and wish nothing but ill of our political opponents, to the extent that we not only attack their political views and actions (which is to be expected) but even go so far as to attack their livelihoods and personal lives.   That is not the path to civil discourse, folks. It's the path to warring tribes who never interact with each other except to fight with each other.  Does anyone think that if they successfully got someone fired or caused their small business  to suffer over their political views, that would make the victim and his or her friends more sympathetic to their side?  Or that it would make that person less of an advocate for their views? I mean seriously, would it accomplish anything, beyond hurting the local economy and pissing people off?

It goes beyond deciding to patronize a small business or not.  During the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, a Coalition steering committee member clumsily and unsuccessfully tried to get someone on the Cross and Barnes campaign team in trouble at work because that person was sending emails to the chatlist on what the complainer thought was company time and company resources.  This was someone who had worked happily and cooperatively with the same person two years before and never had a complaint about this email practice then.

This was the first time I had been working with a group directly against the Coalition so I don't know if this was a common practice of theirs but I suspect that a tiger doesn't change its stripes.   Also, before being banned from Gene's Chatham BBS, John Hammond used to make not-so-veiled threats to posters he disagreed with who he thought were posting on  their company's time and computers. His implication has always been that since he's retired he's untouchable but everyone who works better watch their step.  And the Coalition wonders how they got so unpopular!

They do it it too

It also happens on the right. When I lived in Cary I had as neighbors a couple who were friends of Paul Stam (at the time he wasn't in the legislature) who used to regularly demonstrate against abortion at the legislature. Once the wife was quoted in the News and Observer saying that people should boycott the businesses of legislators who supported abortion rights.   Their house was for sale at the time and they were struggling to sell it, so  after reading her quote in the paper article I suggested to her that maybe people who support abortion rights should boycott the houses for sale of people who are anti-abortion activists. She didn't appreciate the parallel.   I guess it's easier to suggest doing it to someone else than to consider having it done to you.

Why I really wish Brian Bock had kept his job at Suntrust

And of course there is Brian Bock.  He of all people should be the example of why such attacks are counterproductive.  During the 2010 campaign he was fired from Suntrust, specifically because of his campaign. Now I have no idea if this was driven by complaints from his opponents, or something else completely internal to Suntrust. I asked him and he doesn't really know for sure either.  Whether or not complaints led to the firing or not is beside the point.  Because I do know that after being fired he went on to win a very close election and was not the least bit chastened.  In fact I'd wager that the firing freed up  more time and energy to concentrate on his campaign, and probably spurred him on to redouble his efforts and contributed to his victory because of the extra bandwidth he suddenly had.

And now that Brian Bock is a commissioner with no responsibilities to Suntrust, he probably has more time and energy to devote to building an effective machine to have a lasting effect on Chatham politics than he would have otherwise had.    And make no mistake, Brian Bock is a smart man who knows what he's doing.  As a political opponent of his, I'd much rather he be spending his time right now dealing with tax season for his (I assume) demanding clients, than having full time to cement his electoral gains!

By the way it is to their credit that the liberal-leaning Chatham County Line  newspaper denounced the Bock firing in the article I linked above which was written by former Chatham Coalition steering committee member Tim Keim,  though I doubt most conservatives would agree with the reasons they denounced it for.