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American Dream v. Government Control
For many, the American dream has long included the idea of your family living in a single-family house located in a neighborhood of your choosing. The American Dream contemplated a place where your kids are safe to play in the yard, where you can enjoy the sun in your lounge chair with the grill ready to be fired up for dinner, and where your neighbors wave hello. Many Americans that have already achieved that lofty position are you counting on their equity value growing with each mortgage payment.
Get ready to lose it all, because a growing movement in America believes your happiness and success is divisive and racist. Globalist aligned political leaders are advancing the concept that the American Dream is evil and it and ignores the plight of others who just don’t have the same opportunities and privileges.
In several states and communities there has been, over the past few years, a drive to eliminate zoning protections for single-family neighborhoods. Those zoning protections were designed to keep your neighborhood in the same shape as you found it, with homes of similar styles and value, and free of apartment buildings and the excess crowding of neighborhoods designed for lower-income living spaces.
As “smart growth” programs began to take control of planning policy in many cities across the nation, suburban neighborhoods became a special target. Of course, smart growth is about control of development, not personal choice. Its main focus is to move people out of rural areas and the suburbs and into the inner cities. In such a plan there is no room for traditional two-story homes and yards. The new housing plan is for high-rise apartments squeezed together in an urban setting where few cars are necessary, as residents walk or ride their bikes to the store and take public transportation to work. This is all to protect the environment, of course.
But how do you get people to accept such a major change in lifestyle? Create a crisis, of course! So today, we have a housing shortage. Proponents of these smart growth schemes declare that they can put 100 families in the space of your house and yard that today only holds four people, thus averting any housing shortage.
The questions that must be asked are: Do we really have a housing shortage? If so, why? Aren’t home builders able to keep up with demand for housing? And why aren’t homes affordable for the average American?
The answer is, we don’t have a housing shortage — we have a government interference problem. For the past several decades, the government has been working to limit home building, or “urban sprawl,” as they call it. To protect the environment, we can’t have housing developments spreading all over the place. So, many cities have set up urban growth boundaries and allow no growth outside those lines. The poster child for this practice is Portland, Oregon. More than 20 years ago, the city installed such a boundary, and the restrictions have barely changed. But the population has grown by almost 80 percent. Now Portland has a housing crisis!
Meanwhile, millions of illegal aliens are flooding our inner cities, and suddenly we have a national housing shortage. And why are single-family homes no longer affordable? Massive inflation caused by government destruction of the value of the dollar is the main culprit. Again, this is a crisis caused by bad government — not zoning protections for homeowners. In fact, such home ownership used to be called the American Dream. Now it’s a crisis.
To raise the stakes even higher in our new world of social equity, the mayor of Minneapolis declared that people living in zoning-protected neighborhoods with single-family homes are actually self-segregating from those next to whom they don’t want to live. He summed up the charge by saying such neighborhoods are racist!
President Joe Biden’s so-called infrastructure program calls for the end of zoning protections for suburban neighborhoods, to be replaced by the installation of Section 8 public-housing projects. And Congress voted big money for such a plan. However, to implement such a plan, city councils would have needed to apply for the federal grants supplied through the legislation. Many would have done so, but such a process would have taken time, and there was no guarantee that every city would do it. Another approach was needed.
That plan came in June, through the bold efforts of Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) and Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Together they introduced in both houses of Congress the “Reducing Regulatory Barriers to Housing Act.” Now, instead of waiting for local communities to make the decision to move forward with the assault on community organization, Congress can make it a law! In a joint statement, Fetterman and Blunt Rochester explained their motivation for introducing the bill: “Historically, zoning practices have been used to divide communities and concentrate poverty in under-resourced areas. By transforming our zoning regulations, more people would have access to affordable and diverse types of housing, high-paying jobs, and healthy and safe communities.”
Senator Fetterman’s housing bill would give FEDGOV authority over your neighborhood
Did you catch that? Suburban neighborhoods are the root cause of ghettos (“under-resourced areas”), but if you move that public housing to upscale neighborhoods, then the inhabitants will have “affordable” housing. (Of course, living in the upscale neighborhood will become “affordable” because home prices will plummet as property values are destroyed.) And the new inhabitants will get “high-paying jobs” by living in these newly constructed communities. Who knew that salaries on the job depended on the type of housing one lived in? And finally, everyone is going to have “healthy and safe communities” simply because of the location.
Let’s get something straight: Ghettos are created because they are run by government bureaucrats who care little about the quality of life there. If the air conditioning stops working, a window is broken, or the land around the building is overgrown with weeds, the bureaucrat still gets paid. (Private property is nearly always better taken care of because its condition affects the value of the property.) To believe that simply moving such a nightmare to a nice neighborhood will fix the problem of poverty is just economic ignorance.
In addition, the Fetterman bill reads, “It is the policy of the United States to provide for fair housing throughout the country, and it is in the regional and national interest to have a supply of housing that is fair, affordable, adequate, and near opportunity.” It goes on to say that any zoning ordinance that restricts housing opportunities based on economic status or income without good reason is “contrary to the regional and national interest.”
Now, under the Fetterman bill, bureaucrats are not planning to just take your home by eminent domain and rebuild the neighborhood. No, that would cause controversy and possibly pushback. They can’t have that opposition blocking their high ideas; it would be too messy. Instead, they will begin a slow and steady movement forward. First, they will begin to promote new building in the neighborhood, perhaps to allow tiny homes to be built in backyards, or apartments over garages. Next will come the promotion of turning some existing housing into rental apartments. Slowly the atmosphere in the neighborhood will begin to change.
Over time, the original residents will begin to sell and leave. Their property will be bought by big developers such as BlackRock who are involved in the reorganization project. The homes will be torn down, and apartment buildings placed on the land. One at a time, the original homes will disappear. Finally, you, too, will have had enough, and you’ll have no choice but to leave. Mission accomplished. Your personal choice, your investment, and your ability to live as you choose for your family will disappear.
Do you want to stop this monster? If so, then the time has come for you, and every homeowner in America, to stand up and say NO! For perhaps the first time in your life, pick up the telephone or send a letter to your U.S. representative and senators and tell them that the Blunt Rochester/Fetterman bills must be thrown in the trash where they belong. Your way of life depends on it.
Significant attribution of the above to: The American Dream or Government Control? – The New American
The American Dream or Global Tyranny. One of these will prevail. The other will fade away into the dustbin of history. Your actions today determine which result will prevail.
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Use these guiding principles to form your team:
We believe the American system of government, a constitutional Republic, is the finest ever developed by man.
We believe the traditional moral values of our Judeo-Christian heritage form the cornerstone of western civilization and that the family is the most vital unit of society.
We believe the free market system, competitive capitalism, and private enterprise afford the widest opportunity and highest standard of living for all.
We believe in the dignity of the individual. We welcome people from all ethnic racial and religious backgrounds judging others only by character and ability – as we wish to be judged ourselves – our common bond is a love for liberty and our rejection of totalitarianism under any label.
We believe that individual rights are endowed by our creator, not government; that the government’s function should be limited to protecting our right to life, liberty, and property; and that individual rights are inseparably linked to individual responsibility.
The fight continues!
If you have any comments or questions for ARP, please contact us at: info@puregrassroots.org.
Yours in Service,
Robert Owens
Categories: Contributors