Dave,
Excellent comments summing up Cape Vincent’s situation. Your quote posted below is spot on.
My thoughts, although prompted by Dave’s comments, are my own
opinion, even though he may agree.
My post is neither anti or pro wind. It is PRO community rights.
I hope every community in NNY considering the regulation
approach to industrial wind, especially our community and county leaders, will
carefully consider and get involved in this discussion before we sacrifice our
region to the arbitrary rules of Article X. This is a regional community rights issue and
we should ban together to proclaim the right to defend our region’s treasured
environment resources threatened by Article X.
We should not try to defend against Article X as if it is a spot fire to
be put out in each individual community.
It has come to our attention that some people and leaders in
Cape Vincent may not be willing to truly
defend and protect our community against Article X, and will succumb to
whatever Article X declares is our fate.
Some appear willing to accept without further challenge any Article X decision
on our community’s future. Frankly this
is disturbing.
Dave LaMora’s quote again:
"The only resolve that shows a public face is the resolve to
follow the rules, regardless of who establishes them , what basic principles
they subvert, or who and how they benefit."
The paradigm of Article X is specifically designed on the
premise that people will willingly hand over their rights if the removal of
those rights is packaged such that it appears the rules are legitimate and are
not theirs to question. Under this scheme
people will willingly bow to any set of rules shielded with what appears to be
a respectable legitimate law because all their life they have been wired to do
just that. To oppose it seems far too
scary, irrational and foreign. But it’s
not…it’s the fundamental responsibility of every American citizen. And ironically despite the subtle
subversion, the more legitimate the rules appear and the slicker the political
PR packaging it’s wrapped in; it seems the more willing the people are to
follow and not oppose them.
Of course this is not a new condition. The founding fathers knew it. Consider this quote from the Declaration of Independence:
“… all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to
which they are accustomed.”
We seem to forget the lessons that every significant rights
movement INCLUDING THE FOUND OF OUR COUNTRY was predicated on
major violations of existing rules. The Civil Rights movement and many other
fundamental rights movements are examples and were based on breaking some BIG
rules. You would think we could at least stand up to
honor the people who freed us from the other oppressive violations of our basic
rights by defend our small communities on this issue.
Blindly following or not challenging the rules just because
a group of powerful individuals says so, is one of the most frightening, most
irrational, undemocratic ,and unpatriotic things any individual or group can do.
Especially if you are an American citizen.
What some people in Cape
Vincent and other local communities don’t seem to grasp is, the Constitution we
all hold so sacred, the very foundation protecting our inalienable rights, has now been turned
against OUR own constitutional rights by corporations like BP and public officials
like Cuomo and the NY Legislature. And sadly,
too often we are willing to follow because it doesn’t seem like a big deal. They say, “Oh come on now , just be
reasonable” , just as Cuomo said in
Watertown recently referring to Article X!
This IS the exact fight in Cape Vincent and our small NY communities with Article X. You don’t write letters begging to a system
bent on removing your rights…that is absurd.
Think how absurd it would have been
if the American founding fathers only wrote letters to the king of
England begging him to respect the
Colony’s rights, and that was the sum total of their opposition and they simply
succumbed to whatever came next justifying it by saying, “Oh well we tried, the
King and England are just too big!!!” But
this in a nut shell is what Cuomo, and
the NY Legislature with their Article X is expecting all of us to do!
The “Kings” see limited votes here so we are easier to
overrun and be stripped of our community rights.
The Declaration of Independence says you have inalienable rights They
are not given to you at the discretion of some politician, or his random
arbitrary rules on behalf of some corporate agenda. That is obscene! And
they should not be taken away in similar fashion. These rights are not even granted
by any one, they are already yours, some believe by divine design.
The Declaration also says government derives it powers from
the consent
of the governed. That
“governed” is YOU and ME!!! WE are the
entire reason government has any power at all, or even exists at all. It does NOT say governments or their rules
exist by the consent of the corporations, especially FOREIGN corporations, or for some powerful politicians personal
agenda . But sadly that is what it has
become, and Article X is an insidious example of eroding THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED!! Cuomo’s and our NY legislature’s Article X is
one more of example of politicians and corporations trying to make themselves
autonomous from the power we posses to
give them any right to govern us at all.
It is time we send them a very clear message that they have
far overreached their authority in our communities. We the People from who they derive their
power will not tolerate the abuse of their authority in our communities,
especially on behalf of foreign corporations. We will not recognize their
authority to strip away our community rights by forcing Article X on us,
especially with unelected officials who have no accountability to us after
deciding the fate of our communities.
It was a wind issue; it is now a fundamental rights
issue. And if they are willing to try to
take them away they can’t do it without an ugly political fight in a
very sensitive public forum based on rights, not setbacks, and shadow flicker!
To drive our point home, each community needs to pass a
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) drafted Community Bill of
Rights. ( See the link at the bottom of
my comments) Not to ban corporations from our communities altogether, that is
not the point, but to have a choice to defend our communities, by allowing in only what we think is in our community’s
best interest and have the right to do so.
Right now, even without Article X hanging over our heads …we
simply don’t have those rights .
I voted in 20ll for
the new Cape Vincent government for
leadership. I did so under protest
because I was not in agreement with their handling of wind zoning and Article X.
But I at least thought they WOULD
defend whatever their ultimate decision might be against State preemption and
the stripping of our community rights.
I at least thought
they would exhibit that leadership as an example to the region and other
communities to protect our rights and environmental treasures. We gave them via a democratic process the
sacred responsibility and right to defend and protect our community. We gave them the consent of the governed to defend us . And why is that?????
Because we require every
one of them to stand up and take a
sacred oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America upon
which OUR community rights are solidly
based. We demanded of them to defend
our rights and protect our communities even against schemes just like Cuomo’s
Article X which exists on behalf of
large foreign corporations trying to strip our rights away. Home rule should
not be predicated on patronization, letting us play only with the rights and
decisions the State thinks we can be
responsible with.
And for clarification, don’t interpret this to mean I feel everybody should have the right to do anything they want any ,time they want, anywhere
they want, including on their own land. That is a grossly simplistic misinterpretation. What I am defending is the right for the governed , all of us who
hold the ultimate power, to choose on a community level and for the community good what those rules should
be, and not fear preemption and intimidation by some large foreign corporation or
powerful politician backing their agenda.
It now relates to the fundamental ideas of why our country even
exists at all. It’s about if Cape Vincent and our small rural Upstate NY communities and leaders will stand up and defend us. Or
will they willingly throw ourselves, our
communities, and our rights under the Article
X bus simply because the NY Legislature and Cuomo, and some corporations with
inordinate power have forced rules on us
that say we must do so!!!
Please take time to consider this CELDF Website and
video. Get enlightened as to what is really
going on with Article X and the wind invasion in our communities.
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