My turn: My close call with the machine

The EPA was defeated in the Supreme Court last week. In an all too common case of governmental heavy-handedness EPA bureaucrats ignored basic property rights to push their agenda. In Sackett v. United States Environmental Protection Agency the Court began the process of placing the EPA back under the rule of law. Meanwhile this vast bureaucracy will continue on its invasive and destructive course while the Sackett family (the winners) will never be able to recover the five years of their lives fighting for the most basic property rights. This is a great example of how bureaucrats can destroy people’s dreams and livelihood with impunity. I am reminded of my own brush with the federal government and how helpless I felt in the jaws of the machine.

I had taken my family sledding at Lolo Pass in the Clearwater National Forest. Going back to my vehicle I found a parking ticket on the windshield. As I read the ticket I was amazed and angered to find that I had to pay a $75 fee for parking in a half-empty parking lot. My anger increased to helpless rage as I continued reading. “If you do not pay the total collateral due amount, and you fail to appear in court at the date and time scheduled for you, the United States District Court may issue a summons ordering your appearance or issue a warrant for your arrest.” Warrant for my arrest??

Some of you may be wondering why I would feel so offended at a measly $75. Why not just pay the fee and be done? After all, I was guilty of parking illegally. To be honest, I initially didn’t know why I was so angry. After thinking over the situation and musing over this column I realize that the fee wasn’t my gripe. My gripe was that my fate was now in the hands of a federal rather than a local court. The amount of the fee, though extreme for the case, didn’t anger me. I was simply shocked to be in the grip of the machine, the federal court system. In my case the court…was 250 miles away.

Like so many other law abiding citizens I was amazed to find myself helpless against the federal government. I am a defender of law and order, a zealous patriot, yet now I had to appear in a distant court to defend myself against a parking ticket? I am confident and a little too combative at times but in this situation I had no one to fight. The bureaucracy was bigger than I and out of reach. Nothing I could do would cause it alarm or pain. I wanted to fight, but where was the person I could confront? In the end I didn’t have to fight anyone.

I never had to show up in court or pay the fine. After talking with an attorney I called the District Court. The prosecuting attorney listened to my situation and followed up with the officer that issued the parking violation. They asked that my case be dismissed, my brush with the system ended. But the feeling of being powerless in the grip of a cold bureaucracy remains. I was fortunate to be helped by level-headed public servants. But what could a person do against a stonewalling bureaucracy as large as the EPA?

I can’t imagine how the Sacketts feel after being obstructed by the EPA for five years. I noticed that in every article about the Sacketts the names of the EPA bureaucrats who dominated over their lives are left out. Wasn’t it human beings who decided that the Sacketts had lost their property rights? Wasn’t it a thinking person who signed the papers that took away the Sacketts right to their day in court to challenge the compliance order? One of the difficulties of trying to disagree with a bureaucracy is you are fighting an agency and not an individual. You are fighting a faceless system where you must approach their offices with humble questions trying to use their terminology and hoping not to arouse anger. Thus individuals in the EPA can get away with incredible offenses and nobody is to blame.

Who will replace the five years that were stolen from the Sacketts? Will it be the nameless government employees who told them they no longer have basic property rights? How did the Sacketts survive numerous court cases and years of lawyer fees? I don’t have those answers and maybe they are doing fine but the fact is government bureaucracies bully thousands of honest people every year and they are left with no Supreme Court victory, only broken dreams and empty pocketbooks.

Steve Sweet is a resident of Missoula, Mont.