As Realtors we are tied by our profession to one of the most important aspects of the Founding of this nation and that is the land and the principle of private property. This is what Jefferson was really referring to when he spoke of the "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence. As a history teacher it was one of the thoughts that brought me to Real Estate twenty-two years ago on a part time basis. It was easy to make the jump to full time when I retired in 1999.

Now it was the belief of the Founders that man had the right to "own, develop, and dispose of property". It was also their belief that it was our duty "not to steal or destroy the property of another". These items were just two of many principles espoused by our Founding Fathers. Principles are, unfortunately, something that we have set aside and maybe it is time that we stop doing that in our lives.

We are rapidly heading down the road to socialism or worse because we have put principles aside. When we do that we lose the moral high ground because we cannot impose our principles on anyone if we have set ours to the side or gone gray. We have allowed the courts to step in and destroy the interpretation of the right of eminent domain a principle that was suppose to apply to the benefit of the majority of people in a given area. Up until recently most of the folks thought of it applying to a project such as a large highway or power line. Now we are using it to enrich others. Don't misunderstand, I am all for enriching others but those others must negotiate with the folks instead of going to the local government and having them use eminent domain to grab peoples homes.

Let us also remember that principles were very important to the Founders. No they were not angels by any stretch of the imagination and they illustrated that in the preamble of the Constitution the opening words saying "We the people in order to form a more perfect union..." illustrates that thsee men recognied their own faults.

As a people we have started to toss principles into the garbage. Do you think that we just kind of stumbled into the mess we are currently in? Is it only the Wall Street crowd that is supposedly to blame or do we look at our very leaders found in both parties? More importantly we need to look in that proverbial mirror and place the blame for this situation for our difficulties that came about due to our own inattentiveness