If you want to destroy a human being you can do it two ways: either suddenly or incrementally. Walking up to an individual and shooting them in the head is the sudden way. It is profoundly inhuman act. In the sudden murder of an innocent human being, all human beings are implicitly under threat. For if “that person” can be randomly murdered or killed today, I may be the selected victim tomorrow. People tend to be shocked on the one hand and feel an implicit threat to themselves and their families, on the other. They think, "What if it were me?"
Incremental destruction, however, works gradually and therefore more subtly. This has the tactical advantage of disguising the threat, which makes the general population more accepting. Therefore, the threat is disguised, as is the ethical evil of the act. As one imprisoned Christian put it during the Nazi terror—first they came for the Jews and I was silent; then they came for the gypsies, and I said nothing; finally, they came for me. But there are even more subtle gradual ways to destroy human beings.
The key is to work in phases. The first phase is to start with one's property. The gradual and systematic removal of property rights in favour of the Collective reduces individuals to a state of dependence. This is the road to serfdom; incremental slavery. It is only by means of property that an individual can clothe and feed and shelter himself and his family. Take his property away and he is defenceless, ineffectual, and largely helpless.
The second phase is to attack the household and family of the individual soul. The threat-system of “conform or we will take your children in the name of the Collective” is a worse form of slavery and intimidation than taking property. “At least we have each other” is no longer true. At that point an individual human soul is usually so dehumanised, he is ready to die.
As one philosopher once challenged—without telling me your name, your anything about your family, your children, your occupation or what you own—tell me who and what you are. It is a difficult challenge—which underscores just how much human identity and individual person hood is tied up with and connected to our jobs, our property and our families.
In the past fifty years we have seen a systematic erosion of private property rights in favour of the collective. It has been gradual, incremental, but relentless. And most people have accepted it, and got on with what was left of their lives. The human capacity to adapt has not served us well in this instance. “What can you do. It is the system. You cannot fight City Hall” has been the overwhelming response.
When a person is suddenly murdered we see the implicit threat to us all. Yet when property is incrementally taken from us, we foolishly fail to see the threat. Somehow it does not appear to be a clear and present danger.
In the pagan West, the overwhelming rationale for stealing property from human souls has been the “greater good.” Whatever the “greater good” is at the time will change from decade to decade. But each new threat to the “greater good du jour” has resulted in still further and further erosion of both property rights and private property. Consequently, the pagan West has become progressively more and more inhumane, moving its people closer and closer to conditions of slavery.
Imagine our consternation if our next door neighbour knocked on our door one morning and informed us he was going to use our car for the day, and needed the keys. We would likely retort, “Get lost. It's mine. Go get your own car.” But if I own a tree in a garden I am subject to that tree insofar as I cannot dispose of it or use it as I want without seeking permission and approval from the Collective. Fifty years ago, the very idea would have been as preposterous as the neighbour commandeering our car. But we now blithely accept it, for we have tolerated the notion that society, the nation, the people have an interest and ownership stake in my tree. I “share” ownership with the Collective. They have come for the gypsies.
The New Zealand Resource Management Act has done more to strip away private property rights than any other piece of legislation on our statute books. It has been systematically used to assert the prior rights of collective ownership of property over all property.
The present government is intending to “reform” the Act by tweaking it. Out of the woodwork have come the termites, seeking to defend the rights of the Collective. For example, under the tweaks, it is proposed that homeowners will not need resource consents any longer if they want to fell their own trees. The Tree Collective has expressed outrage:
Hueline Massey of the Tree Council (Auckland) Incorporated, said proposed changes to tree laws had come out of the blue. The Tree Council would be "horrified" if the change went ahead, as it had fought to get rules preventing trees of a certain size or type from being felled without consent since the 1980s.
Ms Massey said rules were brought in to stop the "destruction of good trees without a good reason", which could deprive the community and subsequent owners of the land of trees. If the change went ahead it would be "open slather" for people to remove trees just because they annoyed them, she said.
Nick Smith said councils would have the option of listing individual trees or groves of trees for protection, instead of blanket rules. He said there were parts of Auckland where people did not let trees grow over 3 metres for fear of invoking council tree controls. "It is a nonsense that we have approximately 5000 resource consents a year for tree trimming. We think there are far less costly and bureaucratic ways of providing protection for urban trees,"he said.
But Ms Massey said it was a huge exercise to list an individual tree for protection. As a result there were only about 120 such trees in the Rodney District and similarly few in Auckland, she said.
“Depriving the community of trees.” Yes, that says it all. But this is just one of the more extreme and vexatious attacks upon the property rights of private citizens in the Act. The RMA deliberately sets up a public ownership stake in all property. Public participation in scrutinizing all forms of change or development (from house extensions or renovations to multi-million dollar commercial projects) is established and protected by the Act. This means that an individual in Kaitaia can object to a proposed commercial development in Bluff—and be heard.
It is this doctrine of collective ownership rights, intrinsic to the Act itself, which must be changed. The current proposed changes are helpful, but miss the main point. We acknowledge that proposed developments may damage the property rights of others—particularly neighbours. For these, compensation must be paid. To take a simple example, if one's sea views being obstructed by a development diminish the value of one's property, the developer ought rightly to be made to compensate the damage to surrounding property.
Here is where a market pricing mechanism is so helpful. There have been cases of people being sued because others were “offended” at a development. One person alleged that they liked to walk down the road and commune with a tree in a neighbour's garden from the footpath: therefore, they opposed the removal of the tree and sought compensation for a diminished quality of life. Such stupid claims can be easily dismissed by the question, Is there a market for your “communing.” Would other people buy it? If not, to all intents and practical purposes you simply do not have a property right—only a personal lifestyle preference. And your object of communing is likely to be another's eyesore.
The Resource Management Act is an inhuman piece of legislation. It requires far more than a tweak at the edges. The protection of rights of private property needs to be a core and fundamental principle of the Act if it is to avoid its current assault upon human beings.
The Eighth Command, “Thou shalt not steal” applies not just to individuals, but particularly to the Collective. For it is the Collective that has done more to assail and attack the property of human beings over the past fifty years than individuals and neighbours and criminals. It is the Collective which is incrementally enslaving and destroying human beings. Finally, they came for me. . . .
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