
Killdozer - kyleblarson
https://allthatsinteresting.com/marvin-heemeyer-killdozer
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lloyddobbler
Yeah - I moved to Fraser (next town over) a year-ish after Marv’s wild ride.
Always interesting to see this come up.

IIRC, the story was much more complex than this article paints it (& much more
sympathetic to Marv). There were apparently some blatant conflicts of interest
with the zoning committee, which painted a picture of a corrupt town
government. Additionally, due to the changes, his business had virtually no
access, meaning that he lost the livelihood he had worked years to build. IOW,
they really painted him into a corner, and left even his shop’s land/building
value worthless.

By all means, what he did was crazy. But most of us who knew the town wished
both sides had been a little more yielding. Either way, always interesting to
see it come up.

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hilbert42
I don't know for certain whether or not Marvin Heemeyer had a legitimate
complaint that was badly mishandled by the _State_ but from other accounts of
the incident I read at the time it seems he did. Irrespective, clearly
Heemeyer was at the end of his tether with the bureaucratic process and it's
clear that those in authority did little to defuse the situation and or were
completely ineffective trying to doing so.

Whenever citizens have dealings with the _State_ and for whatever reason they
reach an impasse over some matter (as with Heemeyer) then it's nearly always
the case that the _State_ has neither interest in resolving matters amicably
nor does it have any sufficiently satisfactory mechanisms to do so. The fact
is that our governance doesn't possess the necessary mechanics to
satisfactorily manage such matters in ways which would (and should) empower
ordinary citizens and ensure that they always receive a fair go.

Thus, after the _State_ arrives at a questionable decision ordinary citizens
have little comeback or recourse if they want to have genuine grievances
rectified. Moreover, justice is often further denied when _State_ authority
uses unreasonable methods of justifying its decisions that aren't easily
verifiable. Thus, in an attempt to seek justice, hapless citizens are then
left with only two lawful alternatives both of which are unpalatable. Either
take matters to court where the imbalance of power between the _State_ and
citizens usually favors the _State_ , or lobby politicians for a change to the
law, which, in the unlikely event of that being successful, then said changes
will inevitably arrive too late to resolve the initial problem. In our so-
called democracies, ordinary citizens frequently face a Hobson's choice which
they all too often lose through no fault of their own.

Over the years, I too have had similar bad experiences with officialdom,
especially so when dealing with authorities who approved developments that
clearly contained errors or were outside existing building regulations.
Fortunately, mine never escalated to the extent that Heemeyer's did. In each
instance I lost out badly after Council decided to permit developments next to
my property whose size was well in excess of official rules and guidelines (as
already mentioned, there's always some clause or 'out' that authorities often
use to bypass official planning rules, this is what happened in my cases).

When one looks deeper into many such cases one often finds that even if they
are not technically corrupt on paper they're nevertheless morally so. Petty
bureaucrats often find it much easier to deal with powerful developers if
they're on their side. As well, agreeing with developers is considerably less
stressful for them. Clearly, one doesn't have to be Einstein to figure out why
encounters between a powerful developer and an essentially-powerless and
technically handicapped John Dow/Joe Bloggs citizen often ends up so badly for
the latter.

Furthermore, it's highly likely that the developer's architects frequent the
same clubs and pubs as council's—'birds of a feather'/'old boy's network' so
to speak (whereas the complainant likely doesn't even have an architect). Thus
the hapless citizen hasn't a snowball's chance of proving wrongdoing either as
there's no incriminating paper trail to be found no matter how deep an
investigation might be! In my case, [different] architects both separately own
the properties on either side of my home and they actually live in them. In
reality this makes them developers with a determined motive to drive home
their plans through Council and its planing process. You guessed it, 'stupid',
non-architect, techie I never stood a chance against the combined forces.

Tragically, our democracies and democratic processes are riddled throughout
with these seemingly small inequities and we citizens are effectively
powerless to change or rectify them for the better. That's not to say change
doesn't happen. These days, often change occurs after many aggrieved and like-
minded citizens have come together as a collective to protest over a single
issue. More often than not members of these groups personally identify
themselves with the issue. We're familiar with the term _identity politics_
and we know how influential and successful those who 'fit' under its umbrella
have been in achieving change for their own ends.

Whilst identity politics movements have genuinely achieved much better levels
of social equity for those involved, the very success of these movements has
unfortunately also seen them give rise to other problems of a tertiary nature,
which, overall, has been quite detrimental for democracy. Citizens whose
opinions are contrary to ideas espoused by those within identity politics
movements often feel alienated and or believe they weren't given a fair
hearing during the public discourse on said matters, and or they rightly or
wrongly think, that recent changes in societal values were unfairly railroaded
through to their detriment.

Of course, what I've said above is an over simplification of a very complex
problem, also I've not herein included other relevant factors (such as those
dealing with the intrinsic nature of democracy _per se_ , or the applicability
and or granularity of laws in liberal democracies, etc.), this is simply
because of the limitations and nature of these posts, so please try to not
misinterpret what I've said.

One of the key points that I wish to make is that across my lifetime Western
democracies have never been at a lower ebb than they are now, citizens now
have precious little respect for governments, or for long-established and once
respected institutions and respect for politicians is at an all-time low; and
citizens have never been so polarized about key social and economic issues as
they are today.

Whilst identity politics has helped many to achieve a sense of self-respect
and worth, it's done essentially nothing to bring a necessary sense of
cohesion, unity and purpose across all of society, nor has it done anything to
counter or reduce the increasingly polarized views shared by many citizens. In
fact, I (and many others) would argue that the fractures running through our
society are now larger and deeper than they've been for a century or more.
Essentially, the divide is so great that democracy in some countries has just
about become unworkable.

It seems to me there are ways that we can fix and repair our ailing
democracies (but there's no way I'd attempt to describe that mammoth task
here). Suffice to say, the covenant that binds the citizenry and _State_ is
severely broken to the extent that we should re-examine it in every minute
detail from its very core to its outer limits with the view of altering it for
the better. In doing so, fairness, dignity and equity are key axioms, and
first we must make sure that citizens (and the collective citizenry) are the
most important entities in our democracies. Moreover, those principles should
be inviolate to the extent that they must be fully enshrined in our
constitutions and in law. Unlike the current situation where government
bureaucracies not only consider themselves above the citizenry but also above
the law. [How many instances of governments and bureaucracies breaking law
would you like me to cite?]

Similarly, the truly outrageous situation that exists today where an inanimate
entity that's defined as a corporation is treated equally in law to that of a
citizen. Given precedent and power, corporations already wield much more power
than do ordinary citizens. This 'obscene' situation is proof positive that in
a democracy some citizens are more equal than others—own a powerful
corporation and you can effectively run government, if not much of the world.
(Think Google, Microsoft and Facebook.)

Right, the task of democratic reform is truly daunting and those who now
control or benefit from the 'fucked' status quo are by far citizens' greatest
enemies.

It's only when democracy has been renewed and restored with humans and their
moral values put at its center that we should seriously look at tackling
tragic social problems such as those that Marvin Heemeyer found himself
experiencing (for whilst the corruption he experienced continued no reasonable
solution was possible, thus fixing it first was a necessary _a priori_
requirement. Even then, I'd suggest that such cases would be few and far
between as the conditions that led to problems that Heemeyer experienced would
be unlikely to exist in a 'reordered' democracy. Thus, Heemeyer's rampage was
the last act of a person driven to despair after confronting entrenched
bureaucracy and corruption on multiple occasions only to find that in the end
there was nothing else he could do.

It's little wonder occasionally that people such as Heemeyer are driven mad
and run amok.

