A well thought out analysis by John Michener : Right to Farm or Harm? Part 2. Last week’s analysis of State Question 777, the proposed “Right to Farm” amendment to the state constitution, elicited a lot of feedback. Almost everyone agreed with our concerns. Particularly, two conservative attorneys whom we trust agreed that SQ 777 was dangerous. However, one conservative attorney who is also a legislator disagreed and voiced his support for SQ 777. His argument deserves thoughtful considera

A well thought out analysis by John Michener : Right to Farm or Harm? Part 2. Last week's analysis of State Question 777, the proposed "Right to Farm" amendment to the state constitution, elicited a lot of feedback. Almost everyone agreed with our concerns. Particularly, two conservative attorneys whom we trust agreed that SQ 777 was dangerous. However, one conservative attorney who is also a legislator disagreed and voiced his support for SQ 777. His argument deserves thoughtful consideration, but before we do that, let us review the basics. First, the right to farm is already the status quo by natural law. The purpose of the state is to protect property rights, not violate them. By default, you are free to farm any way that does not harm your neighbor or his property. If your farming methods do harm your neighbor, then the state has a duty to pass laws which codify the penalty for your unjust actions. If, however, the state codifies regulations which penalize you or harm your farm when you have caused no harm, then the state is violating your natural rights. These types of regulations must be fought and overturned. Similarly, you have a natural right to free speech and practice of religion. No law needs to be enacted to give you those rights. By default, you may speak and preach any way that does not harm your neighbor or his property. This is why many anti-federalist Founders argued against the passage of a Bill of Rights. By default, Congress already had no authority to legislate against unalienable rights from God. Nevertheless, look what happened. No sooner had the states amended the U.S. Constitution to explicitly state "Congress shall make no law," than Congress began making laws to regulate free speech. The same thing can be expected to happen to our property rights. As soon as we say "The Legislature shall pass no law," our Legislature will begin testing the limits of the limit. Even if SQ 777 were a straightforward prohibition, like the Amendments in the Bill of Rights, we would be concerned, but SQ 777 is not a straightforward prohibition—it is political double speak, and double speak as been elevated to an art form in our day. Let us explain. In mathematics we know that multiplying two negatives produces a positive. This is an undisputable fact. Did you know that grammar works the same way? Perhaps you have heard of the "double negative?" In grammar, as in mathematics, two negatives make a positive. Politicians like double negatives because they can fool an audience into believing they are hearing about prohibitions. We want to prohibit the state from trampling our rights, so when we hear the negatives in SQ 777, we tend to think it is a prohibition of state power, but we should not be fooled by the political double negative. Two negatives make a positive. Let us make this eminently clear. SQ 777 has a lot of highfalutin language and window dressing phrases which make it sound historic and wonderful, but here is the heart of the measure stripped down to its effective sentence: "The Legislature shall pass no law which abridges the right [to farm] without a compelling state interest." This is a double negative (no and without). Let us remove the two negatives so that you can read the measure as a positive: The Legislature shall pass law which abridges the right [to farm] with a compelling state interest. Are you scared yet? We are. Now, our good attorney friend in the Legislature says not to worry; we have added a new speed bump for the Legislature with the "compelling state interest." He explains that legislators currently have the ability to pass farming regulations based on nothing more than their fancy, justified by nothing more than their own reason. He argues that a requirement to meet a "compelling state interest" will put an additional check on the Legislature and make it harder for them to interfere with farming. Sounds sound. But wait. Here is problem number one. Who is going to decide what constitutes a "compelling state interest?" The answer is the courts. We have added a speed bump, but it is on a road over in a different branch of state government. That branch of government is notoriously liberal. What happens when the Oklahoma Supreme Court interprets "compelling state interest" in a progressive way that allows the Legislature to pass all kinds of onerous regulations? By amending the state constitution and allowing the court to define the terms, we are now stuck with a high level of codified tyranny that is hard to correct. It is not easy to amend a state constitution. Problem number two is related to problem number one. Remember, SQ 777 also says that any regulations existing prior to 2015 shall not be affected by the amendment. This provision could be interpreted by the Oklahoma Supreme Court to mean that existing regulations are constitutionally protected. In this case we will have lost our ability to remove unjust laws enacted before 2015. This brings us to problem number three: accountability. If the Legislature violates our property rights through law, we can unseat the responsible parties and change the law. However, when judges violate our rights, they never get unseated. Without competitive elections in the judiciary, the people have little to no oversight. We will be stuck with their secular humanist interpretations for generations since the Legislature, the Governor, and the people have been conditioned to bow down in worship to judges. Any so-called speedbump in the judiciary might become a high-speed autobahn to tyranny. In conclusion, will SQ 777 defend us against future unjust laws of the Legislature? Because it is a double negative, the answer is no; it will not protect us. Furthermore, it may strengthen the position of existing unjust laws by adding a kind of affirmation in the state constitution. Finally, by shifting responsibility from the Legislature to the judiciary, we remove accountability. Our best defense against an unjust Legislature is the ability to unseat legislators and change the law. If we were to amend our state constitution as SQ 777 proposes, it would allow the judiciary to ensconce the mechanism for systematic tyranny over farmers. Thus, even after careful consideration of the arguments in favor of State Question 777, it still looks more like a "Right to Harm." Vote NO.

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