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Sign Vandals Poison Air For New Guy

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: October 26, 2008

ST. JOSEPH - Five miles east of Dade City and three miles north of San Antonio lies the lightly traveled heart of a Pasco County region residents have waged long and mighty war to defend from trespassing developers and others who disregard the virtues of rural tradition.

Pasco's northeast rural overlay district is a tribute to the sensibilities of those who grew up on the land, or who arrived more recently wishing they had, cherishing visions of open space, rolling acreage, unspoiled vistas and being left undisturbed on their property.

Lately, however, a small but not insignificant skirmish that has broken out in an otherwise peaceful corner of a well-tended orange grove has revealed that, even here, the notion of property rights as a sacrament is not evenly shared.

The evidence presents in the form of rough-cut cedar 2-by-4s forming the skeletal support for a series of doomed campaign signs posted by the grove's owner.

Three times the owner has posted 4-by-8-foot placards, facing southeast and tucked against the trees - no right-of-way or motorist-obstruction issues pertain - promoting his preference in the pending presidential election. The first two, for which the owner paid $25 each, were officially licensed and issued by the candidate's campaign. But they were flimsy and easily torn down, which was their fate.

Pry Bars Versus Free Speech

Annoyed but undaunted, the grove owner resorted to sterner measures. A few days later, up went a 5/8 -inch sheet of plywood painted to match the licensed version. That prompted a spray-painting vandal to write "No thanks" across the new sign, says the grove owner, who then paid to have it restored.

That, alas, wasn't that. Within 24 hours, the plywood billboard had been pried off and hauled away, evidently in broad daylight. "I left the property at noon and the sign was there," says the grove owner. "I came back at about 2:30 p.m. and it was gone."

If you're keeping score at home, that's four apparent acts of vandalism, accompanied by four apparent acts of trespassing - so much for honoring property rights - all designed to suppress the grove owner's claims to First Amendment freedoms.

Ah, but what's a little thing like the Bill of Rights compared with the righteous indignation of someone driven to spasms of criminal derangement by the idea that anyone not only could prefer the rival candidate, but would blatantly advertise the fact?

Why, considering the rival candidate's wacked out, dangerous views, putting up a sign on his behalf is a classic case of shouting fire (in the absence of one) in a crowded theater.

Way To Make Things Worse

By now, gentle, alert reader, you surely are wondering: Who is the grove owner, and which his preferred candidate? This Space sincerely appreciates your curiosity, but regards both details as unimportant. Because in truth, this brand of behavior, if rarely quite so ambitiously carried out, is common among extremists in both major parties.

They all need to grow up and cut it out.

The vandals, whom the grove owner calls "Nameless, faceless, gutless thieves in the night," have managed only to stoke his considerable animosities and those of his associates, giving them fuel to preserve their ill will - whoever prevails - well past Nov. 4.

That's precisely the kind of buried-in-the-marrow division the new president and the nation he leads doesn't need.

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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