Our rights

Well, here we are in the first full week in the new year. I guess some people are back to normal, and are now getting ready for 2010. Just remember, the next new year is just 357 days or a little less than 52 weeks away. But to make it sound closer, we will say 12 months.

Like every other year, it will be interesting. There will be things going on that will make us weep with happiness and cry with sorrow. This is the way of life. It is forever changing.

But for some reason, every department of our government stays the same. Stupid and insane, that is how they operate. The working man doesn't have a prayer of getting a fair deal. It has gotten to the point where a working person is operating under communist rule.

I heard a good one from a woodcutter in my area. He is not allowed to cut wood in an area where he always cut. The reason? Abitibi-Bowater owned the timber rights to that area.

This place is called Round Pond Ridge. It is where woodcutting has gone on for generations. My father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather got their firewood from this place. And they weren't the only ones. Other families had done the same thing.

Now, if Premier William took steps and revoked all timber rights that Abitibi owned, why didn't he inform the woodcutters in my area that they can still get firewood there.

It is not right to take the rights away from people, just to make it better for money-crazy companies. The right of the people is one thing that our government should put on the table.

Over the years, we have lost a lot of those rights. One of the most important rights that we lost was the right to jig a cod. Now, we can only go when those dumbbells from Ottawa say we can go. One time a man could take his boat and head off shore for a cod for fish and brewis, but now there is a law against getting a fish to eat.

Because of lost of rights, we can't even give away a cod. There was a time when a senior citizen could go down on a wharf and was given a fish. The fishers can't do it anymore. Now all fish must be weighed and marked in a log book. Because of that stupid law, the fishermen have also lost the right to enter Heaven when they die. After all, I remember reading in the Bible, Bless be the ones who help the poor for they shall dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here is another right that is been violated. I can't swear this is true, but I was told a youngster can not go down on a wharf and fish for tom cods. I was told that fishery officers have ordered children off the wharf, just because they were doing what children did from the first day our ancestors settled here.

I know there are some doings that need to be enforced, but some of the rules that are made are based on insane decisions. But the Newfies from the Northeast Coast never did worry about their rights being violated. They are wise enough to do what they always did.

We all have rights, but on times, rights are put to one side. Look at what happen here last year. New-Wes-Valley got hi-speed internet. Every town in New-Wes-Valley got the hi-speed except my little town of Newtown. We were told we couldn't get it. We asked why, and we were told that we need new cables and everything else under the sun. And if I heard right, we were told it was because we were a town off by itself.

I'm laughing out loud. Greenspond is off by itself and they got the hi-speed internet. Who is in charge of this? Does that person know that under the conditions, one has no more right than the other. Now Greenspond is a beautiful place, but so is Newtown. Now what town has the most rights?

We all have the same basic rights, but for some reason the rights of my town was put on the backburner.

No rights should be put on the backburner. If a right is something that is rightfully ours, not even the federal government or the provincial government can deny us those rights. If Danny Williams has the right to govern this province because we voted him in, then we have the right to demand that he do a good job. This is one rightful law of the land.

And that is one right we should always follow.