[zug_zug]

It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.

[josephg]

I saw a clip the other day of an American comedian doing crowd work in Paris. He asked the audience what America should do, and the French said - something like - they should punch the police more and light things on fire.

To me that sounds crazy! But, I can see how it works for the French. They protest all the time, and the government is very responsive to the needs of the people. Much more so than the American government sees to be.

[smoe]

I don't know how effective the French protests are, since I haven't lived in Europe for a while. But even as a Swiss, at least judging from TV, protests in the U.S. generally seem very tame.

Not advocating punching the police as a default, but in my opinion, protests need to be disruptive if they're going to get anyone's attention at all. I don't really see what a few people standing on the sidewalk with cardboard signs are supposed to accomplish.

[ramgine]

American police are much more inclined to escalate any violence instead of trying to de-escalate.

[pesus]

And if there isn't violence, the police tend to escalate things and make it violent. I suspect this works to prevent/neuter any serious protests so long as the potential protestors still have something to lose, and in America there is very little in the way of a safety net, so living conditions would have to (continue to?) deteriorate quite a bit before protests started heading in a French direction.

[mc32]

I don't know if you know, but quite a few European countries are known to send police or "state" confederates into protests to give authorities an excuse to Escalate. You also see lots more water cannons being used over there.

In Paris the burning and destruction typically happens in the outer "boroughs" of the city -usually by disaffected groups -sometimes they happen to be disenfranchised- though typically they harm the older generation's property and that generation typically frowns upon the destruction.

Of course, in the US, we've had organizations who on paper are for justice and redress being found to foment agitation. It's a total corruption of their mandate. We had an "anti-hate" group paying hate groups to "do things"[1].

[1]https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/119311/witnesses/...

[IX-103]

So your "evidence" is the transcript of an interview that references an indictment containing information that hasn't been publicly substantiated.

[mikrotikker]

If the things stop happening then the non profit will have to shut down destroying jobs

[segmondy]

Only because the people don't fight back. If they know that folks would fight back, they would behave themselves in the most polite and proper ways you won't believe.

[yongjik]

Is this supposed to be sarcasm? As far as I know, America is the only nominally democratic country where cops routinely shoot people, and their number one excuse is that they thought they could be shot.

Nothing makes cops more trigger-itchy than the thought that a random stranger could "fight back" any moment.

[mothballed]

It's rarely acknowledged but a big reason why ATF and FBI toned things down after Waco is because McVeigh (he was there watching) directly retaliated causing nearly 1000 casualties of government employees. At that point they went to the current plan of just divide and conquer a single person at a time via surveillance of the targeted group after things quiet down rather than try to take on groups head on.

[frogperson]

Yep, you can see it in the way ICE operates. 10 agents jump out of several cars, they grab one helpless person and they all drive away. Like a pack of hyenas picking off a young calf.

[sarchertech]

I’m sure that fear of retaliation had some impact, but I’d say it pales in comparison to their fear of the optics of another Waco. Post Waco, favorable opinion of the FBI dropped from 70% to below 40%.

[jimbob45]

Haha have you never watched COPS? I’ve seen tamer UFC fights than some COPS episodes.

[andriy_koval]

> American police are much more inclined to escalate any violence instead of trying to de-escalate.

American police inclined to do nothing, because it is locally hired and not paid/controlled by government.

[Tostino]

Are you just being intentionally ignorant here? What are you even trying to convey?

[trinsic2]

I agree. people should be shutting down all commerce, but people are so overworked or living from paycheck to pay check its probably hard to do the kind of protesting that needs to happen. Seems like UK is bad.

[mothballed]

In the US if you're with a group of people and there is some leader or group planning unlawful property destruction or violence, there is a very very good chance it is a fed or confidential informant operation and you are the mark/patsy to which all the blame will be assigned when you're staring at a sheet of paper that says US v [your name].

[eudamoniac]

Not really a "very very good chance", but the few instances of this happening have accomplished the intended effect of making everyone terrified of the possibility and thus never doing it.

[soco]

Are you trying to say the US are snitches? Or in any case, more snitches than the Europeans? More snitches than the ex-communists from the Eastern Europe?

[ipaddr]

Not snitches but paid government workers trying to get you to commit crimes and then you get arrested.

[morkalork]

Americans don't even protest on weekdays, they wait for a weekend to do it. So it is easy to say that they aren't serious but on the other hand, they're a lot closer to the knife's edge of stability and missing a day of work can get them fired (especially in at-will employment states), Europe is not like this as much.

[johannes1234321]

And if they lose the job they lose their insurance, thus their medication.

This increases stakes to protest quite a lot, compared to European worker protection and social security.

[kelvinjps10]

But in latin America and poor countries don't have these benefits and still people protest way worse

[morkalork]

Yes, they've wound up having their whole lives very effectively taken hostage. Also criminals lose the right to vote don't they? Seems like the perfect incentive to criminalize any political movements that are contrary to the ruling class.

[stavros]

Well maybe you can get some worker protection and social security by protest... oh, wait.

[SauntSolaire]

That's somewhat understandable, what I find more interesting is that people around me won't show up unless it's between 70-80 degrees out.

[vasco]

Do you think perhaps the two are related

[keybored]

Oof, could never be the case.

Guys, I feel like we should get another anti-union thread here soon. It’s getting a little too hot for comfort. I’ll start. Whew While I do like unions in theory, I was really peeved when I was getting my start in the working forces as a banana picker and this guy Bob took midday naps...

[oytis]

There are people with cardboard signs, and there are BLM protests or occupy Wall Street. Can't remember when the last disruptive protests were in Switzerland, but in Germany I'd say tame protests are the norm and disruptions are an exception

[vkou]

99% of BLM protests were just people with cardboard signs. There's always the occasional anonymous asshole who might throw a rock at a window and run off, but that's the nature of any gathering of 100,000+ people. There will always be a turd.

In the other 1%, the police decided on a policy of always picking a fight with crowd, every fucking day, until they ran out of gas.

[uxp100]

There was a lot of arson at BLM protests, and plenty of people beaten in the street, some of whom were in no way asking for it. The majority of the violence probably was the cops though.

[BryanBigs]

Watch any random sampling of body cam footage and you won't think the majority of violence was the cops. I'm amazed at the restraint honestly.

Now when I was a kid...getting thrown into a paddywagon while hammered after mouthing off to a cop was a right of passage.

[whack]

> the French said - something like - they should punch the police more and light things on fire.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this as well. Do these people want "punching the police and lighting things on fire" to be a freely permitted form of free speech?

If so, should anyone be legally allowed to destroy any amount of stuff, for any reason they feel unhappy about? Or is this a case of "blowing stuff up should only be permitted for causes I like, not for causes I dislike"?

If not, do they see the irony in endorsing behaviors that they simultaneously believe should not be legalized?

[mfcl]

No, it should be illegal, otherwise everything would get destroyed whenever someone is slightly destroyed. Illegality serves as a kind of filter so that when enough people risk jail or death for a cause, that's because they really had enough.

I haven't given that a lot of thought, and it feels weird to say, but maybe the opinion that an act should be done and should be illegal can be true at the same time.

When a citizen commits a crime, they messed up. When ten commit a crime, they messed up. When half the village destroys the chief's home, the chief messed up.

[anigbrowl]

I think you've misunderstood. Such things are also illegal in France. But there are times you need to be prepared to break the law to bring about political change, eg if a government repeatedly demonstrates indifference to public concern.

Suppose you are living under very corrupt or autocratic governance, and you protest in the conventional way (marching, waving signs and banners and so on) bu the government simply ignores it, or slanders the protestors for having a different opinion. What do you do then?

[xeonmc]

Maybe in their eyes those are the less-violent alternatives than their other options.

[RobotToaster]

> god forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion - Thomas Jefferson

[Waterluvian]

I think it’s important that the ultra powerful never feel they’re unreachable by guillotine.

[al_borland]

France is a much smaller country. When there is a mass protest in the US, it ends of being a bunch of smaller protests all over the country, which lacks the power of a single concentrated protest. These various satellite protests just end up being a minor nuisance, which don’t amount to much.

The media in the US often ignores the protests they (or their owners) don’t agree with. This also weakens them significantly. I remember having to go to Twitter to see what was going on with a lot of the Occupy Wall Street stuff, because the news was acting like it wasn’t going on. Without attention, and fractured across the country, it faded out. The protest area where I was living at the time slowly shifted into a homeless encampment, before they eventually cleared them out.

[marcus_holmes]

Democracy needs real journalism to function. Having all the rich people own all the journalists isn't going to end well. We need to find a working business model for journalism that doesn't rely on rich folks.

[al_borland]

I think news outlets need to be run as a non-profit to remove the types of people with aspirations of wealth, instead of aspirations to report and inform the public, from the sector.

[marcus_holmes]

Usually rich folks buy newsrooms not to make a profit, but to control the narrative.

No journalist joins a newsroom to become rich. Famous, maybe, but not rich.

The business model used to be advertising, but the internet destroyed that model. And we don't have a replacement, while democracy doesn't work without someone holding the politicians to account.

[nicbou]

Is the French government more responsive than those of neighbouring countries?

[boricj]

Probably because we have a well established history of regularly changing regimes. Since we overthrew royalty in 1789 we've had five republics, two empires, three monarchies and a bunch of short-lived totalitarian regimes, coups and other major political events.

If anything, the longevity of the Fifth Republic is starting to become unusual (only the Third Republic and the Ancien Régime have lasted longer). Maybe we're overdue to flip the table again as per tradition.

[Lerc]

How well did they turn out for people each time?

[soco]

Health insurance, unions, paid vacation... al in all I'd say not that bad.

[sarchertech]

Plenty of other countries have those things as well. And plenty of countries that have even more frequent political upheaval don’t have those things.

I don’t know that regular political violence is positively correlated with worker protections.

[Lerc]

also

>two empires, three monarchies and a bunch of short-lived totalitarian regimes, coups and other major political events.

Do you think you'd still have the Health insurance, unions, and paid vacation after another roll of the dice

[nicbou]

I don’t think that addresses my question.

[breezybottom]

Those two things are contradictory. Obviously the government isn't very responsive if they are constantly protesting.

[dgellow]

It’s not contradictory, protesting doesn’t make sense as a one time thing, you have to continuously put pressure and show you have power as a group

[breezybottom]

Only if you have a government that isn't responsive or accountable to you.

[squidsoup]

It is much more than that, egalitarianism is fundamental to French culture.

[frogperson]

That's alot less risky in France where the police have more than an 8th grade education, no guns, and aren't jacked up on right-wing hate propaganda 24/7. You punch a cop in the US and there's more than a 50% chance, that a given cop has been dreaming of "protecting himself" by any means necessary. In other words, you are going to get shot in the chest.

[killbot5000]

Or a shot in the back.

[ranger_danger]

That only works for the French because they're afraid to disappear their own citizens. US has been doing it for the last year and a half.

[themaninthedark]

>US has been doing it for the last year and a half.

Individual jurisdictions have been doing that for much longer than a year and half.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...

[tremon]

You are basically admitting that the US is already past the point of no return on the road to full-blown oppression: too many government workers not accountable to the people.

[andrepd]

I know that "French strikes" and "French setting fire to things" is a popular American trope, but things really don't work like that. If that were the case France would be a much better place than other European countries, and it really is not.

[josephg]

> "French setting fire to things" is a popular American trope, but things really don't work like that.

They worked like that when I was in Paris ~3 years ago! At the time, people were rioting over the retirement age changes. I walked around the city the day after the protests. The city smelled like burned plastic. There were burned out rubbish bins and the husks of melted lime bikes & scooters all over the place.

I've never seen anything like it.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Only if you believe that always caving in to a violent mob burning random (private citizen-owned, non-government) cars in Paris leads to better outcomes for the country.

[LiquidSky]

I feel like in the US if you punched a cop the cop and his colleagues are much more likely to just shoot you, or at least unleash brutal violence on you and the rest of the crowd. I guess the idea is to provoke these kind of battles in hopes that the cops can be overwhelmed or at least public opinion goes to your side?

[beloch]

In Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, he reviewed Roman records and compared provinces with heavily fortified seats of power to ones that weren't as fortified. The ones that were more fortified tended to be governed in a way that was more callous, less efficient, and less popular. He concluded that it was good for governors to have a reasonable fear of those they governed.

The U.S.'s institutions of power are heavily fortified. Political leaders of most countries travel about with a security detail of a few cars at most. The U.S. president has a gargantuan motorcade that's only rivaled in size by those of third world dictators. Arguably, the U.S. president doesn't hold power so much as wield it in the interest of oligarchs, who are even more insulated from the public.

If Americans want better government, what they really need to do is make oligarchs and politicians feel like they might actually be made to feel the consequences of their actions. That doesn't necessarily have to mean violence though, if people are creative enough.

e.g. Elon Musk wants so much to control what the world thinks of him that he bought Twitter and had Grokipedia made in an attempt to kill Wikipedia, since they have honestly reported on his misadventures with the same standards of rigor applied to other public figures. If you want to make Elon Musk feel consequences, just never let up on him. The dude made Nazi salutes during Trump's inauguration twice. His DOGE idiocy is why Texas livestock is being banned in other countries because of screwworms. Keep talking about that and don't stop.

[BurningFrog]

By what measure does it work for the French?

They have 8% unemployment, 30% less GDP per capita than the US, and many other problems.

Government by caving in to riots is not in general being responsive to the needs of the people.

[bumby]

Well gee, to start France has higher healthcare quality/access, higher life expectancy, much lower treatable mortality, better work-life balance (less hours worked, more guaranteed leave), lower wealth inequality, higher voter turnout (indicative of less apathy or less efforts to disenfranchise), among others.

One of the problems with just using economic metrics is it seems to confuse the fact that the economy is supposed to serve society, not the other way around. So it leads one to wonder: with those better economic measures, what is it buying for US citizens?

[dghlsakjg]

Many Americans have a strong bias for measuring everything in money. If you've lived there, it can be shocking how pervasive the thinking is in EVERY decision.

[bumby]

To quote de Tocqueville:

“I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men…”

[WarmWash]

All these things become meaningless when you cross the ~50th income percentile.

Besides work/life balance, the US gets much better as you earn more, and frankly high earners are generally less concerned with time off work too. Also why the US enjoyed ~30 years of European brain drain, those benefits are much less enticing when you are the one paying more and getting less.

[bumby]

Median US income is $45k. Almost 18% of US household income goes to healthcare costs. So you’re saying healthcare access/quality, time off, and mortality are moot once you make $23/hr? Color me skeptical.

[WarmWash]

I mean, you're on the cusp there but $23/hr is around where "full benefits" jobs become the norm.

Also keep in mind that French pay a lot for healthcare too, except it's called taxes. That $23/hr in France would be taxed at 30% compared to 12% in the US.

This only gets more dramatic as you climb the income scale, which inevitably means (in France) you are paying way more taxes (41% at $100k) while using those social services the least.

Compare to the US where you are paying 22% on $100k and likely getting high tier health insurance for ~$200/mo from such a job.

The takeaway is that America sucks if you are poor, but gets much better if you can make it out of the bottom half, and way better if you can get to the top 25%.

P.S. there is a reason the media only talks about the bottom 50% and the top 1%. Talking about the 50-99% would reveal where the real money in the country is (and offend/call out half the country too).

[rapsacnz]

Also France scores hugely better on the international cheese index

[DennisP]

The solution here might be the appeals court, since there is a deed restriction. The city agreed to it when they paid $10 for the land. The article mentions that Texas courts tend to be pretty serious about enforcing deed restrictions.

[no-name-here]

> there is a deed restriction

Was there ever a deed restriction? The government says no, but they say there was something else which I don’t understand.

> In the notes about the grantee, the cash warranty deed states that the property was to be held in trust for future use as parkland by Williamson County, Texas. This was not a deed restriction.

The rest of the page doesn’t display properly on iOS. https://taylortx.gov/1293/Blueprint-Projects-Data-Center

[bumby]

That property was transferred multiple times after the farmer gave it away. I can’t tell if that save deed restriction followed those sales

[teeray]

Encumbrances and easements tend to follow the land even if they aren’t explicitly mentioned in the deed in question from the most recent transaction. They must be explicitly struck. Source: land attorney when asked this question about a deed restriction from a past deed. It was about NH real estate law, but I was told this was a general principle. It’s part of the reason title searches are done. The effective deed is a fold over the sequence of deeds.

[toast0]

I went through the deeds the other night. The first transfer from Bland to Texas Parks and Rec Foundation had a restriction to be held in trust for a city park (or for parkland or something). The transfer from tp&r to williamson county park foundation only said to be held in trust. The transfer from the park foundation to the city didn't mention it.

I don't know enough about texas real estate law to know if the restriction would tend to follow or not. I also don't know if the city would have done title research to have seen the restriction, so they may not have knowingly violated it (which may or may not matter; and maybe they should have known).

Also, fwiw, the 'one month later' sale reported in the article was more like a few months later, in case you date restrict deed searches.

[wahern]

AFAIU, the people suing have no privity; they're just a neighbor and don't have any right to enforce the covenant. (If the covenant had granted them an interest, they could have.) Presumably the original property owner who granted the land, or their successors in interest, could sue to enforce the covenant, but they haven't.

[idiotsecant]

Being 'stressed' about the corruption and ineffectiveness of governance is literally the exact and only way you make government not be corrupt and ineffective. Democracy is not a spectator sport and voting is just the polite mechanism. Mass protest and outrage is the actual mechanism of democracy - voting is just there to make them afraid of the protest so you don't have to throw moltovs.

[SecretDreams]

It certainly feels like we need a reset on the expectations placed upon politicians at all levels of governance. Somehow.

I think politicians have completely lost the plot in their job and who they represent. Instead, they seem all ideologically or financially motivated, and largely seem to get their marching orders from select wealthy CEOs. It's a very bad look that will get worse since trust in govern being so low goes hand in hand with voted apathy. And voted apathy means we get more of the same.

It's a bad cycle and I think we'll land on a civil esque war sooner or later.

[wat10000]

Society's elites have forgotten that civil institutions exist to be an alternative to resolving disputes through violence. If they completely bend those institutions to their will and leave the common people out in the cold, the result isn't acquiescence, it's revolt.

I, too, worry that they're going to rediscover this the hard way at some point.

[bubblegumcrisis]

Shouldn't this revolution be planned for sooner than later. I mean, after the billionaires have robot armies..

I always assumed that this was the end goal of the AI. It's not for normal people, it's for the super wealthy to magnify their power, both economically and physically.

[deaux]

> I'm not calling for violence

We all know that you are, and that that's fine, and you're just hedging because you're scared of the list you'll be placed on. Do not worry, you're on it already.

You would never have mentioned it if you weren't.

[AndrewKemendo]

I’ve organized so much that I’m exhausted from organizing

but if somebody else wants to organize I will 100% show up

So consider me first on the list of people ready to do whatever it takes to fix this shit

[cyanydeez]

yeah, it's interesting how we're not allowed to call for violence, eh.

[Lerc]

The problem is that, while there are times when violent acts may bring about positive outcomes, it is extremely rare for those outcomes to be in the minds of those committing the acts. It is far more common for someone to commit violence as an expression of their anger, while rationalising that it is justified because they are aware of the arguments in favour of violence apply to whatever it is that they really want to do in the moment.

[bubblegumcrisis]

Do you think that people haven't had enough time to think about wealth disparity?

This argument you make is fine for spur of the moment violence, but for acts resulting from the structure violence of the super wealthy. Dunno.

[thin_carapace]

in no way does this truth imply that violence is an invalid response, merely that preconsideration is required to determine whether a violent act is morally just

[pesus]

We aren't, but the president and certain politicians sure are.

[mystraline]

We absolutely CAN call for violence. And especially political violence. Theres even a TV show with it as a name.

Its calling for "Law and Order". Its violence against the 'correct group'.

You absolutely can call for violence (now) against protestors, ANTIFA, anti-surveillance (DEFLOCK), unionists, homeless, drug users, and other deemed by federal, state, and local officials as undesirable.

You cant directly call for violence to black people by name, but eupamisms are still fine to allude to. "Those people", "ghetto", etc.

And the violence BY police and government way exceed the violence by the public they target.

Also, thou shalt NEVER advocate for violence against CEOs, business leaders, politicians, and the like. Their lives are worth like 1M of us plebes. So those who come to their defense will do so crazily and way over-respond, like cops do routinely.

Thats why the feds threw threw the book at Luigi Mangione. Cause if he did it, his way is illegal but tremendously effective. And the elites have little defense against this.

(Case in point. In my local area, a person took $100 from a cash register, and got arrested for a class A misdemeanor and 2 other charges. Whereas the same restaurant had their owner committed mass wage theft of 27 people to the tune of $72000, and only had to pay a fine.

There absolutely hypocrisy who can advocate and not for violence.)

[fylo]

You're edging on terrorism

[hilbert42]

What is left when all other options are exhausted?

The American War of Independence, French Revolution and English Civil War were acts of terrorism.

Were those acts justified? Not if you're the ones who were initially holding the power.

[Aloisius]

Calling the American Revolution terrorism, in the modern sense, is a stretch. It was a war waged primarily between soldiers and materiel with the goal of ending the enemy's ability to wage war.

Systematic use of terror as a policy to induce fear in the general public to push them to coerce their government's policy was not widely used.

[bumby]

I’m pretty patriotic but even I can recognize some parallels. There are examples of targeting civilians (tarring and feathering loyalists, or destroying their property). If you consider the attacks against Tesla to be terrorism [1] then the Boston Tea Party would probably fit that bill as well. I’d probably consider it irregular warfare, but I wouldn’t call it a stretch for someone to disagree.

[1] https://signalscv.com/2025/03/fbi-launches-task-force-to-inv...

[tremon]

If setting warehouses on fire can be called terrorism today, then the Boston Tea Party was equally an act of terrorism then.

[marcus_holmes]

If Palestine Action committed terrorism then absolutely the American Revolution was a terrorist act.

[anigbrowl]

This is massively disingenuous. If you showed up in public in the US today with a bunch of men in uniform and announced your intention of using military force to secure some perceived political rights, you'd be denounced as a terrorist by the authorities while you were still reading out your carefully drafted rules of engagement.

Here's a very recent example of public authorities describing activism against data centers as a possible vector of 'anti-tech extremism': https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti...

Likewise, the proponent of a huge data center project in Utah and the Secretary of the Interior are both arguing that opposition to data centers is the result of Chinese communist propaganda: https://fortune.com/2026/06/10/kevin-oleary-trump-administra...

As far as I'm aware there have been zero acts of violence related to data center construction, or even threats of same.

I will be happy to steer you to work by philosophers and legal researchers on the construction of 'terrorism' as a political concept and the difficulty of cleanly differentiating it from 'legitimate' forms of violent political action.

[HDThoreaun]

The french revolution was terrible and made every single person in france worse off. It is the exact evidence that shows that even in a revolution restraint is still needed.

[deaux]

I am a freedom fighter, you are a rebel, and he is a terrorist.

You're edging on support of a terrorist state. The entire goal of groups like ICE is to instill terror. It doesn't get more terrorist than that.

[diordiderot]

People have weird kinks these days

[bcrosby95]

The funny thing is it's neither terrorism nor illegal if you're just lobbying the government to do it on your behalf.

[_carbyau_]

So why do people keep pointing at an Amendment when it comes to gun control?

[fwip]

If a government does not respond to the wishes of its people, violence is an inevitability. It is in the best interest of the state to be accommodating enough to placate the citizens.

[diordiderot]

90s medical advertisement disclaimer voice

Only if what those people want is something I agree with otherwise I think the state holds the monopoly on violence and we need to mobilize it against the wrong thinker.

[qsera]

It is quite easy to get the government do if the people really want it. Just stop using a car. Stop buying gas. Stop consuming the stuff and cause business real pain.

Then the government will listen. Because businesses, not people, are what governments really listen to.

In India, Gandhiji made it work like 5 decades back in India against the British, where the whole country rejected consumption of foreign goods on his call.

[protocolture]

Whats the problem here?

Farmer gives land to city.

City goes "We can have 10 million dollars AND a brand new data center, hot diggity"

City is enriched in both money AND services.

Thanks Mr Farmer.

[ozim]

Farmer donates land for a park

If you are my friend and I gift you a nice item … I would be majorly pissed at you and would not talk to you ever again if you would sell it online.

I would expect you give it back or pass for free to someone who is also close to you.

[bawolff]

When you put it that way, i disagree. A gift is a gift. Once you give it to someone its their's to do with as they please. A gift with strings is not a gift.

This story is different though, the farmer sold the land for cheap in exchange for some conditions. This situation is more like going back on a contract.

[wyre]

Sure, a gift if a gift, but if I give you a gift and then you go off and sell it for $10mil you're a terrible friend.

[bawolff]

If we are extending this metaphor, given the property passed through many hands, i feel like the equivalent would sort of be like giving a friend a gift, the friend eventually dies, their children sell it when dealing with the estate because they dont have use for the item.

That seems like a pretty normal thing to do.

[wyre]

I don't think the metaphor extends. A family gave their city land conditionally, decades went by, and then the city sells the land do develop a data center.

I don't understand what type of cope you are trying to achieve by excusing this as an okay thing to do.

[mystraline]

No.

Farmer SELLS land (for $10) with a deed restriction that it is to be used for a public park.

Hand wavey timey wimey...

Deed restriction 'magically' goes away.

Gets sold for $10M.

[protocolture]

So a city should tie its hands permanently because of a gift? Donations can now override city planning?

Tired of paying property tax? Gift your house to the city with a deed that says they have to rent it back to you forever for $1 a year?

Lets be clear, this wouldnt even be news if it wasnt for "Datacentre"

[potatototoo99]

The city could have refused to buy the land for $10 if they didn't agree to the terms. Or claim eminent domain and pay a fair price maybe.

[zerobees]

> Gift your house to the city with a deed that says they have to rent it back to you forever for $1 a year?

What if I write a note saying that you need to pay me $10,000? That's not a contract, that's just a fever dream. But if you shake my hand and sign that piece of paper, that's a different story.

The same applies here. If you get the city to agree (and they don't get raided by the FBI after that), then sure, they should be bound by the deal they made.

Note that this works both ways. If you own nice rural acreage, the federal or state government will often be happy to pay you some token amount and give you a tax break for a conservation easement that prevents not only you, but all future owners, from using the land in certain ways. It's still yours, but it's now a scenic corridor and you can't build there anymore. There's plenty of such easements in California and other Western states. If I'm bound by such a perpetual, deed-attached restriction, why can't the government be?

[protocolture]

If the city used eminent domain to snatch it away from the farmer this wouldnt even be news.

If the farmer deeded it to someone else, like a neighbor, and said they could only use it to build a park, no one would expect that to apply once the government had yoinked it by eminent domain.

It follows then, that government entities really aren't bound by deeded restrictions. If you made them jump through some hoop, where they had to gift the land and then eminent domain it back, that would probably be more wasteful than just letting them do whatever they think is best.

The oddest outcome I can imagine is the government being able to compulsorily acquire other peoples property, but being permanently stuck with a fixed use asset that they cant do anything with that they actually own. Thats bonkers.

[bumby]

If they don’t want to use it for the agreed upon purpose, they could either offer to pay the true value so they can use it for something else or give it back to the farmer/heirs.

The real problem seems to be one city gave the land to a parks nonprofit who then sold it to another city, but the original park intent did not follow those sales.

[protocolture]

And if they need it for something else they could just compulsorily acquire it from themselves for 10 more dollars?

[bumby]

I’m not sure I follow. Are you implying $10 is the material value of the property?

[_DeadFred_]

Yes. Society doesn't work if the government is above contract law. If the city can't abide by it's contracts it should not enter into them. Unlike abusive software TOSs the sale was/is not self executing/binding/changed after the fact. The city chose to enter into it with their eyes open.

[protocolture]

But the government can unilaterally end other peoples contracts and forcibly acquire property. Why does it then follow that they must follow a contract that they could otherwise end just by giving it away and compulsorily acquiring it back?

Its like a pet bear that is allowed to eat from the floor but not when the meat is dangled over its nose.

Imagine a scenario where the government is building a rail line from A to B, and compulsorily acquires every piece of land on the route, but right smack dab in the middle is land they already own. You expect them to say "Well gosh dern we cant break that contract we signed guaranteeing that this would be a public urinal for the next 1000 years, after forcibly acquiring 10000 other parcels of land at gunpoint, cancel the project". Its entirely unrealistic to expect an entity that is designed to use its land to facilitate society, and can get whatever land it wants to think in terms of some random contract it can break completely legally in any other scenario.

[_DeadFred_]

Sounds like government should consider that before choosing to enter into contracts that constrain them then doesn't it? If it needs the flexibility it should not choose to limit the flexibility voluntarily and contractually.

[tptacek]

I am ambivalent about whatever this controversy is (taking it at face value, it seems pretty bad, I don't know all the backstory) but we have in fact in the US the exact opposite problem: tiny, nonrepresentative groups of noisy stakeholders have an alarming track record of halting development, which has been deployed in the service of keeping home prices high, neighborhoods white and/or wealthy, transportation inefficient, and the power grid fossil-based and rickety.