How HB 2048 Boggled the Delegates' Minds

This portion of an e-mail from Sandy Garst's Shenandoah Constitutionalists is priceless. It relates to a 49-page monster of an atrocious bill that I seriously doubt anybody could have read, and fully analyzed, in one month. I suspect the House of Delegates voted to pass HB 2048, which has been discussed here before, because they were stupefied by the obfuscatory quality of the writing.

The following breakdown of the vote sounds a little suspicious, and I have mixed feelings about sharing it, but if you've tried to read HB 2048 you can see how it is at least possible. If any Delegate claims it's not accurate, we'll retract it, but meanwhile it seems valuable as gallows humor...that would be the gallows of property rights in Virginia...

"Agenda 21: HB2048 The Agenda 21 "on steroids" Omnibus Bill Water quality; transfer of responsibility for administration of programs.

floor: 02/04/13 House: VOTE: PASSAGE (82-Y 17-N)

YEAS--Albo, Anderson, BaCote, Brink, Bulova, Byron, Carr, Cole, Comstock, Cosgrove, Cox, M.K., Crockett-Stark, Dance, Dudenhefer, Edmunds, Fariss, Filler-Corn, Garrett, Greason, Head, Helsel, Herring, Hester, Hope, Howell, A.T., Iaquinto, Ingram, James, Joannou, Johnson, Jones, Keam, Knight, Kory, Krupicka, Landes, LeMunyon, Lewis, Lingamfelter, Lopez, Loupassi, Marshall, D.W., Massie, May, McClellan, McQuinn, Merricks, Miller, Morris, Morrissey, O'Bannon, Orrock, Plum, Pogge, Poindexter, Purkey, Putney, Ramadan, Ransone, Robinson, Rust, Scott, E.T., Scott, J.M., Sherwood, Sickles, Spruill, Stolle, Surovell, Tata, Torian, Toscano, Tyler, Villanueva, Ward, Ware, O., Ware, R.L., Watts, Webert, Wilt, Wright, Yost, Mr. Speaker--82.

NAYS--Bell, Richard P., Bell, Robert B., Cline, Cox, J.A., Farrell, Gilbert, Habeeb, Hodges, Kilgore, Marshall, R.G., Minchew, Morefield, O'Quinn, Peace, Rush, Watson, Yancey--17.

ABSTENTIONS--0.

NOT VOTING--Hugo--1.

Delegate Crockett-Stark was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay.Delegate Kilgore was recorded as nay. Intended to vote yea.Delegate Anderson was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay.Delegate Lingamfelter was recorded as yea. Intended to vote nay."

I believe that this report is consistent with the life and work of Delegates Crockett-Stark and Lingamfelter. After the General Assembly, when our legislators get time to breathe, we can ask Delegate Kilgore whether he did in fact intend to vote yea to this abomination, and if so why, and also why, if there is anything good in these 49 pages of links and references and bad writing, the writers did not put it into a separate readable bill where it could be appreciated.

Delegate Kilgore is my third cousin once removed; he was four years ahead of me at school, thus not what might be called a close relative, but I have a lot of respect for his intelligence and general good will. I'm not pleased when Tea Party contacts impugn both--or find reasons to. I think it's possible that several Delegates' intelligence and good will may have been clouded by the sort of private problems that have tempted more than one family in Scott County to indulge in fascist fantasies.

I will share this much of something that has hitherto been an extended-family secret, and not even shared with most of the extended family. Delegate Kilgore is aware of the problems the Cat Sanctuary has had with a neighbor who has definitely done harm to our water supply (and to me, personally) and to the water supply of our townspeople in Gate City (who at least have a filtration and chlorination system, designed to prevent this kind of bad neighbors from doing harm to the townspeople's bodies). We discussed this last summer at some length. I think we are in agreement that people who run cattle above a mountain spring, spray pesticides around a mountain spring, park cars practically in the spring branch below a mountain spring, and dump animals killed out of season into the spring branch below a mountain spring, are bad neighbors; that they are not gentlemen; that they don't deserve to own land, and that, if they were to maim or kill themselves in the process of wreaking further damage on their own little patch of land, it would not be an entirely bad thing.

We are not the only people whose water supply has been endangered by bad neighbors. Other neighborhoods in Scott County have seen horrible things happen to what was supposedly minimally processed water straight out of mountain springs. It is possible that, somewhere in HB 2048, Delegate Kilgore saw some hope of help for his faithful constituents.

It is possible that he underestimated our ability and willingness to help ourselves...how else could anybody vote for a land grab? Conservative readers, remember Hurricane Sandy? If you want to sit back and watch TV when people need help, Big Government is going to have an excuse to step in and do things their way.

Residents of the Cat Sanctuary did not ask for any piece of legislation that would authorize land grabbing in order to "protect" people even from bad neighbors like this one. Bad neighbors can be better dealt with by good neighbors than by bigger government. From bad neighbors we can at least get the land back. Once Big Government gets title to a piece of land, it's lost to the decent law-abiding citizens of Virginia until Big Government goes bankrupt and sells the land to malevolent foreign interests. People lose their homes, their lives, their heritage...I'm starting to feel beleaguered here, and because I've had so little in life but my home and have so little else to lose, you do not want me feeling beleaguered...and the state loses its tax base! For pity's sake.

Attention Tea Partiers. If you want to be part of a demonstration of the American way to deal with bad neighbors who pollute mountain springs, tell Saloli. (Yes, what you can do will involve money first and publicity second.) We'll demonstrate, we'll discuss how the demonstration works, and we'll even try to share some pictures. We may need a little help from friends, but we do not need "help" from the likes of HB 2048.