Why Do You Need So Much Firewood?

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"That's not wood, that's propane I don't have to buy."
That simple statement is why my neighbor is now burning wood, and I've lost 6 cord out of my stacks supplying other neighbors this winter.
They're on their own next year, but comments on my stacks have disappeared.
 
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply, fabsroman. The Chevy Chase tree protection regulations are quite something. I'm still trying to parse the idea of fines and prison terms that are potentially larger than the maximum penalties allowed by state law. I am not an attorney, but I wouldn't have thought it allowable for a municipality to enforce penalties expressly disallowed by the state.

I've only spent a few days of my life in the DC area, and have no direct knowledge of Chevy Chase's political history or climate. Given how onerous these tree protection measures seem to be, I'm curious how they came to exist. I'm inclined to guess that many of the burdensome granular rules might have been drafted incrementally to address violations of the spirit of earlier, simpler versions of the law... but that's only a guess.

Having lived in some extremely hippy-dippy "liberal" communities, I can say with certainty that liberalism does not correlate very well with nosey, control-freakish legislation. In my experience, liberalism is aligned much more closely with generalized kindness and willingness to live and let live, to keep one's nose out of one's neighbor's business as much as possible -- basically the reverse of the dynamic you're describing. But of course my experience is no more absolute and universal than yours is.

My mental model of these sorts of conflicts cleaves along different lines. I think frictions like these become much more likely wherever lots of people live close together, where the shade from a tree on my side of a property line might fall on your house, and where when you have a conversation on your porch and I can hear what you're saying from inside my living room, even with all the all the doors and windows shut. I think these frictions are exacerbated and the impulse to regulate is increased by the presence of wealth, because wherever people have a lot of their wealth tied up in their homes, they will be especially worried about how one homeowner's actions affect surrounding property values. And I think that the regulations get uglier and more problematic as wealth disparities among people living close together get larger, because the wealthy always have more influence and tend to gain at the expense of others. I think this sort of ugliness works pretty much the same way in "conservative" enclaves like Orange County, CA as it does in "liberal" areas like Chevy Chase.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to reply. I think I see where you're coming from.
 
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, fabsroman. The Chevy Chase tree protection regulations are quite something. I'm still trying to parse the idea of fines and prison terms that are potentially larger than the maximum penalties allowed by state law. I am not an attorney, but I wouldn't have thought it allowable for a municipality to enforce penalties expressly disallowed by the state.

I've only spent a few days of my life in the DC area, and have no direct knowledge of Chevy Chase's political history or climate. Given how onerous these tree protection measures seem to be, I'm curious how they came to exist. I'm inclined to guess that many of the burdensome granular rules might have been drafted incrementally to address violations of the spirit of earlier, simpler versions of the law... but that's only a guess.

Having lived in some extremely hippy-dippy "liberal" communities, I can say with certainty that liberalism does not correlate very well with nosey, control-freakish legislation. In my experience, liberalism is aligned much more closely with generalized kindness and willingness to live and let live, to keep one's nose out of one's neighbor's business as much as possible -- basically the reverse of the dynamic you're describing. But of course my experience is no more absolute and universal than yours is.

My mental model of these sorts of conflicts cleaves along different lines. I think frictions like these become much more likely wherever lots of people live close together, where the shade from a tree on my side of a property line might fall on your house, and where when you have a conversation on your porch and I can hear what you're saying from inside my living room, even with all the all the doors and windows shut. I think these frictions are exacerbated and the impulse to regulate is increased by the presence of wealth, because wherever people have a lot of their wealth tied up in their homes, they will be especially worried about how one homeowner's actions affect surrounding property values. And I think that the regulations get uglier and more problematic as wealth disparities among people living close together get larger, because the wealthy always have more influence and tend to gain at the expense of others. I think this sort of ugliness works pretty much the same way in "conservative" enclaves like Orange County, CA as it does in "liberal" areas like Chevy Chase.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to reply. I think I see where you're coming from.

Yeah, my experience in this area is that the more densely populated areas are extremely blue.

Take a look at the voting results on this website from the 2012 general election. The majority of the population is in Montgomery County, Prince George's County, and Baltimore City and essentially the way these 3 counties go the state goes. The state constitution is set up such that both the state senate and state house are based upon population, unlike the US Congress. The rural counties get screwed based upon what the big 3 want. Actually, the areas of Howard County and Anne Arundel county caught between DC and Baltimore City are also rather liberal.

I know plenty of conservatives that are extremely giving and charitable. I know this for a fact because I get to see their cash contributions on their tax returns and regularly discuss politics with them. Where our disconnect is, is that I think liberals are for more taxes, bigger government, and many more regulations a la Chevy Chase. And yes, Chevy Chase is a bunch of rich people, as is most of Montgomery County. Montgomery County used to be ranked the second richest county in the nation for decades. Now, it is #12 and the county I moved to is #3. #1 and #2 are two Virginia Counties that border Washington, DC, and they too are rather liberal. Montgomery County is deteriorating in the wealth column because the housing is getting older and the less wealthy are moving into the east side of the county. The wealthy are moving where the new construction is on the west side.

I will agree with you though that most of the issues with nosey neighbors has to do with them being right on top of one another. Thing is, I grew up in a conservative household in Montgomery County where we never worried about what the neighbors were doing, only what we were doing. To take your example to an extreme, if we all lived on 2,000 acre ranches, we wouldn't even have a clue what the neighbor is doing, much less would we care unless their "controlled" burn got out of control.

Forgot the link to the election results.

http://www.elections.state.md.us/elections/2012/results/general/index.html
 
Having lived in some extremely hippy-dippy "liberal" communities, I can say with certainty that liberalism does not correlate very well with nosey, control-freakish legislation. In my experience, liberalism is aligned much more closely with generalized kindness and willingness to live and let live, to keep one's nose out of one's neighbor's business as much as possible -- basically the reverse of the dynamic you're describing. But of course my experience is no more absolute and universal than yours is.

It is my opinion that this is just lip service and is certainly not a view that they hold when they vote. I have spent most of my life in the bible belt which is far more conservative than the north east US. God have mercy on any politician down here that wants to take our guns away or tell us how big of a surgery drink we can have. In SC there are no helmet laws, no tags required for trailers, no inspection stickers for autos and on and on it goes. We believe in smaller government and lower taxes. BTW, giving a mother the right to kill her child because it is an inconvenience is not live and let live.
 
OK, wanna talk about wood, the Wood Shed's the place to do it. Wanna somehow politicize talking about wood, the Ash Can's the place for that. Over and out. Rick
 
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