Sunday, January 31, 2010

Tragedy of the Commons averted

With the ice storm itself past, the time for clean up began. The weight of the ice and snow was simply too much for many trees, resulting in fallen limbs, trunks broken, and many of the younger pines bent double.

Even though property taxes are always on the rise, and despite the promises of the county, the roads are never kept up. So this unowned land, the road itself, normally suffers from the tragedy of the commons: no one takes care of it.

In some ways I don't blame the folks who live on the road, because after all they had their own property stolen supposedly for the upkeep of the roads. But even so, I cannot help but take the opportunity to show how liberty, and thus responsibility, works.

So I took it upon myself to travel the road the entire way to the blacktop clearing trees and limbs along the way. I did not need to head to town myself, or even go out to the black top really, but I wanted the road clear in case I needed to go at some point. So rather than wait on "services" that will never come, I chose to set an example. Hopefully we can start a trend now with all of the neigbors pitching in to maintain the road ourselves if for no other reason than we use it and would all like a road in better condition than the one we currently deal with.

Liberty can work if we give it half a chance..

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