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March 26, 2018 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
14:09
Government criminalizes rainwater collection from your own property - outrageous assault on freedom
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There's nothing more refreshing than standing in a cool summertime rain shower, or bathing in the warm sunlight on a crisp spring day, or inhaling the cool autumn air fresh with the scent of turning leaves and pine needles.
These things, rainwater, sunlight, air, have long been assumed to be not only free, but unclaimable.
You can't claim to own the sunlight that falls on my front yard, for example.
A corporation can't claim intellectual property ownership over the air that you breathe and demand that you pay a royalty for inhaling.
But these days, Jackson County, Oregon says it owns your rainwater.
And the county has sentenced a man to 30 days in jail and fined him over $1,500 for the supposed crime of collecting rainwater on his own property.
The man's name is Gary Harrington, and he owns over 170 acres of land in Jackson County.
On that land he has three ponds, and those ponds collect rainwater that falls on his land.
Common Sense would say Gary has every right to have ponds with water on his 170 acres of land created using the runoff of rainwater from his own land.
But Common Sense has been all but abandoned in the state of Oregon, as you'll soon see.
Much like California, Oregon is increasingly becoming a collectivist state.
You didn't build that.
The government built that.
You don't own that.
The government owns that.
That rainwater that just fell on your land?
That's the government's rainwater.
And you're going to jail if you try to steal from the government.
That's the explanation from Jackson County officials who initially granted Harrington permits to build his ponds back in 2003.
Yes, in Oregon you actually need to beg for permission from the government just to have your own pond on your own land using your own rainwater runoff from your own acreage.
But the state of Oregon revoked his permits a few years later, after he'd already created the ponds, thus putting Harrington in the position of being a water criminal who was, quote, stealing rainwater from the state.
Tom Paul, administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department, is an obedient water Nazi.
He insists, quote, Oregon law says all of the water in the state of Oregon is public water.
And if you want to use that water, either to divert it or to store it, you have to acquire a water right from the state of Oregon before doing that activity, end quote.
What he means, of course, is not that the water is public water, but that it's government water.
The government owns it.
And if you steal from the government by, for example, collecting rainwater off your own acreage, you will go to jail.
Thus, even when rainwater falls on your own property, you don't own it.
The government owns it.
You didn't build that.
The government built that.
That's not your land.
You only lease it from the king.
And by the way, your property tax is due again.
Paul continues, quote, if you build a dam, an earthen dam, and interrupt the flow of water off of your own property and store that water, that is an activity that would require a water right permit from us.
And by the way, just for the record, Harrington did not dam up a stream or a river.
He simply dammed up the runoff of the rainwater of his own land that later empties into a stream.
So he wasn't diverting an existing stream.
He was simply capturing the water that falls on his own land.
The state of Oregon openly admits on its website that you don't own the rainwater that falls on your own land.
As stated on Oregon.gov, quote, under Oregon law, all water is publicly owned.
With some exceptions, cities, farmers, factory owners, and other water users must obtain a permit or a water right from the Water Resources Department to use water from any source.
That page also describes an exception to allow rainwater collection from rooftops, but not from a yard or a natural landscape.
It says, quote, Exempt uses of surface water include collection and use of rainwater from an artificial impervious surface, such as a parking lot or a building's roof.
So, in other words, if Harrington had paved his fields with asphalt, then collected the rainwater, he would have been legal in Oregon.
But because his fields were natural grasses, shrubs, and trees, the rainwater collection was deemed illegal.
Harrington said that he will never stop fighting the government on this issue.
As he says in CNS News, when something is wrong, you just, as an American, you have to put your foot down and say, this is wrong.
You just can't take away any more of my rights, and from here on in, I'm going to fight it.
Rainwater, it turns out, isn't the only thing that falls on your land.
Sunlight also falls on your land.
Air resides above it and minerals below it.
If the state of Oregon already claims to own all the water that falls on your land, what's to stop them from claiming ownership over all the sunlight, too?
If you erect your own solar panels on your own land, the state could then arrest you and charge you with stealing state property.
All those photons you see belong to the state.
Once the state declares sunlight to be community property, you instantly become a criminal for having solar panels on your house or in your yard.
The collection of rainwater and sunlight are practices taught in sustainable living, permaculture, and throughout the green movement.
Rainwater capture using ponds and swales is one of the most important strategies for restoring a local landscape.
These rainwater capture practices help trees grow more quickly and they accelerate the return of animal life to any region.
They can even be used to restore a desert to a lush food producing forest.
And even if you use a pond recreationally to have a paddle wheel boat or a canoe or do some fishing on it, it still benefits the local wildlife.
It attracts animals, gives them a watering hole, and it provides soil moisture around the pond that helps restore trees to the landscape.
Capturing rainwater also reduces the burden on groundwater supplies and municipal water systems.
Capturing rainwater actually protects aquifers and raises the value of land, which results in higher property tax revenues for the county.
That Jackson County officials actually criminalize permaculture practices is abhorrent to not only the green movement on the left, but also the libertarians and constitutionalists on the right.
Much like in California, Oregon County officials are lying, power-hungry tyrants who falsely accuse Harrington of, quote, diverting stream water when, in reality, he was only capturing water that normally flows off his own property and later joins the stream.
Water law is water law, whether you agree with it or not, said Jackson County Water Master Larry Mintier.
In other words, the power of the state is absolute, even if the state departs from the realm of sanity.
People who live in cities tend to be collectivists, and collectivists almost universally do not understand the natural world, the countryside, where food is produced.
In the country, rainwater capture is a conservation technique.
In states like Texas, it is openly encouraged by county and state officials.
Counties actually give ranchers tax credits to build large dams that capture rainwater runoff from their own properties.
In Texas, the ponds created from this practice are called tanks, and these tanks are crucial watering holes for livestock and wildlife alike.
When the horrendous fires of 2011 swept through many areas of Central Texas, it was these man-made ponds and tanks that served as refuge areas for dozens of bird species which fled the fires.
So the very same water conservation technique that is encouraged in Texas is criminalized in Oregon.
Where the mindset there is so deeply infected with the delusions of socialism and even communism that the individual's ownership of his own rainwater isn't even recognized.
And if the state of Oregon could claim it owns the water that falls on your land...
Then it can also just as easily claim it owns the air you breathe.
There is absolutely nothing stopping Oregon, or any other state, from proclaiming air to be state property.
If you breathe it, you owe the state money.
The breathing fees will be small at first, perhaps only $10 a month, but over time they will be raised to exorbitant levels.
It's a state-run shakedown, after all.
And once the people become apathetic enough to allow the state to expand its power beyond all reason, there is no limit to the state's desire for total control over everything under the sun, including the sun.
This is not difficult for the state to achieve.
Oregon can simply pass a new law declaring all air that exists within state boundaries to be state property.
Those who divert air by engaging in activities such as inflating balloons or compressing air and storing it in air tanks could be given stiff jail sentences.
Think this couldn't happen?
Think it's too stupid?
It's no more stupid than what has already happened.
The criminalization of capturing rainwater, a common permaculture practice for sustainable living.
Do you see a pattern in all this?
As naturalnews.com has reported in just the last 18 months, California has declared war on small local fresh milk farmers and distributors.
Michigan has criminalized small local ranchers and animal operations.
A city in Michigan has also tried to criminalize home gardens.
The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma sent out a destruction crew to chop down a woman's edible landscaping garden of over a hundred varieties of foods and medicinal herbs.
What's the pattern here?
Total state domination over all resources, land, water, food, medicine, and more.
This is part of the ongoing effort to crush self-reliance in America and turn everybody into a mindless, hopeless slave of the state, living on USDA food stamps, eating corporate engineer GMO, and following Agenda 21.
Freedom means being able to speak your mind, capture your rainwater, bask in the sun, grow trees, raise backyard chickens, homeschool your children, say no to vaccines, defend your life and property against looters and violent crime.
Freedom is what once made America great, and it is the crushing of freedom which is now destroying America.
In Oregon, California, Michigan, Washington DC, and everywhere around the world where evil bureaucrats seek total power over all of humanity, our natural divine rights are being viciously stripped away.
Our money supply is being eroded at an accelerated rate.
Our right-to-do process has already been nullified by our own president with the NDAA. Our right to free speech is being increasingly censored and stifled.
Our right to grow our own home gardens is under constant assault.
The common cause behind all these attacks on freedom is collectivism.
The idea that individuals have no value and that only the state can provide life, food, and an economy.
This is accomplished through endless permit requirements that now make running something like an organic farm a paperwork nightmare.
It is encapsulated in the recently publicized idea that, quote, you didn't build that, the government built that, which ridiculously imagines that only government creates prosperity, not individual innovators and people who believe in hard work.
With every new regulation, inspection, permit, and government burden placed upon farms and landowners, we are increasingly destroying our own futures by placing more power in the hands of tyrannical government.
We are all becoming indentured servants to the state.
Think you own your land?
Try not paying property tax for a year.
You'll find out very quickly that you don't own anything.
The state owns it.
You are just paying rent.
Beware of collectivism.
If you want to own anything in the future, your own house, your own land, your own rainwater, your own sunlight, even the air you breathe, you must stand up for individual rights of due process, property ownership, and of course, free speech.
Liberty is taken away by governments and restored by people, by citizens.
And if we hope to remain as free people in a free society, we must remain forever vigilant, keeping our eyes on the very government that attempts to dominate everything in our lives.
Government will never give you freedom.
You must seize it and then defend it.
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