Buncombe County wishes to spend $69,000 to protect 121 acres. Were I wise and intelligent, I would be excited. It is a low price to pay for preserving a mountainside swamp in the middle of nowhere. Besides, it’s the in-thing to build shopping malls and manufacturing plants on mountainside swamps in the middle of nowhere.

Instead, I complain. I like green spaces, but I also like economies. Contrary to popular notions that economies grow with demand, I hold on to ancient mythologies about economies existing from trade, which is spurred by people upgrading resources (including, capital, labor, and, and, oh, yes, something called land) into things for which others are willing to trade. Taking land out of the mix can only hurt the economy government is spending so much to turn around. Is it therefore fair to say, using modern Synergese, government is so large it is cross-purposing its resources?

The county staff reports make no mention of what kind of tax incentives may be involved in the contract. It’s just as well, because I’ve heard too many times that in government, money is not fungible. Just because one guy pays less doesn’t mean somebody else has to contribute more to balance the budget. Government can raise taxes or float bonds instead, right?

I also like freedom of choice, self-determination, and good, old-fashioned property rights. Conservation easements are surrenders of property rights plain and simple.

I realize the bulk of Ashevillians think it is better to steal stuff than to buy it. One does not hear about this in the newspapers, but two vehicles have been stolen off my boss’ landlord’s property this year. My fulltime boss’ wallet was stolen. My wallet was stolen along with a computer that belonged to another boss. Then, in another venue, my keys were stolen. The guy with whom I was talking yesterday about the second vehicle theft told me about a couple recent break-ins on his other jobs. He said the cop with whom he spoke said theft is very much on the rise and blamed – get this – the economy. Regardless, even if you’re doing something as politically-correct as researching a cure for AIDS, you should have no expectation that your test tubes and lab books will be where you left them. That would be greedy and racist.

After all, we are to dismiss all notions of private property and liberty, as they were harbored in the minds of people who held slaves and lived in an era when women were stay-at-home moms. The logic is that any idea generated by a less than perfect thinker must be dismissed. Coming from the same day and age, we have Alexander Cummings, who necessarily was a racist misogynist. He invented a water seal for toilets to prevent backwash of sewer gas.

But we were talking about conservation easements and how green and preachy we are all going to feel when we spend a little government cash on opposing economic activity except for scant benefits for the tourist trade. And likely green tourism is exempt from the stigma of tourist trade because anybody could cherry-pick enough stats to say so. Anyway, in the absence of creating jobs to staff an agency with enforcement officers, spending $69,000 to oppose economic activity is, almost by definition, buying nothing.

Oh, by the way. Those are pretty photos enclosed in the commissioners’ staff report.