Duke Energy trashes private property, shrugs shoulders
Duke Energy has a long record of flexing its monopolistic muscle without fear of accountability. After all, my friend, corporations are people ... and big corporations are big people who can throw their weight around like bulls in a china shop, breaking whatever they want.
With that in mind, you'll be saddened to read the story below, received today via email, but you won't be surprised.
Since it is earth day, I wanted to tell you what Duke Energy did on my property in Otto, NC (Macon County).
I inherited this property from my mother who recently passed, and there is a power pole in her backyard. The property runs along Hwy. 441 South. About a year ago, Duke came through here and clear cut ... like building a road ... all the trees, mountain laurel, dogwoods, wildflowers, ferns, etc., then cam back through and sprayed something that burned everything it touched, light Agent Orange. And there is a river below where they sprayed all this. They have destroyed my property value and I am livid at the mess they left behind for me to clean up.
How can these big companies come on someone's property and do that kind of damage and just walk away and leave the mess for the property owners? I complained to the tax office and they said "Call Duke!" My parents had this property for years and nothing like this has ever happened before. If Duke needed to cut a few trees, I could understand that, but they destroyed everything. I have been trying to clean up what they just threw on top of my mother's flower gardens, left big trees and brush on top of everything and just walked away.
This is not right. What kind of recourse do I have against Duke Energy for damages. I have contacted them many times, as well as the Utility Commission.
Thank you for any insight you can give as to what we can do to stop these corporations from being able to do this to property owners.
Tagged:
BlueNC is dedicated to making North Carolina a more progressive and prosperous state. If your intention is to disrupt this effort, please find somewhere else to express your opinions.
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I am sorry to say I am so cynical about this, that I fear the letter writer is basically screwed. We have devolved in America to a place where corporations have more rights than people.
And if anyone is sitting around waiting for Duke Energy to respond to anything, don't hold your breath. Unless you are the rich guy they've been paying to run for governor for the past decade, your concerns really don't matter.
I would contact my State Representative
If they won't help, they're worse than useless.
Progressives are the true conservatives.
Go through her papers
and see if she ever signed anything granting them access or rights to "maintain" the area around the utility pole. I'd also be curious to know how much time passed between her passing and the tree-cutting. It seems like the two may be connected.
Big Government ALWAYS favors the wealthy and influential
"Progressives are the true conservatives."
It is often progressives who call libertarians names because we focus so much attention on property rights. This is the reason. Without true property rights protected by government people have no recourse against "aggression" like this. Without strong property rights, nothing you own, earn, create, build or nurture will ever be protected against incursions like this.
But how have progressives help create the problem? They have contributed to creating the powerful nexus between government and corporations. This is why Government should not subsidize, bailout, prop-up, or cozy up to corporations in anyway (regulations are huge part of this since they will always favor larger wealthier businesses). We all know Republicans are massively guilty of cronyism, but the dirty secret is that so are democrats and progressives. Most times it comes from a desire to help the less fortunate or is viewed as a necessary evil to compete with republican cronyism, but it has the severely negative effect of enlarging and empowering the bureaucratic apparatus that favors the wealthy and influential.
Duke is so very cozy with the Democrats in this state that this is unavoidable. Plus, the state monopoly granted Duke has is granted by government. If government didn't give Duke the ability to put lines on your property and do whatever they want with it, Duke would be forced to contract with the property owner and respect the rights that come with ownership. That means more legal recourse and protections for this owner as well as no government protection for Duke. As a bonus, there would also be more competition from other power companies that would at the very least allow a "protest" against Duke by switching companies and boycotting them. With a state sponsored monopoly this is not possible.
I am not trying to throw mud at progressives, just pointing out why expanding government causes this. The bigger government gets, the more power it accumulates, the more corporations and the rich and powerful will try and succeed in influencing them. This is the nature of humans and the progressive attempts to "cure" this with never ending regulations and laws have only made problems worse.
If government is lean, more efficient and focused on protecting the rights of you and your property, this kind of action is treated the same by the authorities as if this person's neighbor had done it.
Progressives are great on protecting the rights of minorities, LGBT, the poor and less fortunate, but you have a ways to go on economic and property rights and the importance of protecting property rights should be obvious from this story. Property rights are not just for the rich. They are often the only way to protect the rest of us from the rich and powerful.
Sorry, but this is BS
In case you haven't been watching, Republicans in the NCGA are taking power away from government agencies, but they're not giving that power back to the people, they're giving it directly to the corporations.
You can only give what is yours
"they're giving it directly to the corporations."
I would disagree if by giving power to corporations you mean reducing regulations. That actually does return power to the citizens since all regulations favor big business and hurt small businesses due to their economic burden.
Now, if you are referring to NCGA giving companies more state protection in the form of tax breaks, favorable laws, special legal protections that citizens and other businesses don;t have, then I agree with you 100%. However, I would point out that they can only give what they have already taken. They have this powder because both conservatives and progressives have increased their power - for different ends, i give you(but the effect is the same).
As voters we should be supporting candidates that want to strip some power from government and then they won't be able to "give" it to anyone. I would also point out that Duke is a much bigger supporter of the NC Dems than republicans. It wouldn't shock the people on this blog if Rose's (for example) got away with this, but the fact that it is Duke (Democratic Party Friend) should open eyes that support for Democrats is not necessarily much better.
When I spoke at a Tea Party event last week on Amendment 1, I told them what I am telling you now. Smaller government is needed in all areas - business, economy and social. Most didn't like it when I told them you can't complain about government intrusion into healthcare and then support government intrusion into a home, bedroom and marriage.
Equally, you can't champion government incursions into business and then be surprised when businesses use this to their advantage.
Simply not true:
Just one example (of many): Recent EPA restrictions on carbon emissions placed a burden on businesses across the board, but when DENR proposed to exempt smaller businesses from compliance, the (supposed) Libertarians at the John Locke Foundation fought against that. Why? Because they aren't concerned about small business, only the monster fossil fuel industry.
Yes, we crack on Libertarians from time to time, but that's because you guys are painfully naive. You believe tearing down government will (automatically) benefit regular citizens. But power doesn't settle across everybody like dust, it's grabbed by those who can grab it, and regular citizens end up paying the price, each one of them standing alone against an irresistable force.
It's only when they (we) come together and set up rules that equality and security are acquired.
Tell that to the LGBT Community
"You guys (Libertarians) are painfully naive"
Tell that to the LGBT community in North Carolina. They are about to lose any chance at gaining equal marriage or civil unions because progressives (and conservatives) have empowered government to interfere in the lives of private citizens. Not the KKK, not some Nazi group, our government is perpetrating this. Why? Because they can. Why? Because to help make everything "better" you gave up your autonomy and rights and now you can't get them back. Becuase progressives and conservatives have floated the myth that government is the cure to all ills. Who is naive?
Let take a look at what government has done or allowed shall we? See then if your trust is misplaced
Slavery
Tuskegee experiments
Jim Crow
Japanese Internment
Dresden Bombing
Patriot Act
Bradley Manning incarcerated without trial for exposing military corruption and illegal acts
Alien and Sedition act
Gitmo
Assination of American Citizens without trial
Nat. Defense Authorization Act
Kelo
This is just the US government and this is just off the top of my head.
Libertarians are not anarchists. We believe in limited government that protects its citizens from direct violence or infringement of their rights by people, corporations, foreign states and our own government. (This includes: Murder, rape, fraud, theft). Just to prevent the typical objection - pollution is an infringement since it causes direct harm to person and property. They would be dealt with in the same manner that a neighbor pouring waste on your property or blowing toxic gas into your house would. These things are crimes under libertarian law. Gay marriage is not. Under your nanny state system gay marriage is a crime. the NDAA is law, the government can throw you in jail without trail. They can frisk you without cause, arrest you for reading articles they consider "terrorist" material. They will send you to jail for not putting your child in public schools if you aren't deemed a "proper educator", smoking marijuana to relieve pain, or trying to help someone end their own life with dignity and with the least amount of pain possible. They put 16 year-olds that have sex with their 15 year old girl friends on sex offender lists, they shoot harmless dogs who bark at police when they walk onto your property without permission, they can confiscate cars and houses without making an arrest (and the burden is on the owner to prove it wasn't used in a crime), they arrest citizens for taping police misconduct from their own porch, they allow police to strip search you for any minor crime, you are nor allowed to resist an arrest even if it is unlawful, you can't sell fruit or vegetables from your garden, homegrown eggs or homecooked food without permission. These are all just off the top of my head and just the tip of the iceberg.
There is as much danger from too much government as too little.
The problem is that progressives trust in government but not business. Libertarians trust neither and so don't wish to have their rights stripped and given to the latter by the former.
Look at the list of things that get you thrown in jail. Look at the list of rights we have lost. Look at the atrocities our government has committed. Tell me libertarian mistrust of too much government is unwarranted.
If given the choice I would much rather have a gas station gouge its prices or walmart not offer me healthcare if I worked there (since there are other jobs) than a government that puts me in jail for smoking weed, prevents me from marrying the person I love, or assaults old ladies to confiscate a gun during a disaster (http://youtu.be/vMOKh0HUClA).
Who is truly naive??
I am willing to undergo some risk to preserve my freedom. Especially, when that risk is never actually averted or removed because the bigger a government gets the more inefficient, corrupt, and incompetent it becomes. And because the only way to save people from their own foolishness is to lock them up. Government should protect them from the basic harms I listed and accept that life comes with risk and that the reason the quality of life for someone we consider to be in poverty (mirowave, AC, car, cable TV, internet) is better than that of an Egyptian Pharoah, a Persian Monarch or a rich industrialist from the 20's is a free market system that facilitates human innovation. A limited government is one that protects basic rights and equality of opportunity - not outcome.
This DENR??
DENR Wants to Seize Waterfront Property From Heirs
"John H. Hurst and his sister Harriet Hurst Turner are battling to keep the state of North Carolina from taking from their family without compensation a 289-acre Onslow County waterfront property that once served as a beach for African-Americans in the days of racial segregation."
http://www.carolinajournal.com/articles/display_story.html?id=7251
Hmmmm. Geez, where does the libertarian mistrust of government come from?? Oh, must just be our naivete, not like their is any good reason for it.
That's really a shame! Have
That's really a shame! Have you considered just taking them to court?