Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -- for Collecting Rainwater on His Property

[milkmiku]

(CNSNews.com) – A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.

“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.

The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/oregon-man-sentenced-30-days-jail-collecting-rainwater-his-property

Yes sla- I mean CITIZEN, you must get your water from our goverment controlled sources or from goverment licensed private retailers and any trouble caused by our manipulation of the distribution system to create artificial scarcity is for your own good.

[l'Enfermé]

Stupid fucking guy, stealing water that falls from the skies. Shame on him!

[Thug Lessons]

Okay, a couple thing. This is from some loony right-wing news site that proudly boasts,


CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like NPR. CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like PBS.

And the article quotes the water management bureau claiming the guy is diverting streams, constructing dams to block tributaries, and generally screwing around with the municipal water supply in a blatantly illegal way. He's plead guilty to exactly that before. So I could care less if the governments wants to lock up some right-winger who repeatedly violates the water code for no reason other than some quixotic quest against BIG GOVERNMENT.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Okay, a couple thing. This is from some loony right-wing news site that proudly boasts,

[snip]

And the article quote the water management bureau claiming the guy is diverting streams, constructing dams to block tributaries, and generally screwing around with the municipal water supply in a blatantly illegal way. He's plead guilty to exactly that before. So I could care less if the governments wants to lock some right-winger who repeatedly violates the water code for no reason other than some quixotic quest against BIG GOVERNMENT.

I was wondering if there was more to the story. As the story is presented in the OP I could only imagine the authorities feeling the need to step in if his reservoirs were large enough to be covered by say, environmental regulations that the owner wasn't abiding by. Even then I was thinking that they'd just force him to drain out and fill in the offending reservoirs or get them up to spec, rather than throwing him in jail for a month.

[Thug Lessons]

Yeah, it's probably a waste of resources to send him to jail. On the other hand, this is second conviction for this same offence.

[Le Communiste]

That is such bullshit, you own and can do whatever You want with the shit that falls on your property

[Skyhilist]

wat.

[Igor]

i remember some zeitgeist tinfoil hat dude talking to me a few years ago about how "yeah they'll take over rainwater too dude" and i just laughed at his face because not even capitalism could get so absurd

well welp

[Skyhilist]

The top comments on this article are just as stupid. As if elected democrats are somehow "liberal" and that's what's causing that. Such ignorance.

[Igor]

The top comments on this article are just as stupid. As if elected democrats are somehow "liberal" and that's what's causing that. Such ignorance.

they are liberal though. and it's kind of causing it, considering liberalism is a bourgie ideology and that's kind of where this shit stems from, not liberalism per se.

[Red Banana]

i remember some zeitgeist tinfoil hat dude talking to me a few years ago about how "yeah they'll take over rainwater too dude" and i just laughed at his face because not even capitalism could get so absurd

well welp

Actually the Bolivian government sold their water system to The Betchel Company of San Francisco and they actually did make it illegal to collect rainwater

[Skyhilist]

Well, I guess we may have different standards of liberal than. Personally, I wouldn't consider anyone right of a social democrat to be liberal. I mean capitalism isn't a very liberal idea, and being controlled by corporations isn't either. Most of these democratic politicians just pretend to be liberal.

[Igor]

Well, I guess we may have different standards of liberal than. Personally, I wouldn't consider anyone right of a social democrat to be liberal. I mean capitalism isn't a very liberal idea, and being controlled by corporations isn't either. Most of these democratic politicians just pretend to be liberal.

Capitalism is to liberalism pretty much what dictatorship of the proletariat is to socialism. It's not only a very liberal idea, it's a central, inseparable part of it. Shit like free market and small government are all ideas that stem from the liberal movement, and there's a reason why the term "neoliberalism" describes something completely else than the Occupy movement. Even social liberals don't really want to touch capitalism, because doing so would be contradictory to their ideal of freedom.

The idea that liberals are a leftist or even anti-capitalist ideology is something you really don't see outside the United States that much and really didn't see even there until recently. Traditionally liberalism has been an ideology of freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom to fuck people over with coercion to wage slavery. But it's cool, because everyone could do that if they can handle the bootstraps!

I mean yeah this is kind of a lazy hack solution but I honestly don't have anything better: check out the Wikipedia article on liberalism. It's not exactly about Obama gay abortions, or whatever the American definition of the term is.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

So the rest of you didn't even notice the post by Thug Lessons where they pointed out that the guy was fucking things up for other people?

[Yuppie Grinder]

Okay, a couple thing. This is from some loony right-wing news site that proudly boasts,



And the article quotes the water management bureau claiming the guy is diverting streams, constructing dams to block tributaries, and generally screwing around with the municipal water supply in a blatantly illegal way. He's plead guilty to exactly that before. So I could care less if the governments wants to lock up some right-winger who repeatedly violates the water code for no reason other than some quixotic quest against BIG GOVERNMENT.

OK, those are not OK things to do, but what is this resentment towards people who are distrusting of the bourgeois state? Distrust of the government should be encouraged!

[l'Enfermé]

The guy is fucking with his neighbors, not the government, Brodiga.

[Per Levy]

OK, those are not OK things to do, but what is this resentment towards people who are distrusting of the bourgeois state? Distrust of the government should be encouraged!

i agree, but i guess thug lessons was talking about the libertarian type of people who see in the goverment some kind of evil socialistic force, since you know socialism is big gouverment and stuff. and the soruce and the guy himself seem to be of that type.

[Comrade Samuel]

People are being jailed for stupider and stupider things everyday it seems like. What next? Should I look out for men in suits and shades camping out under the apple tree in my yard, god forbid somebody does something completely harmless on their own property.

[bcbm]

if a man wants to divert water on his own property that is his god damn god given right as a god damn americanhttp://imagecache5.art.com/LRG/6/662/WDAC000Z.jpg

[cynicles]

Thank god for American patriotism, if it wasn't so gaudy and annoying I wouldn't have been turned off to the idea of Canadian patriotism at such a young age.