Judge Blocks Libertarian fundraiser on Private Property...

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Autolycus

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http://www.49abcnews.com/news/2006/...ing_fundraiser/


  1. Story by Natasha Trelfa
    10:12 p.m. Friday, July 7, 2006

Topeka — What started out as a fundraising weekend for the Kansas Libertarian Party turned into a showdown with the law.

A wall of Shawnee County Sheriff’s Officers met party members as they tried to enter the Lake Edun facility, where their event was scheduled to take place.

“It’s very simple. We have to stand up to the government when the government is wrong,” Rob Hodgkinson, Kansa Libertarian Party Chairman, said. “The government is wrong in this situation.”

Judge Terry Bullock placed a court order on the property in 2005. The order prohibited any activities from taking place on the property without a permit.

“We intend to enforce the court order, nothing more, nothing less,” Under Sheriff Donald Burns, Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office, said.

But Edun owner Webb Garlinghouse said having a permit requirement for his property is no different than having the law tell him who he can invite into his home.

“I can have people in my house to visit, but I can’t have people out to my property to visit,” Garlinghouse said.

Officers stood ready when Webb and Hodgkinson made one last stand to try and keep the fundraiser in Edun.

Hodgkinson said he just wants his party to have the chance to assemble, and prepare for the August primaries.

“Private property owners trying to hold a political fundraiser. How many are happening right now all through Kansas with the primaries coming up in three weeks? How many fundraisers are being held on private property?” Hodgkinson asked. “You bet I’m frustrated.”

Police did not arrest anyone at the confrontation. Members of the Libertarian Party said they will still hold their fundraiser this weekend, but they moved the event to Ron Lessman’s Truck Henge property in Northeast Topeka.

This angers me to no end. The people in Congress need to be kicked out and replaced with new ideas and new blood.

This kind of thing also makes me wish we had term limits so the incumbent policians would not worry so much about any possible threat to their leadership.
 
But the Congress of the United States doesn't seem to have had anything to do with that situation in Shawnee County, Kansas. It seems to be centered on local zoning disputes. If you want to kick some people out of office using that situation as an excuse, let's kick out Mayor Nagin of New Orleans, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, and Mayor Daley of Chicago for starters. They don't have anything to do with that situation either but I don't like them.

I did a little poking around the Internet to see if I could find out anything about the Lake Edun situation. Whoo whoo, what fun. It turns out that "Lake Edun" is a nudist colony that has been having problems with the county and its zoning commission for several years. Here's a link to the minutes of the Shawnee County Planning Commission for April 12, 2004, with its update on problems with Lake Edun to that time: http://www.co.shawnee.ks.us/planning/meetings/Minutes/040412M.pdf. It's quite revealing. :)

At any rate, it seems that the Lake Eden proprietors decided to circumvent a judge's order prohibiting them from doing what they do do and the county ruled that they shouldn't do but were doing anyway. I love the naive quotation from the proprietor who expressed suprised that he didn't know the difference between having a private party and a political convention. Perhaps there isn't any difference if everybody is running around naked, but I'm too politically naive to know for sure.

I'm not much impressed, though, by people who seem to be trying to do an end run around a judge's order by trying to make it look as if they're being persecuted for their political affiliation. I'm also not much impressed by people who don't come clean and tell the entire story. But of course I'm no expert on it: all I know is what I gathered from a few minutes of poking around, and I won't mind at all if people who do know the whole story want to correct what I've said. Here's a link to the Lake Edun web site, for anyone interested: http://www.lakeedun.com/. Yes indeed, there are photos too: click the "Facilities" link and watch it become the "Photos" link.

Now about Nagin, Bloomberg, and Daley .... I am outraged that they permit such abuses in Shawnee County, Kansas, and for that reason they ought to be stripped of their offices.
 
I don't see what part of "private property" is so difficult to comprehend. How about the right to assembly? Christ almighty. Why do I read these darn posts after a late night of drinking? :(
 
I love the naive quotation from the proprietor who expressed suprised that he didn't know the difference between having a private party and a political convention. Perhaps there isn't any difference if everybody is running around naked

Frankly, I can't think of any difference that shouldn't work in favor of the political convention, even if they're dressed. I'm sure there's something in the 1st amendment about freely assembling...I can just about see some point in requiring a permit to hold a huge gathering on public property. On private property, though?

And, if this was a Libertarian party fundraiser, it's not like we're talking an outrageous crowd.
 
As a Kansan and a Libertarian and a political candidate, let me add my two cents.

First: It is Libertarian. Not libertine.

Second: The State of Kansas and Shawnee County in particular are pretty prudish places where the idea of naked bodies is enough to cause heart attacks.

The event in question was for fully clothed Libertarian Party members to meet the candidates. I wasn't there. It was to be held on private property, but the County has had a campaign of harassment going against the owner for a long time because of his willingness to let "Naturists" use his property.

Look at the pictures. This is not suburbia. This is pretty isolated property, so it was not effecting anyone. But, as I said, this is Kansas.

Bob
 
There's a lot missing in this story. A court order is a court order, and it does not appear that the sheriff was doing anything more than enforcing a court order ... which happens to be his job. If the order says the owner needs a permit, then he could have avoided the whole sorry mess by applying for a permit.
 
Hawkmoon:
You posted: "A court order is a court order, and it does not appear that the sheriff was doing anything more than enforcing a court order ... "


Hawkmoon, keep in mind, a court once issued an order that allowed human beings to be enslaved, by claiming they were not human. Just because some lawyer who gains a judgeship says something is so, it doesn't mean it is so.
 
"A court order is a court order, and it does not appear that the sheriff was doing anything more than enforcing a court order ... "
Sheriffs do have other options besides blindly enforcing a court order they believe is improper or illegal. They can enter the court appeals process and request a stay of enforcement.

Pilgrim
 
Interesting.

My HOA doesn't allow anything but American flags and plants to be displayed on our visible front balconies. Signs and similar things in windows are prohibited, as is aluminum foil, old newspaper, etc. I fully support this; I, too am a voting member of course. It's a rule that prevents people from putting neon beer signs in their windows, hanging tacky flags and other white trash decorations everywhere, and otherwise cluttering up the place and lowering my property values.

So, my wife and I volunteered for a local campaign. We wanted to put a sign in the window, but we didn't because we figure "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Our neighbor, a nosy old moonbat, put up signs for another candidate, however. They did look tacky, the way she did it. So we notified the management company that works for our HOA; if we were going to follow the rules, then so could she.

They told us that it was really touchy, and that, unless the signs were especially large or blocking egress somewhere, it was a very bad idea for them to mess with "political expression." Next time, I'm putting up a sign or two in our window, then.:)

Since the Constitution guarantees certain things, including political expression and the right to peaceably assemble, I think that this could easily go to court. A court order banning nudist gatherings might be permissible, but it sure sounds like this court order, being so general, violates some pretty fundamental guarantees.

(I have no problem with nudism, myself, but sometimes a court order might be a lenient alternative to arresting a slough of people for indecent exposure, which could really mess up their lives in other ways.)
 
Sheriffs do have other options besides blindly enforcing a court order they believe is improper or illegal.

Blind enforcement, unfortunately, seems to be the philosophy of many LEO's here. Maybe just the young ones, but man, it isn't pleasant for a freedom-loving American to chat with some California LEO's. I know better than to paint all of them with the same brush, but man, I swear that, if some of them stumbled into the Klan Academy instead of the Police Academy, they'd be Klansmen instead. "Uncritical and easily-indoctrinated" seems to be a job requirement, along with disdain for strangers.
 
As a former Kansan I'll restate what I've said many times.

Left to its own devices, Kansas would become a Socialist Theocracy.
 
Enforcement

Selective enforcement of the law is illegal.

If the Sheriff would refuse to enforce this court order and enforce others, it would cause serious problems.

Law enforcement is part of the Executive Branch and cannot, by law, refuse a lawful action (even if it is wrong) of the Judicial Branch without leave.
 
Hey guys. Remember, your sheriff is elected. Question him or her. Ask them to clarify for you (so you can determine who to vote for) what their stance is on the Constitution.

If it is stupid, go and try and get another LEO to run, and try and drum up support for the one that can read a simple document without having to have someone tell him or her what it says.

The sheriff's race usally only has about 2K people voting in a county election. A word of mouth campaign can go a long way.
 
Should we appoint an online committee to decide which laws it is okay to break and which court orders it is moral to violate, or is the principle that each of us has the right to make those decisions on our own without any penalty?

It's an intriguing idea that many people seem to have here. There's a certain appeal to letting each individual decide those issues without being penalized if it's a matter of conscience or convenience. That approach could save us all a fortune in taxes.

Our prisons are overcrowded. We could empty them overnight if we released the inmates who broke a law for a reason.

The cops, since they shouldn't serve warrants they don't like or arrest the people they think violate bad laws, there wouldn't be any need for so many law enforcement officers.

We could do away with courts, judges, and lawyers: since nobody would get to say what's legal or illegal for any of us (because that's for each of us to decide for ourselves) there would be no need for all that expensive legal apparatus.

Interesting concepts. Much food for thought. :)
 
Selective enforcement of the law is illegal.

If the Sheriff would refuse to enforce this court order and enforce others, it would cause serious problems.

Law enforcement is part of the Executive Branch and cannot, by law, refuse a lawful action (even if it is wrong) of the Judicial Branch without leave.

I hope you don't mind if I suggest that you loosen up, get into the spirit of the thing, and enjoy the world that many of our fellow forum members have in mind. Don't be a stick in the mud.

From their perspective the law is only what each of us thinks it should be. So there would be no serious problem at all if the Sheriff refused to enforce court orders you don't want him to enforce and enforced only those court orders you want him to enforce.

There would be a serious problem only if the Sheriff enforced the court orders you don't want him to enforce and didn't enforce the court orders you want him to enforce.

If you don't care either way about a particular court order, I suppose the Sheriff gets to decide on his own.

The principle is that you decide what's right for everyone else and nobody else decides what's right for you. Parents call it the "terrible twos." Some adults give it a moral quality.
 
Uh, Hairless, what was written was:

"Sheriffs do have other options besides blindly enforcing a court order they believe is improper or illegal. They can enter the court appeals process and request a stay of enforcement."

Evidently, there is an alternative to blindly enforcing a court order that certainly appears to be blatantly unconstitutional in this instance, where it infringes on the right to peaceable political gathering on private property.

The dichotomy that you and others cite (selective enforcement vs. unquestioning enforcement) is false.
 
Why hasn't the owner of the property appealed the court order to a higher court? Why did the political party plan an event there KNOWING that the court order was in place?

It seems to me that this was intended to be a publicity stunt, and that they already had plans to move the party to a different location. They used the showdown with the sheriff over the court order, as a political discrimination ploy, in order to gain sympathy in some quarters, and make other (more radical) people mad, so they will vote for that party. It was all about trying to get more votes than they would ge without a trumped up confrontation.
 
Haven't you figured it out by now? The libertarians are the most destructive thing that could happen to the national parties. Very few Republicans are really for smaller government anymore. Democrats for small government is a joke. The Libertarians stand to pick up all the votes of people who want a smaller fedgov if only they can get their act together.

This is the last thing the powers that be want.
 
Haven't you figured it out by now? The libertarians are the most destructive thing that could happen to the national parties. Very few Republicans are really for smaller government anymore. Democrats for small government is a joke. The Libertarians stand to pick up all the votes of people who want a smaller fedgov if only they can get their act together.

All 18 of us?:D

And BTW what do you mean "they"? We'll let you join.
 
Private versus commercial property?

I don't know guys.

It seems like there was a court order that had nothing at all to do with any political party and probably a lot to do with the business he was running. That's a court battle and not political oppression.

If his nudist colony was near a school, church or other area where it could reasonably be construed to be a "nuisance" and it was shut down then the order might be a valid one.

Commercial property, which this clearly was, is a whole different set of rules than a private residence. That's why you have to get a business license and they can regulate what you sell, how close you can be to a school or other facility etc.

It's not up to the cops to decide which orders are constitutional and which aren't anyway.

Heck, maybe the guy was trying to run another nudist get together and claimed it was a political gathering? Who knows, but it ain't up the the cops to decide it's up to them to enforce.

Questions: What does a cop frisk at a nudist arrest? And are you violating their personal rights if you make them wear "bracelets" in the back of the cruiser? And who wipes down the cruiser at the end of the shift?
 
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