Wow!
“I’ve had enough. I’m going to fight!” Charlevoix County Businessman, Lyle Barkley, has been ordered to remove two manufactured homes from a 4-acre parcel in Bay Township by September 18. Barkley says he will not comply with the illegal and unconstitutional order of the court but will defend his property with arms if necessary. Barkley, 55, owns B&B Excavating in Boyne City. He is presently bulldozing fortifications around his property in preparation for the standoff he promises will come if officials attempt to remove the homes from his land.
His cause has drawn the attention of Rick Stanley, leader of an organization called Mutual Defense Pact 2d American Revolution Militia who offers to send more than 600 armed defenders to Barkley’s aid once the standoff has begun.
And more here:
Lyle Barkley is bulldozing four-foot berms around his three acres in Bay Township and requesting support from conservative militia groups to prepare for a possible armed confrontation with county law enforcement officers over a zoning dispute.
The 55-year-old excavator vows that neither he, his family nor the three manufactured housing units in dispute will be removed from his property without a shootout.
It seems we have the next Waco about to occur. In addition, a militia group is willing to send 600 people to help defend against a government intervention. If so, this will be ugly. The government is asserting its power with respect to property while a man claims such assertion is illegal. The question of Who is right? is most definitely debatable.
One item I have never seen addressed in any scholarly capacity is this: When is it justifiable to violently resist agents of the government?
I do not have the answer. Would Rodney King have been justified in shooting the officers who were beating him? Was Randy Weaver justified in shooting federal agents? Would the protestors from the 1960s have been justified to violently revolt when the water hoses and dogs were turned loose on them?
September 15th, 2003 at 3:39 pm
>>Barkley says he will not comply with the illegal and unconstitutional order of the court but will defend his property with arms if necessary.
The problem is that it’s not up to us to determine whether something is illegal or unconstitutional. That’s for the courts to decide – love them or hate them, that’s how our country was set up in the Constitution to operate.
Did he go put forth any real effort to go through channels and get the decision reversed? I don’t know, but he seems the type to sit on his front porch with his trusty shotgun and Ol’ Blue beside him, darin’ the revanooers to come an’ git him.
>>His cause has drawn the attention of Rick Stanley, leader of an organization called Mutual Defense Pact 2d American Revolution Militia who offers to send more than 600 armed defenders to Barkley’s aid once the standoff has begun.
Well, it would be 600 less potential Timothy McVeighs if they do actually offer armed resistance.
>>The 55-year-old excavator vows that neither he, his family nor the three manufactured housing units in dispute will be removed from his property without a shootout.
And, of course, the denoument. There’s always an innocent family put in harm’s way to prove a point. The point is always more important than the family’s safety, or he’d see that they left.
September 15th, 2003 at 4:08 pm
The problem is that it’s not up to us to determine whether something is illegal or unconstitutional.
Like separate but equal? We’re a democratic republic and it is ultimately up to citizens. You can sit back and say it’s not your fault but it doesn’t make it better.
Did he go put forth any real effort to go through channels and get the decision reversed?
He went to court and was told to remove them. But lemme explain how it will work if he appeals, he will appeal, and while he is appealing, they will force the removal of the homes anyway. Then he has to sue again to get them back.
Well, it would be 600 less potential Timothy McVeighs if they do actually offer armed resistance.
I can see where you’re coming from on this. However, there is a difference between someone killing innocent people and someone taking a stand for what they beleive in. Barkley has a legitimate property issue in my opinion. Remember, the only difference between a nut and a freedom fighter is who wins.
The point is always more important than the family’s safety, or he’d see that they left
I’d agree with that, unless his family is old enough to make their own decisions are doing so willingly.
September 15th, 2003 at 4:09 pm
Oh, and you didn’t take a stab at my questions.
September 15th, 2003 at 4:20 pm
And i am not endorsing his actions. I think he has a legitimate gripe but should fight it legally first.
September 15th, 2003 at 4:46 pm
I do recall reading a passage that said that the judge told Barkley that he couldn’t appeal…
“…He said [Judge] May dismissed his argument and said he would not be allowed to appeal the order.”
that’s from the second article
http://www.petoskeynews.com/articles/2003/09/12/news/local_regional/news02.txt
& just to be clear, the constitution did not set up the courts as the final artbitrator of the constitution. The courts took that upon themselves in the marbury vs. Madison case.
But it is up to us, the people to decide what is constitutional & what is not. Saying that all these things should be left to the courts is not only an invitation for disaster, but it’s quite frankly being lazy.
600 less potential timothy mcveighs? That’s not only a cheap shot at what you’d call a militia group, but a cheap shot based either on bias or ignorance. Most militia groups do not advocate initiating violence against the government. Indeed most offer their assistance to the government. The only mention of violence towards the government is defensive, as in what they’d do if/when the government tries to disarm everybody, or set up cattle cars for a segment of the population.
I agree that he should pursue all legal avenues. But then again I do not think he should stand idly by while his property is stolen from him by the county. I also don’t agree with his reasoning behind his stand,or more precisely his arguments but nevertheless he is attempting to defend his property from what he thinks (& he appears to be correct)is an illegal & constitutionally prohibited action on the part of local government.
I hope he comes out of this alright but I don’t think the outcome will be pretty. In any case should I ever find myself in his position I’d hope that 600 people would come to my aid.
September 15th, 2003 at 7:41 pm
If you go back to the original article (which Publicola mentioned above), you’ll see what this issue is really about: Zoning laws.
(I’d be curious to know if May really told him he wouldn’t be allowed to appeal, because that’s not for May to decide.)
Anyway, if Barkley were to win, the net effect would be that zoning laws would be at least situationally declared unconstitutional. This would mean that if your next-door-neighbor decides to build a 150-foot-tall monument to Ba’ath, there would be nothing you could do to stop him; you’d just have to watch your property value go down the shitter.
And Barry is right, he should get his family out of the way if he’s going to stage armed resistance.
Now for SayUncle’s question:
When the government violates fundamental civil liberties and bypasses due process.
In Barkley’s case, I’d say that violent resistance is unwarranted, because due process was followed. Barkley eschews lawyers to his detriment, because I’m betting a decent lawyer could get a stay, and he could probably even find a libertarian-minded lawyer to take his case pro bono.
In Rodney King’s case, that’s a gray case. He was being arrested on solid legal grounds, but clearly the police used undue force. I’m not saying he deserved what he got, because he didn’t, but he would have saved himself a lot of grief if he would have NOT resisted arrest and let the lawyers do the fighting for him. (Remember, this was in the old days, before it was okay to indefinitely detain someone without charge and without access to counsel.)
I don’t know enough about the Randy Weaver case to comment.
The 1960’s protesters would have been constitutionally justified for violent revolt, because their constitutionally-guaranteed peacable assembly rights were violently violated. However, to revolt violently would have undermined their own “peace and love” doctrine, so they would have taken one on the chin, from a PR perspective.
From a “big picture” perspective, violent resistance to the government can be justifiable. Indeed, it’s a big part of why we have a second amendment. But it’s only justifiable when all other means of redressing grievances have been expended unsuccessfully, and Barkley’s case comes nowhere close to meeting that burden.
Further, just because you lose doesn’t mean you have the right to violently revolt. There’s a good possibility that you could be wrong. So armed resistance doesn’t really become justified until sufficiently large portions of the population become disenfranchised. That’s far more likely to be true of our minority populations than of some yokel in BF, Nowhere, Michigan.
September 15th, 2003 at 7:55 pm
Here is one case where the Supreme Court addressed the issue, but it dates back to 1900. Essentially the court ruled that an individual has a right to use whatever force is necessary to resist an unlawful arrest. I’m betting there’s probably newer precedent that overrides this to some extent, but a preliminary search didn’t turn anything up.
September 15th, 2003 at 8:39 pm
Thanks for the info tgirsch. I dunno too many folks that would tackle that question. I too confess barkley may be jumping the gun (no pun intended but horrible pun implied) by not exhausting legal recourse.
September 15th, 2003 at 8:52 pm
This has kind of been touched on, but as to the issue of whether or not force against the government is justified, I think distinctions need to be made on what the dispute involves.
If the confrontation threatens an individual’s personal safety, such as the Rodney King example, force may be justified in some instances.
If the confrontation threatens the privacy of one’s home, there may be rare instances where force may be warranted (though ultimately futile).
When the dispute centers on one’s personal property, however, I don’t think the use of force is appropriate. We have a legal system to settle these issues. Violence isn’t justified over things.
September 16th, 2003 at 8:35 am
SU:Like separate but equal? We’re a democratic republic and it is ultimately up to citizens. You can sit back and say it’s not your fault but it doesn’t make it better.
I understand it is ultimately up to the citizens, but in a representational democracy, really the only thing we can do is elect representatives (or judges, or governors, or presidents – who appoint some judges) who believe what we believe, and try to get them – through petitions, emails, meetings, etc – to vote the way we think they should.
It’s not up to the citizenry to take matters into their own hands when the process exists to do so legally.
September 16th, 2003 at 8:55 am
It’s not up to the citizenry to take matters into their own hands
Well, doing just that is how our country was founded. And the court case listed by PC above concludes otherwise.
September 16th, 2003 at 11:26 am
True, however they were coming from a system in which the average citizen didn’t have any legal recourse. The founders were very careful to create our system to guarantee legal recourses to the citizenry. At the same time, they acknowledged the possible need for armed resistance, but only as a final recourse; essentially, only if an oppressive government came to power.
September 16th, 2003 at 11:28 am
I think it’s arguable that telling a private and lawful citizen that he can’t do something with his property (which was approved, then revoked) may be viewed as oppressive.
September 16th, 2003 at 1:53 pm
I think “oppressive” is a bit of a stretch here (okay, a lot of a stretch), but you’re mischaracterize what’s happened. What Barkley did was not “approved, then revoked.” Barkely got approval to place the two pre-fab homes. But then he went beyond what was approved by building expansions and connecting the two.
Reverting the two to their original state should be an option for him, and if it’s not, then the state is wrong on that count. But he did not have his approval spuriously revoked.
Again: this gets back to the heart of the issue of zoning laws, and whether or not you think they’re valid. Another issue equally at play here is building codes. Assume he violated building codes (I don’t know if he did or not). Does the state then have the right to enforce those codes and force compliance?
If building codes and zoning laws cannot be enforced on private property, then they cannot be enforced at all. Not to don too much of a tinfoil hat here, but if there’s an ulterior motive here, it would seem to be undermining zoning laws and building codes.
I’d be interested to get the officials’ side of the story: Why was the permit revoked? Was removal the only allowable remedy? If so, why?
So far, I’ve only seen the story told from the landowner’s perspective, and not from that of his neighbors or of the community.
September 16th, 2003 at 2:02 pm
You’re correct, i recalled incorrectly. I thought permission was given then revoked but permission was given, then he added a walkway, and now the county wants it all removed (which i still find oppressive, btw).
I’m not opposed to zoning laws (I like not having a bomb factory in my neighborhood) but this is property that he lives on and (from the picture) it seems pretty isolated. Granted, it’s a small picture.
This could be an abuse of codes or zoning on the part of the county but (as you said) without more info, we can’t tell. Governments in the US have abused zoning and eminent domain for a long time. I recall a walmart in alabama and the NYT building as examples.
September 16th, 2003 at 5:44 pm
On this, we agree completely.