Cottage Helicopters Violate Rights
I was on the Oak Park bus yesterday when it stopped at the Cottage Hospital busstop on Junipero. A helicopter was landing. The noise dominated. The air trembled with its presence. It was like a war zone.
The moral question is, should a community be made to suffer the death of its quality of life at the expense of possibly saving one physical life, especially since other alternatives are available for the transported?
When I was in my internship and led anger management groups for the beat-em-up boys and saw individual victims of violence, I learned that not only the physical violence of a traumatic event but the anticipation of another event was disabling. Thus, the people who live near the helicopter landing whose homes shake when the craft lands, those not quite so close who must still suffer the disturbing and invasive presence, and even those, such as I, who live blocks away yet still on the path who must endure this nuisance noise like the ever capricious barking dog, these people, especially not knowing when the next one is coming, suffer not only the violation of their right to live in quiet enjoyment, but also live in subcutaneous anxiety for the next assault on their sensibilities.
The ability to conduct a relationship with one’s self as well as family and work place others is beyond challenged, it is threatened.
A definition of an anti-social personality, a sociopath, a thug, is one who has an unconscionable disregard for the rights and sensibilities of another’s person or property. The helicopter program shatters the rights and sensibilities of those who live in the near and far neighborhood of the landing site. To allow it to continue, in my opinion, is abetting physical and mental assaults and is an intentional infliction of emotional distress that has been given official sanction.
The special obligation of public utilities and other enterprises affected with the public interest has been noted as significant in the imposition of liability on such defendants, even in the absence of outrageous conduct, apparently on a policy basis of encouraging fair treatment of the public whom the enterprises serve, this opinion coming from Fletcher v. Western Natl Life Ins. Co. (1970) 10 Cal. App. 3d 376, 403, 89 Cal. Rptr. 78.
No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by common law, than the right of every individual to possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law. The Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, this opinion coming from Terry v State of Ohio 392 US 1, 88 SCt 186 8.
The basic rights include the right to establish a home and family relationships, this opinion coming from Thiede v Town of Scandia Valley 14 NW2d 400.
The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment, this quote and opinion coming from Olmstead v United States 277 US 438 (1925) at 478.
I support terminating the helicopter landing site at Cottage Hospital, completely and permanently.