We are approaching Spring town meeting and already the cuckoos are out chirping nonsense on the wind. Article 46 in the pending warrant is a new zoning law proposed to regulate the keeping of hens in Billerica. Jen Croce has spent innumerable hours drafting the warrant in an attempt to cover any and all concerns that others in town may have.

That, however, is the equivalent of Don Quixote battling windmills. No matter what she does or how diligently she plans for each contingency, she will never address them all or satisfy those whose idea of an idyllic home on an idyllic street in an idyllic town. She grossly underestimates the limits of ignorance some people carry with them as a badge of honor.

Government officials are not far removed from reality either. For instance, finance committee member, Michael Moore, according to the Billerica Minuteman, has taken the position that if something is not expressly legal; it is, then, by default, illegal. He is quoted in the Billerica Minuteman as follows:

Repeated sneezing or singing out of tune in one’s backyard is not specifically allowed under the town’s bylaws, so I suppose, technically, they must be illegal activities if their repetition gets to the point of distressing your neighbor’s need for peace and quiet as s/he sits in a perfectly fitted lawn chair, upon his perfectly mowed lawn that cuddles the beautifully shaped foundation of his/her idyllic home, on his/her idyllic street, in the idyllic town of Billerica.

I don’t believe that there is a bylaw for playing CDs in one’s automobile as one washes said vehicle on his idyllic driveway. Is there a bylaw that permits soapy water to run down a private driveway and onto the idyllic, perfectly paved and lined street that is part of the idyllic web of interconnected roadways that draw so many dreamers and utopians to want to live in idyllic Billerica? What about washing an automobile or cutting the lawn dressed only in a bikini for women or a speedo for men? Are they illegal activities as well because the town does not regulate all activities or prescribe a dress code that must be maintained while engaged in such unregulated and unspecified activities?

There are bylaws requiring the limitation of noise generated by automobiles, motorcycles, trucks and even lawn mowers in the idyllic town of Billerica. Massachusetts is notorious for not enforcing noise pollution laws, primarily because the level of noise is too subjective from one individual to another to be of value in gaining a consensus. In Massachusetts, the general viewpoint is that noise only rises to a nuisance level when the amount generated by a vehicle exceeds the level established by the manufacturer. So, unless you go out of your way to install modifications, you generally don’t have to worry.

If that is true, then the same can be said regarding the level of noise made by neighboring children. Have you ever been wakened by the sound of a bouncing basketball at 6:30 am or 7:00 am? How about one being bounced at 10 pm? Unless these children exceed the level of noise making assigned by their creator, they can make as much noise as they wish without fear of legal retribution if we apply the logic of noise pollution laws to children. So, why is it different with chickens? Do they make any more noise than their creator designed them to make? Do they make more noise than a lawnmower started at 7 am on a weekend morning? Do they make any more noise than a snow blower clearing a driveway or sidewalk in the middle of the night? How about the sound of a snowplow or a garbage truck? Are chickens more of a noise nuisance than those other items that frequently encounter people trying to enjoy an idyllic day, on their idyllic lawn chair, that comforts them on their idyllic street in the idyllic town of Billerica? How about the noice and the visual disturbance of passing planes or jets on a clear day, or the rumble of commuter rail trains as they course their way through town?

Insofar as health matters go, chickens carry no more risk to the health of neighbors than the processed chickens (and many other items) those very same neighbors purchase at the market. Unless the chicken owner is breeding animals or eggs for sale, they are exercising their natural right to live their lives as they wish, to pursue their vision of happiness as they wish and to exercise their property rights as they wish.

Chickens have always been raised in Billerica. My grandfather raised chickens for both their eggs and their meat when times were tough. As a boy growing up on Pinedale Avenue (at the top of the hill – small house on the left) I was taught to use a hand axe to decapitate chickens, to pluck and clean them on the outside and hand them over to my grandmother for the rest of the preparation and cooking. I was also taught to manage the coop and keep it clean. There has never been a bylaw in Billerica prohibiting the raising of chickens, the collection and consumption of eggs produced by private chicken ownership, or the private slaughter of chickens for private consumption in the idyllic town of Billerica so far as I can remember.

To claim the keeping of chickens without a bylaw permitting such action is illegal, is the equivalent of saying that a man should be imprisoned for crimes that never happened, but believed to have existed. I would suggest that Mr. Moore read the U.S. Constitution to find where the whims and rules of man are given primary authority over the natural rights of man as they were endowed by his creator. Only an immoral philosophy would assume that if there is no law covering a specific action that such an action is automatically a crime because the law has yet to take away what our creator, god or nature, has given. The very premise is absurd and represents the most egregious disrespect for what it means to at least resemble what is left of the concept of free men and liberty. If you watch the replay of the last planning board meeting when they discuss the “chicken article”, you will see that Mike Moore is not alone in his silly and immoral belief that unless something is specified as a legal activity, that one is engaging in a crime (violationg the unwritten law). He has a good ally in the form of Pat Fleming, who also seems to have never quite got the hang of the Constitution and how the Age of Enlightenment came to bless the America people with liberty and opportunity far beyond those of their global neighbors. Perhaps, if we try hard enough, we can get Hugo Chavez to come to Billerica to help us resolve the whole question of what is legal and what is not. Perhaps, he will share his thoughts on the best way to work on our budget problems as well.

It will be interesting to see how the idyllic members of town meeting handle this issue. Will individual rights that have not proven to be harmful to others win the day, or will the town side with the whim worshiping, immoral collectivists who see liberty as a threat to their planned society of slaves sacrificing to slaves for the ultimate good of no one?