Brian Thomas recently sent me a modest invitation. You might not know how significant it is. I will explain. Here’s what it said:
This coming Monday, August 13, 2007, is the May Valley Environmental Council (MVEC) potluck. Rod and Laurel McFarland are planning on attending. The May Valley Environmental Council is having an impromptu thank you for their friendship and help over the years and is extending an invitation to any and all who would like to attend the potluck and say a few words to the McFarlands before they leave for New Mexico. . .
I would file that invitation in the importance category with a last-minute call to a Statewide Nominating Convention.
For the last few months, practicing property rights activists in Washington State have been going through some classic stages of what Elisabeth Kübler-Ross originally called the “Five Stages of Receiving Catastrophic News.” The catastrophic news in this case is that Rod and Laurel McFarland are selling their home and rural property to move to New Mexico (not that Yakima isn’t already a “new Mexico” of a sort).
The Kübler-Ross paradigm lists the first “four stages” of response as Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression. Of course the only sane response available to those of us who must deal with real news in the real world is the fifth stage: Acceptance. I, personally, have been able to restrict my own reaction, so far, (to the McFarland news) to denial and bargaining, imagining that some force will intervene to prevent the McFarland move. But, you know, no force intervened to prevent the Bush nomination in 1988, and now that Rod has actually stepped down after four years as the leader of the Citizen’s Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR), I have had to admit I’ve been, pretty much, in “denial” of the inevitable and “bargaining” in my mind that it would not happen for a long time.
How important have Rod and Laurel been?
In my 2005 series on the Property Rights struggle, Property Rights Under Attack: The Dirty Background (Part I), Property Rights Under Attack: Taking Over County Council (Part II), and Reagan Dunn, Steve Hammond, William Wallace and You (Part III) I said this about Rod and CAPR:
I went to the highlands of the County and found that growing band of freedom fighters. They are, of course, outnumbered and surrounded by heartless green invaders, but the Citizen’s Alliance for Property Rights is fearless and multiplying. While the rest of us go about our comfortable suburban lives, CAPR, is fighting for the property rights that we ALL are losing to the Growth Management Act. Their leader, appropriately enough, is a bearded Braveheart Scotsman named Rodney McFarland. Rod is at the center of a free-speaking, constantly swarming, unbelievably active grassroots movement that you can actually see unfolding before you because the board meetings are wide ranging, wide open to participation and happen every month.A more unassuming or unlikely William Wallace you will never find. At the center of everything, McFarland speaks softly and carefully, and is more than patient with the inevitable foolishness and naiveté that crop up in all true grassroots ventures. But, everything significant happening in King County property rights goes through CAPR. Rodney was happy to talk to me.”
And, later in the article:
Since the inception of the government land theft titled the “Critical Areas Ordinance” CAPR has done literally everything conceivable to fight it. They founded a legal Political Action Committee and have ceaselessly raised funds, opposed confiscatory legislation both with research, direct communication with the County and by all the development and operations work surrounding referenda to repeal the bad legislation. They have dealt with the press, promoted property rights legislation, established a single coordinated voice dedicated to property rights, and done extensive work to elect legislators and judges pledged to protect, not destroy, constitutional and property rights. They have fought the CAO like tigers on all fronts.What’s more, CAPR is an absolute model of how grassroots work on issues of basic American freedom can win the hearts and votes of people across the traditional spectrum of political labeling. The Seattle P-I (11/16/2004) noted that the movement now includes “… Microsoft workers, retired architects, formerly apolitical grandmothers, teachers, Democrats and people who give money to the Sierra Club.” This is how Ronald Reagan did it, by actually standing for something.”
But at the time of the article I missed mentioning the contribution of Rod’s wife, Laurel. She has been, from the beginning, an indivisible part of the success Rod has brought to CAPR, quietly doing the work behind the scenes, working the computer, keeping in touch with members, etc. that has held the whole thing together, all while avoiding the spotlight. It is at least partly because these two have never sought recognition for their voluntary, tireless and frequently brilliant work that we have a debt to recognize them now.
Operationally, the departure of Rod and Laurel from the Washington Property Rights Movement will be much like the retirement of Ronald Reagan from the Republican Party.
If you live in Washington and believe in Freedom please try to come to the potluck noted at the beginning of this article, if you can.
The potluck is in the basement of the May Valley Alliance Church, 16431 Renton-Issaquah Road, it starts at 6:00 PM and friends and neighbors are asked to bring several servings of something good.
