Title: Court Officials Who Jailed a Veteran for Living Off-Grid Were “Just Doing Their Jobs” Source:
Daily Sheeple URL Source:http://www.thedailysheeple.com/cour ... e-just-doing-their-jobs_122016 Published:Dec 15, 2016 Author:Daisy Luther Post Date:2016-12-15 10:36:58 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:46382 Comments:123
Here’s an entry for the “Job-Doing Hall of Fame.”
What if your job meant that you had to go arrest a guy who just wanted to live off the grid on his own land? What if that guy was a veteran? What if his only crime was refusing a service that he was supposed to pay for, like public water or utilities?
Is it actually acceptable to go to his place, kidnap him, and hold him against his will for that?
If YOU are the person who takes any of those actions, are you to blame if you’re “just doing your job?”
Meet Tyler Truitt
Tyler Truitt is a veteran who owns two acres of land in Madison County, Alabama. He and his girlfriend live off-grid. They have a clean, well-cared-for home with solar panels and a rainwater collection system. They don’t have loud parties, deal drugs, or do anything else that could be deemed anti-social.
Well, except refusing to tie into the grid.
And the government can’t have that.
So, in the interest of keeping law and order in Indiana, a guy who served his country is being harassed by his local government because they deem that not having public utilities makes his home unsafe.
I don’t know about you, but I think the unsafe part is the government officials that commit such crimes as trespassing, kidnapping, and extortion.
Truitt and his girlfriend aren’t hurting anyone. They aren’t endangering the welfare of their neighbors. They aren’t stealing, causing a public health hazard, or damaging anybody’s property.
They’re just living free.
Here’s an interview with Tyler Truitt.
After this interview, Tyler ended up going to court and was put on probation for his “crimes.”
It gets worse. During his probation, he had the audacity to return to his home. His probation was revoked and last month, he was re-arrested. He spent 10 days, including Veteran’s Day, in jail, as punishment for living in his own home. Here’s a screenshot of his booking paperwork.
This saga has been going on for months and months.
Can you imagine living in your home, minding your own business, and waiting every day for the knock at the door that turns your life upside down and deprives you of your liberty because you choose to live on your own land without public water and electricity?
“Stop abdicating the personal responsibility for your own actions.”
Truitt posted this powerful message on his Facebook page regarding his time in jail:
A Message from Tyler
Today is November 20, 2016. As many of you know, I spent the week before last in jail. The judge had ordered me to serve a 10 day sentence in addition to fines. This was in relation to the trial last year which has been under appeal for some months. The ultimate outcome of which we lost and I was ordered to serve the time. This concludes all pending legal action at the time, but what we expect to happen is for the city to come cite us again and start this process all over again. I’m not sure exactly what they’re planning to do, but I’m sure this won’t be the end of it.
As for my experience in jail, there is one aspect of all this I briefly wanted to mention. Most of the jail and court, city, county etc. employees seem to be on our side. I had numerous guards tell me they thought our situation was messed up and apologize for what is happening to us. The deputy at the courthouse even said “Hey, aren’t you that guy who was on TV living off grid? I can’t believe they are doing this to you. That’s really messed up.” As he proceeded to carry me out without a word of protest to anyone else. That seems to be the common sentiment, and what I want you to notice is the key word “they”. People always say “they”, as if that person, “just doing their job”, has nothing at all to do with this. Just a bunch of little cogs in a big machine all doing their little part with no control over their own actions.
The best thing about jail is that when you are in there, you know you’re a prisoner, no questions about it. Complete with orange jumpsuit, metal bars, and bland, hastily prepared prison food. But what about the people on the outside? All those little cogs just doing a job with no control over their own actions? Going to a job they hate every day and doing exactly as they are told even when it irks their own moral conscience. I think this begs the question, “Who is the real prisoner?” And what kind of invisible walls inside our minds force us to act this way?
Many people are living like a prisoner, and yet still believing they are free. Because we have this grand illusion of freedom, a prison without walls, and so many choices (Should I go to Burger King or Taco Bell for lunch today?) we continue on touting how much freedom we all have, as we compliantly and unquestioningly carry out our orders. Because we have bills to pay and obligations that must be upheld. Obligations so pressing that we would do things which violate our own values and sense of self.
Now maybe some of you out there (especially law enforcement or military) are saying to yourself, “Sure I have to do things at work which make me feel uncomfortable, but I would never do anything too bad. I could stop myself before I do anything seriously unethical or unspeakable.” Possibly, but just where do you draw the line? Maybe for you that line isn’t drawn at incarcerating someone just for living peacefully on their own property (like my situation). But where is it? Is it when you are told to mace protesters? Or lie to cover up the actions of other officers? Is it when you’re asked to round up millions of Hispanic people for deportation? Or when you are ordered to force all Muslims into a concentration camp? Is it when you have to torture prisoners? Or is it when you’re made to confiscate weapons from your fellow patriotic Americans? How about when they tell you to shoot anyone who offers the least bit of resistance?
The point is that every time you’re forced to do something you feel is wrong without putting up the least bit of resistance, you only further train your mind to be compliant. Now is when it’s easy to say no. Do you think it will be any easier when people are rioting and there is chaos everywhere to make the right decision when you only have a moment to decide? Let’s remember, all the people at the Nuremburg trials were just following orders too, and I’m sure most of them never imagined themselves doing the types of things they did.
I guess what I’m asking all of you to do is remember that the choice actually is yours. All those invisible walls only exist in our minds, but we can tear them down and see what real freedom feels like. Stop living like a slave or prisoner to some giant system. Instead of “they”, it’s “we”. Stop abdicating the personal responsibility for your own actions. If you can do that, then you will truly be free. We don’t need to depend on some presidential savior, Trump, Bernie, Hillary, Obama, etc. to make America great again and make all our choices for us. America is the people, all of us. Only through our own actions, taking personal responsibility and making ourselves great, can each of us do our part to make America great.
Water rights or river ownership. What are we talking about.
If the river runs through your land you have a right to use the water. Of course.
Do you have a right to stop me from walking down the river and fishing in the water surrounded by your land. No you don't have that right because no one owns the river. Hopefully that clears up your misunderstanding.
The problem isn't so much with the contract, but with the 80 year old retirees with nothing better to do than report some inconsequential violation to the management to make themselves feel important.
Yep. Private property restrictions frequently wind up being more onerous than government zoning.
Dumb ass I said no one owns the river. I didn't say no one has rights to the river. No one owns it. I can walk down, kayak, canoe and fish in any river.
Dumb ass I said no one owns the river. I didn't say no one has rights to the river.
Ownership rights to the river.
Usage rights, access rights, fishing rights, water rights...
Basically, you want to ban the ownership of all private property rights to rivers, in favor of communal ownership. Have you ever heard of The Tragedy of the Commons?
Every town in the U.S. probably has a Joe Robertson; someone who feels like their property is theirs to do with what they wish. But those folks often meet a cruel fate when the government, especially the federal government, gets involved. The Justice Department filed a criminal case against Robertson, and the senior citizen was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for damaging wetlands and waters belonging to the United States.
After the conviction, an independent environmental consulting firm, Kagel Environmental, LLC, Nationwide Wetlands, Waters & Wildlife Consulting, located in Rigby, Idaho 83442, conducted a pro bono evaluation of the property the federal government claimed had led to harmful pollution of “wetlands” in violation of the Clean Water Act.
Robertson’s family gave the Free Thought Project a copy of this report. The firm concluded that the area where Robertson built his ponds could not be considered “wetlands,” nor did they find a single sliver of evidence that Robertson caused pollution.
The EPA lied to throw an innocent man in prison.
KE writes, “According to the USGS topo map (Mt. Thompson Quadrangle) the unnamed tributary to Cataract Creek is an intermittent headwater drainage channel. According to the NRCS Soil Survey, none of the ponds are underlain by hydric (wetland) soils, and according to the USFWS NWI maps, none of the ponds are located within federally mapped wetlands.”
(Rand) Paul wrote, in his book titled, Government Bullies, “The Clean Water Act never even mentioned the term ‘wetlands’ while passing through Congress for approval. The unelected bureaucracy (EPA) simply created the concept and defines it in distinct terminology dependent upon whatever scenario they are currently considering. ‘Wetlands’ quite literally can mean whatever the EPA wants it to mean.
The definition of wetlands has become so absurd and transparent that the Army Corps of Engineers developed the ‘migratory bird theory.’ This theory states that if your land is a stopping point for any migratory bird that has traveled between real navigable waters, then your land is now de facto connected to the interstate navigable streams. I’m not kidding.
This theory is irrational & completely illogical. How did it ever become enforceable law? It happened because Congress has abdicated its duty in this area. Citizens often run afoul of these rules inadvertently due to the constant evolution of complex and unexplained regulations.”
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
Paul Derangement Syndrome (PDS) is a mental condition that, though it was first detected during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, has only now been identified for the dangerous disorder that it is. Also known as “Paulophobia,” those suffering from it find themselves tortured by their fear of Texas Congressman and three time presidential candidate Ron Paul.
PDS is peculiar in that in spite of its being a contagion, there is but one segment of the general population that it is known to afflict. Even more curious is the fact that this segment consists of Ron Paul’s fellow partisans in the Republican Party. More specifically, it is neoconservative men and women, especially those with a particularly powerful proclivity for “conservative” talk radio and Fox News, who are most susceptible to contracting PDS.
PDS is known to ravage the rationality of its hosts. While this disorder indeed promises to reduce its victims’ thoughts on Congressman Paul to textbook cases of illogic, it would be a mistake to infer from this that every Paulophobe was a clear thinker prior to falling prey to PDS: In a not inconsiderable number of instances, Paulophobia hasn’t so much as caused the wild irrationality that is the most salient characteristic of all PDS victims as exacerbated the general unreasonableness with which they already lived.
Unlike many other illnesses, PDS isn’t at all difficult to identify. The Paulophobe’s discourse on all matters pertaining to Ron Paul, or at least to Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy, is replete with, not just inconsistencies, but glaring inconsistencies, contradictions that are so profound that even a college freshman enrolled in an introductory logic course couldn’t help but to be pained by them. To anyone remotely attuned to reality or possessed of a modicum of reason, the Paulophobe’s utterances can’t but sound like the babblings of a baby: indecipherable noises intending to signify we know not what.
At one and the same time that he loudly and proudly affirms “limited government,” “liberty,” “individualism,” “fiscal sanity,” “the Constitution,” and “the Founders,” the Paulophobe will just as loudly and unabashedly repudiate Ron Paul. Although the latter has proven to be, by far, both more committed and more consistently committed to these values than any political actor of our generation — although, that is, he is an incomparable champion of the very ideals that the Paulophobe claims to cherish — the Paulophobe insists upon treating Ron Paul as an enemy.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
Just a thought. GAB.ai is growing pretty fast, but their interface and functionality sucks pretty bad compared to the setup here. Maybe they would pay for some much needed improvements.
I want everyone to have access to the water. To the beaches, the rivers and lakes.
Hard to realize that admirable goal if all of the property adjoining a lake isn't subject to easements.
How can the developer of lakefront property withhold easement rights if he's subject to a "If you want to control the property then don't sell it" rule?
So Joe chose not to obey the EPA rules, and since EPA rules have the force and effect of law, good old Joe made the choice to sit in “solitary.”
The EPA LIED!
Or did you conveniently ignore that fact?
Oh, that's right - in Gatlin Bizarro World, the government doesn't lie.
Robertson dug some holes on HIS OWN PROPERTY, and was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for damaging wetlands
“According to the USGS topo map (Mt. Thompson Quadrangle) the unnamed tributary to Cataract Creek is an intermittent headwater drainage channel. According to the NRCS Soil Survey, none of the ponds are underlain by hydric (wetland) soils, and according to the USFWS NWI maps, none of the ponds are located within federally mapped wetlands.”
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
The Defense had a opportunity to prove that to the jury….IT DID NOT.
Did you conveniently ignore that fact?
Citizens often run afoul of these [wetland] rules inadvertently due to the constant evolution of complex and unexplained regulations.”
Conversely, “citizens often intentionally choose to ignore these wetland rules” and when they do….they suffer the consequences as set forth under the law.
Joe was given every chance to cease digging the ponds, he chose not to.
He knew he was violating the conditions of his probation….yet, he made the choice to do that.
A jury of his peers listened to all the evidence and then convicted him….he was sentenced to serve time.
That is the way the system works.
Basin Man Convicted of Clean Water Act Violations and Destruction of US Property
MISSOULA – Following a four day federal trial, a Montana jury found Joseph David Robertson, 77, guilty on two counts of unauthorized discharge of pollutants into waters of the United States and one count of injury or depredation of United States property.
Robertson was indicted by a grand jury in May of 2015 as a result of illegal ponds he built on two parcels of land near Basin, Montana, one on Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest land and the other on adjacent private property. The ponds resulted in the discharge of dredged and fill material into a tributary stream and adjacent wetlands and caused widespread damage to both properties.
At trial, the government introduced evidence that in October of 2013, a United States Forest Service (USFS) Special Agent visited the National Forest property to determine whether Robertson had complied with previously issued conditions of probation for misdemeanor violations of USFS regulations. The Agent testified at trial that during the site visit, she observed multiple ponds dug into an existing stream on both USFS and adjacent private property.
During a subsequent site visit in November of 2013, Robertson admitted to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USFS Criminal Special Agents that he had performed the work on the National Forest property using an excavator. State and federal officials visited the site again in May of 2014, and observed that Robertson had done additional work. The site was now approximately 1.2 acres in size, and extended beyond the National Forest property to a private property that he did not own. The work consisted of nine ponds of varying sizes, including some as large as approximately 4900 square feet that were placed directly in the stream and wetlands area. Unconsolidated dredged material from the ponds had been used to create the berms and had been placed in and around the stream and wetlands. Robertson admitted that he had completed the additional work. Additional investigation revealed that Robertson continued to construct ponds on the USFS property after May of 2014, despite being told repeatedly that he had no legal right to do so.
One of the central legal issues at trial was whether the waters polluted by Robertson were “waters of the United States” for purposes of the Clean Water Act. The United States introduced evidence and expert testimony from the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA that the stream and wetlands had a significant nexus to traditional navigable waters, and therefore were “waters of the United States.” Fishery biologists from the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) and the USFS testified that this headwater and wetland complex provided critical support to trout in downstream rivers and fisheries, including the Boulder and Jefferson Rivers.
“This verdict sends a message that the United States will not stand by and allow streams and wetlands of the United States to be polluted, or National Forest lands to be injured,” said United States Attorney for the District of Montana Mike Cotter. “Clean and healthy waterways are a critical resource for all forms of life and are a Montana value. It is imperative that we protect this increasingly scarce resource. The collaborative efforts of multiple state and federal agencies in cases like this help ensure that individuals who seek to degrade it will be held accountable.”
“Rivers, streams and wetlands provide essential habitat for fish and wildlife which must be protected, and EPA and its law enforcement partners are committed to protecting these invaluable natural assets as well as the communities around them,” said Jeffrey Martinez, Special Agent in Charge of EPA’s criminal enforcement program in Montana. “The defendant’s illegal activity took place not only on public land but also on private property he didn’t own. Today’s guilty verdict demonstrates that polluters will be held accountable for their actions."
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Whittaker and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Nelson from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This case was investigated by multiple state and federal agencies including the United States Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Other agencies that assisted the investigation included Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Jefferson Valley Conservation District.
MELISSA HORNBEIN, Public Information Officer, (406) 457-5277 https://www.justice.gov/usao-mt/pr/basin-man-convicted-clean-water-act- violations-and-destruction-us-property
You never seem to know what you are talking about….and you never bother to research further after reading some yellow journalism article.
You to wise up….it was NOT HIS OWN PROPERTY.
“The defendant’s illegal activity took place not only on public land but also on private property he didn’t own.” https://www.justice.gov/usao-mt/pr/basin-man-convicted-clean-water-act- violations-and-destruction-us-property
The same Justice Department which sent Robertson, arguably an elderly old codger who liked picking small, school-yard types of fights with the federal government, had also investigated the BP oil spill. According to Reuters, “A Justice Department probe into the spill led to criminal charges against just four, mostly lower-level BP employees. The other rig supervisor, Robert Kaluza, was acquitted in February by a jury of the same pollution charge as Vidrine’s.
Kaluza and Vidrine previously faced manslaughter charges, but those were dropped.Former BP Vice President David Rainey was acquitted by a jury last June of charges he lied to federal agents about how much oil was spilled. The fourth defendant, engineer Kurt Mix, was sentenced to six months of probation last November after pleading guilty to damaging a computer, a misdemeanor.”
The result: no one spent one day in prison. Not one person, involved with history’s largest oil spill, spent one day behind bars as a convict. But let a squatting gold miner dig a few ponds on what he considered to be his own property, and admittedly a little sliver of federal land, and the government showed no mercy. And he isn’t fairing well in prison, reportedly. His wife told reporters he’s been kept in solitary confinement, has suffered fainting spells, and is in overall poor health.
Ironically, the independent evaluation also found that Robertson may have actually done the federal government a favor by creating the ponds. They write: “KE determined that the creation of Ponds #1, #2, and #3, which we understand are located on USFS lands, have actually enhanced the aquatic resources relative to the intermittent channel and adjacent wetlands.”
From the KE report, one could conclude Robertson was within his rights to construct the ponds, they weren’t located in a “wetland”, and while he may have erred in building ponds on federal property, the environment is now better off as a result.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
“This verdict sends a message that the United States will not stand by and allow streams and wetlands of the United States to be polluted, or National Forest lands to be injured,” said United States Attorney for the District of Montana Mike Cotter. “Clean and healthy waterways are a critical resource for all forms of life and are a Montana value. It is imperative that we protect this increasingly scarce resource. The collaborative efforts of multiple state and federal agencies in cases like this help ensure that individuals who seek to degrade it will be held accountable.”
There is the MESSAGE....I repeated it since you have trouble getting it.
“This verdict sends a message that the United States will not stand by and allow streams and wetlands of the United States to be polluted, or National Forest lands to be injured,”
Furthermore, the report added, “We understand that the pond excavation was accomplished using a Case 780 trackhoe with a 36-inch wide bucket and/or a 580 Case backhoe with a 24-inch wide bucket.
Any dredged material dripping from the bucket back into the water or wetland is considered an incidental fallback and therefore not subject to any requirement for a Section 404 permit (Tulloch Rule).”
The firm found that Robertson did not need the federal permit required for the ponds’ construction because his equipment was not considered heavy-equipment and the dredged drippings would be inconsequential.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
