For months, Ron Ewart - a rural King County resident and member of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, a group of rural citizens that opposes everything from environmental regulations to tent cities for the homeless - has been sending near-daily e-mails to King County council members (and the media). Last week, Ewart sent out a rambling, misspelled, grammatically tortured rant (posted below) about a tent city in Bothell that was approved over the objections of county Republicans. The homeless encampment has become a major issue in Republican David Irons’ campaign against County Exec Ron Sims, who was one of the tent city’s biggest backers.
In his e-mail, Ewart refers to churches (which frequently host tent cities) as “enablers of the worst sort”; suggests that the government “remove the life support” and let the homeless die “on the wet ground”; and, in a mixed metaphor of heroic proportions, claims that “enabling” the homeless by allowing them to sleep on churches’ private property is like “enabling the drinker, or the druggy, or the gambler, because as long as there is a safety net of support, the user will just continue down a destructive path, coming in and out of tent cities and treatment centers for a fair-the-well.  And like all government ‘pig troughs’, if you keep putting feed in the trough, the pigs will come to feed and then produce generation-after-generation of bottom feeders that we have to support.”
Think Ewart’s a lone wacko? Think again: Last month, the CAPR took in a record $16,000 - $12,500 of it from hotshot developers’ lobbyist Jamie Durkan.

TO RURAL LANDOWNERS, TENT CITY SOLUTIONS FOLKS, THE KING COUNTY EXECUTIVE, COUNTY COUNCIL, INTERESTED PARTIES AND THE NEWS MEDIA.

In a move of solidarity from mutual interests, Tent City Solutions folks and rural landowners of King County have joined forces to mount an ever-increasing attack on an out-of-control King County government, in a show of grass-roots America not seen in this area for many years.  Our strong mutual interests cross over urban, suburban and rural boundaries.

We came together last night in a show of strength and purpose to keep one of our own in office, the incomparable Steve Hammond.  We came together last night on rural landowner issues and tent city issues, because it turns out we are both fighting the same insidious enemy, Ron Sims and the King County Council Democrats who never saw a social issue they wouldn't spend our tax money on, or an environmental ordinance, they wouldn't pass.  They shoved the Critical Areas Ordinance down rural landowners' collective throats that became the "shot heard 'round the Nation."  Legislative, judicial actions and outright civil disobedience are the result.  They shoved tent city on to suburbia, that is truly a Seattle problem and Seattle money should be used to support it, if supporting homeless with tax dollars is truly the solution, which is in serious doubt and has been for decades.

Here Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in their twelve step program, has been telling us for years, don't enable the drinker, or the druggy, or the gambler, because as long as there is a safety net of support, the user will just continue down a destructive path, coming in and out of tent cities and treatment centers for a fair-the-well.  And like all government "pig troughs", if you keep putting feed in the trough, the pigs will come to feed and then produce generation-after-generation of bottom feeders that we have to support.  When you pour tax money into it, the more they come and the more tax dollars the do-gooders say they need to protect these poor, hapless, little-understood individuals, while the rest of us work our butts off to support their hobo life style.  You want to solve homeless, remove the life support and let hunger and sleeping on the wet cold ground, shock some of these folks out of their stupor to gain a foot hold in becoming a productive member of society and a large measure of self respect.  Some of them may die, but people die every day.  Some of them will turn to crime as the easy way out.  Stop them in their tracks and put them behind bars when caught.  Maybe a few nights, or even a few years, in the pokey will bring a few more of them into the fold of productive Americans.  But it sure is plain to see that what they are doing is not getting anyone out of homelessness.  And to spend $1 Billion of our tax money in 10 years to once and for all solve the homeless problem, is a shell game of unimaginable proportions, perpetrated by the best con people in the world, dishonest politicians. 

And Churches, you are doing exactly what AA says not to do.  You are enablers of the worst sort, because you think you are doing a Christian thing.  Well wake up, all you are doing is keeping these people in homeless bondage for some nefarious, "we must help the poor", reason.  When will you idiots realize that life is tough and tough people survive.  Yes, I know this sounds harsh, but it is a reality from which too many people turn their heads.

This country was designed and created by its forefathers to set up an environment in which an individual man or woman, left alone by his or her government, could struggle and prosper or struggle and fail, based upon his or her own individual abilities.  This country of individuals was created by people of vision, by people who were willing and free to take risks, by people who were willing to toil, by people who were willing to fend for themselves and take care of their own, by proud people and proud families.  It wasn't created by people with their hands out stretched to government for what government will provide them, at the taxpayers' cost.  How did we ever end up where we are today?  And don't tell me it is compassion, because government compassion is a disguise for a hidden agenda.

So get ready you enablers, bottom feeders and socialist/environmentalist politicians.  Our combined forces have more than doubled last night and we are planning strategies and attacks to neuter you.  What you have done and are doing shall not stand as they run contrary to our cherished constitution.

True Americans are finally waking up and it is a sight to behold.

Ron Ewart

Fall City, WA