It isn't your lawn

One day Tony was out mowing his lawn when his next door neighbor showed up and started to talk.

"So, the community is getting together to talk about sharing the load," Tony's neighbor said.

"Sharing the load? What do you mean?"

"We're looking at passing an ordinance that gets the community to work together. To share the lawn cutting, share the tree trimming. That kind of thing."

"Um...that seems weird. When is this so-called community going to meet about this?"

"Oh, they already met. Already wrote the new law. Just waiting on the general committee to vote on it. It'll be great! Think of all the extra time I'll have!"

"What? I don't even get a say in this?"

"You had your say, you elected the committee!"

Getting a little upset, Tony thought he'd find out more so he stopped mowing his lawn and went to his other neighbor, Dora, who he had helped get elected to the community council.

"Hi Tony," Dora said, "You want to come in?"

"What's this about a law on community grass cutting?" Tony asked ignoring her invitation to enter.

"It's great! We have passed a law..."

"Passed? I thought it was still up for a vote?" Tony interrupted.

"Oh, we voted via secret ballot late last night. It's law now! What the law does is that it requires all of us to share the burden of mowing lawns. Each person is assigned to mow the lawns. It's a revolving schedule. For example, this month it's Jack, next month is Paul, and then, um, oh I remember, it's you. but since you have such a large lawn you have to do it for three straight months in a row. We have to be fair to those who have smaller lawns. Laws are supposed to be fair!"

"Say that again, Dora? I have to do it for three months in a row?"

"Of course," she replied.

"Everyone's lawn?"

"Yes. Because your lawn is three times the size of the average lawn in this community. In fact, it is a completely fair system, you know the Greys at 140? Well, their lawn is half the size of everyone else's so they only have to mow the lawns for two weeks."

"Wait, isn't Grey on the committee? How is that not a conflict of interest?"

"Don't be so old-fashioned, he was only one voice, one vote. The whole of the community wants this."

"I don't!" said Tony, "It's not your lawn!"

"Well, if you don't like it, you can always leave," Dora said, "Good night, neighbor"

With that, she closed her door. Tony was sure that Dora did not mean anything good about her closing statement and felt that they were no longer really neighbors. That this divide was a chasm that neither would ever be able to cross again.

The first time Jack showed up at Tony's place to mow Tony's lawn, he was met by Tony on the edge of his property.

"What are you doing here, Jack?" Tony asked.

"Today's the day I mow your lawn, part of that new law."

"Who's lawn?"

"Yours."

"If it is my lawn, as you claim, then I am telling you to stay the hell off of it. Go away, Jack."

"But I have too! It's the law!"

"God suck your laws, Jack. You say it's my lawn, the law says it's my lawn. But the lot of you are claiming the authority to do something with it! You come on my property with that mower and I'll shoot you for trespassing and bury you in the tulip garden."

With that Jack left.

Next month Paul rang the bell. Paul had heard, in fact, the whole community had heard, how Tony had handled Jack showing up.

"What do you want, Paul?" Tony asked.

"It's my week to start mowing this part of the neighborhood. I just wanted you to know, that I will be mowing your house in two days."

"No you won't," Tony said, "I've already mowed it, as you can clearly see and like I told that idiot Jack, your whole law is bull because you all keep making a logical mistake by being dumb enough to keep calling it 'My Lawn'. If in fact, it is mine, as in my personal property, you have zero, and I mean zero say on how it's maintained or operated."

Paul merely smirked and said, "I will be mowing YOUR lawn. I will show up with Jack and a number of other neighbors. If you get in my way, we will restrain you and lock you in Alex's large suburban truck while I do my duty. And I warn you, if you resist our law to mow YOUR lawn, we will use increasing force until we get what we want. We have the law on our side."

Paul walked away without another word.

When it came time for Paul to mow Jack's lawn, Jack had taken a vacation to another community so that he would not be there when his so-called community claimed ownership over his property.

Next on the list of community lawn mowing was Tony himself.

Tony did not mow anyone's lawn. So, the community sent Paul back to Tony's house. Tony answered the door with a pitchfork.

"What the hell do you want, Paul? Your kind isn't welcome on my property!"

"It's your turn to mow the lawns, Tony. You're already six days behind a very tight schedule."

"I'm not mowing anyone's lawn. I never agreed to any of this."

"You voted, didn't you? You have your representative? Your representative voted? It's all very democratic. You act as if this is unfair?"

"Unfair doesn't even come close to what it is, Paul. It's outright immoral! It's a perversion of the very nature of charity! It's a disregard to definitions of the language we all agreed to consider our method of communication! There is nothing of what you passed as law, as democracy, that is good. None of it is just. None of it is right. Get off my property!"

"Why don't you just leave, Tony? You don't like our laws and our method of enforcing them, just move!"

"But, I thought this was my lawn and my property? Isn't that the lie you keep suggesting? How is it mine if you keep telling me to leave it? Either leave it to you to do what you want with it or leave it forever? Both of which are the same result. You get to control what was once my property without me participating in the transaction! You are proposing theft, plain and simple."

"Well, the law has a stipulation for non-conformists like you. For people that don't want to help their fellow community. For people that would point pitchforks at their neighbors! You leave us no other option, you hater of your neighbors. For each day you do not mow the lawns we will hire a professional mower to mow in your stead. The cost of this mowing will be yours to pay. If you do not pay it, we'll take it from your bank accounts. You can keep your lawn and your individualism, but we'll tax you into submission," Said Paul

"There you go again, using a pronoun indicating ownership of something. My bank accounts, obviously you don't believe they are mine because you've given yourselves a method to get into them. You see, none of your definitions are what they are supposed to be, you live in a constant state of lies, " Tony said edging the pitchfork forward, "and as for this pitchfork, for my so-called neighbor. I might remind you, neighbor, it wasn't more than a month ago that you stood right there on that very porch that up until then had been open to you, open to your family, and threatened to kill me if I did not comply with you stepping onto my grass and mowing my lawn.  Oh, don't make that face, your threat of murder was implied, when you reminded me that you would increase the force to get me to comply. That's the problem with a society of bullies and immoral do-gooders, you never understand that murder is your only tool to force people to your views of morality.  You must make your moral values based on the immoral use of force."

----

As the writer of this little tale, I wish that I could say it is fake. I wish that I could claim it was the genesis of my own mind. And moreover, I wish that I could say that this would have ended well for Tony, that he would have made his point and been left to own his lawn.

But, we all know, that no one owns their own lawn, it is the property of those that use atrocities to get their will. And when they kill the fighting spirit by imprisoning the man or killing him outright, all that remains are the weak followers of other men.

They make us to believe that it is not your lawn, any more than it's your body, any more than it's your labor, any more than it's your income, any more than it's your health and choice of care. Under a system of lies it is only at that last moment before utter destruction that the victim puts his head up and questions; but by then, of course, it is too late.

The answer that the owners always tell us is that if we do not like it here, to leave. Thus, we can't own anything of ourselves, not the physical property we call our homes; not even the idea of owning an idea that they might find offensive.

I say instead: We are not Property and no agency calling itself a majority has the authority to define what we are and where we live. The individualist tells every communism to stay the hell off his lawn.