Solar farms are opportunity for small farmers to keep their land
Sonny Perdue said “in America the big get bigger and the small go out” when discussing farming. This should’ve caused alarm considering he was appointed by a man who promised to protect small farmers. Farm subsidies increased from $4-$20 billion to cover for a disastrous trade war during his term and the top 10% of producers received more than 50% of payouts.
The farmers who called in about the potential solar farm ban were small farmers. Small farmers don’t receive subsidies, but they have the same John Dutton mentality of keeping their land, which I admire. They see solar farms as an opportunity to keep their land and pass it down to the next generation, unfortunately our commissioners don’t.
Two years ago I wrote an editorial referring to the GOP as The Drama Party, they whine, complain, belly-ache, but offer few solutions and don’t follow conservative principles. Conservative principles are pro business (free market competition), pro property rights, anti-regulation, small government and freedom. By entertaining the whiners, the commissioners are going down a slippery slope of big government that is anti-business, anti-innovation, anti-competition, anti-farmer and anti-freedom.
What’s next? Will my neighbors dictate the design and placement of Ag buildings, dictate the work day start time, dictate crop damage hunting, dictate noise from machines and dictate my manure pile? These are all serious questions because I know companies in other counties and other states this has happened to.
Tit for tat revenge politics isn’t leadership and we see it happening federally and locally. MPG standards were approved in 2011 and President Donald Trump eliminated them his first week in office. When the MPG standards were put in place conservatives called it anti-business and spent millions in court and lobbying because conservatives hate business regulation. Conservatives hate business regulation but love individual and land-owner regulation.
Poor perspective leads to stagnation and the conservative position of fighting corporate regulation instead of viewing them as JFK is wrecking society. “We choose to go to the moon not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” Federal and state carbon regulations have been put in place and instead of a WE CAN ATTITUDE, we have belly-aching, and neighbors complaining about their view on land they don’t pay taxes on. I understand the not in my backyard mentality, but it isn’t your backyard.
Jeremy Myers, Hampstead
A deliberate misquote of the Declaration of Independence?
On the 50th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech in Tallahassee, Florida.
In it, she initially addressed one of the senseless mass killings that occurred in Monterey Park, California, and asked for prayers for those impacted. As an aside, California has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country so once again it appears that evil people bent on killing don’t care much for gun laws or any other restrictions.
The rub that I have with her speech was to come shortly into her oration and in my view was a deliberate misquote of the Declaration of Independence. She said, “America is a promise. It is promise of freedom and liberty — not for some, but for all. A promise we make in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Be clear. These rights were not bestowed upon us. They belong to us as Americans.”
REALLY?! As agent Maxwell Smart used to say, “Oops! Missed it by that much!”
As anyone who studied civics in high school, and there are fewer and fewer of them every year, the correct part of the quote she conveniently missed is, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I guess it depends what Harris’ definition of “life” is, although I’m willing to bet that is starts somewhere with the initiation of a heartbeat. Just sayin!!!
Oh, and one more time: the Supreme Court DID NOT take away a woman’s right to abort, in other words, kill her unborn child!! The court, in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision, simply returned the issue of abortion to the individual states, where it belongs! As the 10th Amendment says and oddly enough is also taught in your civics class: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
It’s that simple!!
Dave Price, Sykesville