Selected Articles from the LAND Newsletter
President's Report
By Richard Volk, LAND President
Welcome to the February newsletter. Everyone should be over the holiday fever and be filled with knowledge from attending all the farm shows.
Tax time will be here shortly and we will have the “privilege” of paying our tax dues. This should get easier as we are told that farm income will be 20% less next year. (Let’s see if 20% of nothing really won’t matter much.) You will also be able to see it on the Internet.
A few thoughts on private property rights. After Thomas Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence he was the American Ambassador to France, where he met a middle aged peasant woman. Through their conversations Jefferson learned the woman had several children and she was looking for work.
When Jefferson returned home he wrote to a friend in America and explained what had happened. He was shocked to find that the majority of the French people had tremendous assets in land, timber and minerals that were locked away as sport hunting lands for the king and his chosen few.
Jefferson believed if these lands could be owned and cultivated by the tremendous labor force of French citizens who were willing to work, then not only the people’s poverty, but also France’s economic position would be improved. Jefferson thought it was the small landowner who was the most important part of the state, and vowed to insure in America that the land was owned by the citizens. Isn’t it ironic that today in America there are those who think more land should be controlled by government agencies who cannot begin to take care of it in any meaningful way?
Remember:
Pioneers cultivated it.
Environmentalists want to abolish it.
Liberty is secured by it.
America grew great because of it.
