Woman Facing 93 Days In Jail For Growing Organic Vegetable Garden, Police State In Action!
The Intel Hub
By Alex Thomas
July 9, 2011
An Oak Park, Michigan woman is facing misdemeanor charges for growing an organic vegetable garden in her front yard!
In a world where Big Pharma and Monsanto have almost full control of our food supply, Julie Bass decided to start an organic garden. Rather then plant it in her backyard she decided her front yard was more ideal.
Little did she know that an obscure law that only allows suitable live plant material in a front yard would end up making her a criminal. Apparently the local government gets to decide what is suitable!
Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what’s “suitable?”
We asked Bass whether she thinks she has suitable, live, plant material in her front yard.
“It’s definitely live. It’s definitely plant. It’s definitely material. We think it’s suitable,” she said.
So, we asked Rulkowski why it’s not suitable.
“If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster’s dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what’s common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers,” he said.
That’s right, we now live in a country where local officials get to decide what is allowed to grow in your front yard while at the same time the Federal Government is approving toxic GMO foods nationwide.
Big government does NOT help the middle class or healthy living, rather it actively works to destroy both!
What has the “irony of this injustice” anything to do with liberals, big government, or supporting organic food? Do you think the woman growing organic food in her front yard is necessarily a conservative? Or the rigid prosecutor who is obviously using an abridged dictionary on which to base his opinion, is a liberal? Lay off the incendiary words and just report the facts, which are quite incendiary enough.
Conservative? liberal? I can’t work out what got under your skin. Do you think that criminalising someone for veges in their front garden is small government acting for local interests? You don’t see a bigger agenda? You are happy with the Feds backing of GMO’s?
The really scary part here is a layer of Government dictating what they consider to look nice. They really don’t fear you the people anymore do they.
> They really don’t fear you the people anymore do they.
They do – apparently somebody filed a complaint, quite likely the person at 2:02 in the video. Some folks get loud and go on camera, while others quietly stab them in the backs from the shadows by filing right complaints with the right authorities. The latter usually achieve much better results.
Compare this to the recent news about the loud Palestinian flotilla vs. Israel, who very quietly undercut all their efforts, disabled their ships, and thrown some of the activists in jail, all using others’ hands. Very different scale, but the same approach.
That mans tie is so tight its stopping the oxygen reaching his brain cells .That’s if he has any at all .If he tried that Here they would have his guts for garters.
If there’s city code that says that front laws need to be uniform, then they have to be uniform. This is what has been democratically decided in order to improve property values. The city did warn her, she did not agree. Well, then that’s what the trials are for, so the jury of her peers will decide what is suitable. If everybody is so much in favor of her way, then it probably will be easy victory for her.
Your comment is a mass of strange thoughts and strange conclusions. Is a city council, democratically elected, legally entitled to pass and enforce any law it wants, or are there limits on the regulation of private property? If there are limits to the reach of city codes, what are they? When has a code crossed the line from protecting us from those who would hurt us or our property to being expressions of someone’s arbitrary esthetics? And how, pray tell, is a jury supposed to decide in her favor if we start with the assumption that the code is legal and we acknowledge that she is in violation of the ‘uniform’ requirement?
City codes are a nuisance in and of themselves. They prevent people from engaging in normal everyday activities because some busybody somewhere has some fantasy about how they want people to live on their own property and in their own homes.
There is no moral justification for me telling my neighbor how he must live just because I wish to profit from controlling his property (‘raise property values’).
Well said I am in total agreement. Thanks for your statement of fact.
“This is what has been democratically decided…” Oh, you believe that, do you? I’d be very interested to see the minutes of such a democratic decision, but I suspect they don’t exist. More likely, that code was put together by the same bureaucrat(s) that held his/her/their position(s) when the previous lot of councilors were elected, and will still be there when the next lot hold office. To council staff, councilors are just a nuisance.
They are not laws they are a local rules disguised to look like law, it’s called the color of law, it is a local bylaw which only apply’s to employees of that particular corporation, they are all corporations, operating for profit with CEO’s a Board of directors and share holders, but they will not tell you that, so if you are not employed by them you do not have to obey them.
They make it look like you have to obey, buts it’s all fiction my friend, when the public realise that little fact their world is going to come tumbling down around their ears, wake up and smell the coffee before you all wake up in a totalitarian nightmare of epic proportions.
Your government is a Corporation, all your states are corporations, your police, your courts in fact the whole satanic lot are corporations, your input into their system means nothing, they ignore you, have you not noticed? it’s all fiction and everyone of us have been indoctrinated into their lucifarian fictional world by their education system.
To put it into perspective, if you went into Wal-Mart as a customer and they tried to make you obey a rule that their employees had to adhere too, would you do it, NO and why should you as you do not work for them, you are joe public.
“The irony of this injustice is the fact that liberals love big government while at the same time supposedly support organic foods.”
Thank you, Sean Hannity. So how do you know the woman growing the organic food isn’t a liberal? And the prosecutor isn’t a conservative?
As Carol Wolf said, lay off the fabricated political spin. This story has nothing to do with “bad liberals” vs. “good conservatives”, it’s about big government vs. ALL of us.
Sean Hannity? Sean Hannity is a controlled opposition SHILL scumbag. You clearly have never been to our site before if you are attempting to compare me to Mr. Hannity.I never said anywhere that it has to do with good conservatives. I do not support the Republican Party AT ALL! My point in putting that is to get liberals to see that big government is NOT the answer! Now that i can see that at least two liberals that read it took it the completely wrong way I have removed it. My goal is to NOT be divisive.
Well, maybe I went a bit far calling you Sean Hannity… But some people fail to realize that many Liberals adhere to traditional Libertarian values (and I’m NOT including Obama as a liberal), while many Libertarians adhere to traditionally Liberal values. Dr. Paul is, after all, a strong anti-war voice and for legalization of marijuana (which would have gotten him labelled a hippie not so long ago).
Speaking as a liberal with many libertarian values: if Jesse Ventura threw his hat in the ring, I’d be one of his most diehard supporters.
Dictionary.com,
suit·a·ble
–adjective
such as to suit; appropriate; fitting; becoming.
—Synonyms
proper, befitting, seemly, apt.
nothing in it about common. I guess it depends on which dictionary the courts will rule as, “suitable,” for the case to proceed.
I like fresh veggies and think it great for folks to plant such anywhere they can find or make space to do it. Shoot the SOB that comes to the door with a rit.
So, if I don’t like a policeman’s haircut and find his lumpy scarred head to be unattractive and offensive, I can write him out a ticket? If he gets out of line, I can tazer him and use a pair of handcuffs to haul him down to jail in this town? Now we are getting somewhere. Were the vegetables suitably clothed? Decency must be maintained. Regularly mowed grass does provide a ‘uniform cover’ for the ground. Possibly the shameless display of vegetables and fruits embarasses the town council. Bright red ripe tomatoes can intimidate with their popping fresh flavor and taste, which can be too much for some to handle. Vegetable nudity will take time to accept as important.
> So, if I don’t like a policeman’s haircut and find his lumpy scarred head to be unattractive and offensive, I can write him out a ticket?
Sure, provided that (1) your democratically elected city board passed an ordinance that everyone has to be attractive, and (2) everyone can write tickets to everyone. If you don’t like it, vote out those who passed the ordinance. Administration’s job is to enforce the existing laws when there’s a complaint. Apparently there were some.
I think having a garden in the front yard is a great idea more people should do it. In Mississippi this is a common site. My father in law has one in his front yard and side yard and they take up the whole yard. Plus it is a good way to supplement your income especially if your on a fixed income.
Hahaha,… but let’s say her neighbour didn’t cut his grass in his front yard, will he have problems with the law as well as his grass is not cut as everybody elses? Something like this can only happen in USA.
Hmmm
Just to clear up the point made about “democratically decided” is false. Most local ordinances are created by people employed by the local, country or state government. Often these people are overseen by political appointee’s. Most of the time the general public has ZERO input and ZERO control over these types of ordinances. There is NO democratic process involved here. Most of these “ordinances” are not put on the ballet and voted on by the citizens. So lets keep the facts staight this is a blatant violation of property rights. The fact that local governments have been doing it for decades doesn’t make it Constitutional.
Codes and Statutes are not laws. So she is not breaking any law. The whole legal system is based on legalese which is one big ponsey scheme. Go to Black’s Law book 4th edition or lower.
I would strongly suggest to this woman that she
1) Gets the definition of “suitable” from as many recognised dictionaries as possible, and
2) Conduct a survey up her street as to whether her neighbours think that her garden is “suitable”.
The results will, I think be an embarrassement to the Council.
The nasty little man who’s somehow in charge of persecuting this family doesn’t eat his vegetables and will die of cancer in a few short years, guaranteed, as a consequence. He doesn’t know the value and beauty of a vegetable if it bit him. He is a bug who should be stepped on by a big boot. Since when are vegetables illegal?
That’s a splendid raised garden shown. She probably chose the front yard because of its good South, full sunlight. She should be filling in the raised beds with a lot more plant material. I would also advise her to conserve on water by mulching more with hay, straw, or whatever, over appropriately fertilized and watered soil.
It’s a local ordinance and should be resolved locally. BIG government has nothing to do with it, especially since Oak Park, MI is hardly a huge municipality. Hopefully, this story will inspire residents there to run for local office – city council, zoning board, planning commission, board of appeals, police & fire commission, etc. (note: some of these are appointed positions) – and address this and other arcane laws in the books. This is what local elections are for. Unfortunately too many people completely ignore local elections. They only vote in presidential and maybe gubernatorial races, even though local officials have far more power over the quality of their lives.