Today’s Beef: Ever Heard of the Concept “Private Property”?

Daily Beef Politics
I’m walking out to check my mail today, like I do every day. Walk to the end of my driveway and open the mailbox. Drag out the collection of adverts for things I don’t want, and bills for things I need; and head back towards the house. As I am returning to the house, one of the delinquent mothers for the children that attend school across the street, driving alone in an 8 seater SUV, determines that she must turn around in my driveway.

She is actually in error in this assumption, in more than one way, but I’ll get to that shortly.

This is a perennial problem for those of us who have the misfortune to live across the street from a gov’t school (a gov’t school where my child would be a representative of a 2% minority. Not to mention the abysmal performance of the school when compared to others in the area. Consequently my son attends a different school. One I have to drive to. One with enough parking of it’s own) one of the many gov’t run businesses that are exempt from the more mundane architectural and site design rules. Mundane rules like providing adequate parking. Totally irrelevant requirements that private businesses of a similar nature could not build without. Requirements like traffic impact studies. After all, why would you want to study traffic impact around an area that will be covered with children due to the nature of the business? Why bother, the gov’t can just slap up another school zone, inconvenience travelers and property owners alike, and pretend to be aghast at each accident that occurs because they exempted themselves from (expensive) processes that they require of any other entity building within the city. But I digress.

This delinquent mother proceeds to do very large three point turn, utilizing my driveway, even though I happened to be walking in my driveway. Realizing something that she clearly doesn’t, that I’m standing on my own personal property, safe within the boundaries of my own castle, I stand my ground and slowly read my mail, all the while mouthing a few choice curses reserved for trespassers and door to door salesmen.

Clearly having not mastered the concept of property, much less the use of automatic windows, the errant mother opens her door and curses me for getting in her way. Can’t I see she needs to turn around and pick up her children?

I calmly replied, in a few less words, that she should exit my property forthwith; and that not doing so would prove out her questionable personal habits and upbringing. She then challenged me, opening the door again, to say that to her face. This proved impossible, since she immediately closed the door again and proceeded to back out, in a rather cramped fashion, into the public right of way; the area she should never have left in the first place if she didn’t want a confrontation with any irate property owner.

I contented myself with a simple hand gesture that could be seen as a rough equivalent of the words she had dared me to repeat, all the while wondering why she had not bothered to drive around the school, like the rest of the similarly sized vehicles did (they at least carry the appropriate number of people) She promptly picked up her one child, and vented her frustration at me as she drove off.

The person illegally parked by the fire hydrant in front of my house, who witnessed the whole thing, also expressed a dislike for me as she drove off. She should count herself lucky, I generally report vehicles that sit parked by that fire hydrant (although I usually slap a warning note on their windshield first) but was too concerned with being run over in my own driveway to notice the potential fire hazard sitting in the street.

So you pull up in my driveway and then curse me for using my own property in a manner that I see fit? What part of the concept Private Property isn’t clear here?


Strangely, since that day, I’ve noticed a distinct lack of traffic in front of my house. Perhaps they got the hint that private property rights are vociferously defended here. Chalk one up for the property owner. Now if I could get them to quit throwing their trash in my yard, I might not mind living next to the school.

If only dealing with the tax collector was that easy.

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