In Wyoming, some local plutocrats (who call themselves “ranchers”) have hired attorneys to destroy the private property rights of a group of monks who plan to build a monastery in the middle of nowhere.

One of the arguments of the freedom-hating good ol’ boys who are suing the monks is that the presence of the monastery will disturb the local wild life. Oh noes!  The deer will be “disturbed.” Clearly the property rights of human beings must be thrown right out the window!

I wonder how much these ranchers whine about property rights every time the feds show up and impose on them some new federal regulation. My guess is: A  lot.

But why should this surprise us at all? We obviously now live in a country in which private property has no meaning whatsoever. The “mosque” in New York is the perfect example. The conservatives, who apparently regard the area as sacred, could have simply bought up all the land around the WTC in lower Manhattan themselves but, nope, they’d rather have the government do it. The new American battle cry: “Freedom and private property when politically expedient!”

And so it is in Wyoming with these ranchers who, not content with being surrounded by thousands of unpopulated acres, have hired high-priced attorneys to have the government crush the rights of a group of neighbors who want nothing more than to mind their own business miles down the road.

I can’t know what the motivation of these people are. Anti-Catholic bigotry? Control freak-ism? Malice?  Who knows. But apparently, one can’t even move to the middle of absolute nowhere to get away from the people who insist on minding everyone else’s business.

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