In a mere instant Tuesday, shock waves with an epicenter later determined to be in Dade City rumbled though state and federal government buildings.
In Tallahassee, where legislators were wiping the pork from their chins, coming back from long vacations and getting ready to hammer out the legislation that would make Jeb Bush Governor-for-Life, completely eliminate the judiciary branch and make all of us live forever whether we want to or not - the gloom was almost palpable.
Johnnie Byrd took a few minutes off from trying to make sure gay people can't get married to ponder the implications. The governor, having finally wrested use of one of the state's airplanes from legislative leaders, was airborne and couldn't be reached.
But it had happened all the same.
A public official, in the middle of a public meeting on the record in front of witnesses, had used the C-word.
"Are you absolutely sure," said a federal court clerk interrupted in Tampa while shredding important documents in Sami Al-Arian case, "that she used that word?"
"Absolutely," said a co-worker processing that day's batch of government forfeiture cases in which people's vehicles, businesses and homes had been seized because somebody thought they had committed a crime. "She just blurted it out as plain as day. She said, "Constitution,' and didn't even blush."
"Just where the hell is Dade City," asked the person giving the morning briefing at a joint meeting of staff attorneys from the Justice Department and Homeland Security, and who cares what people in Florida think anyhow?"
An aide whispered in his ear. What he said was unintelligible except for the words, "chad," "squeaker," "Katherine Harris," and "baby brother."
Properly chastised, the official was still optimistic.
"Maybe it will blow over, those folks down there aren't very long on short term memory, if you catch my drift, now, back to this Fourth Amendment thing, anybody else know any good jokes? Come on, you can tell them, this is a free speech zone . . . sort of."
Okay, it probably wasn't that dramatic, but when I saw the news story saying that Dade City, at the urging of its attorney, Karla Owens, was going to rewrite an ordinance to make sure it was constitutional, and that Owens, among other inflammatory and shocking things, had actually said, "All persons have the right to be free of government intrusion," I realized that there may yet be hope.
I haven't always been kind to Karla. In fact, I had considerable fun at her expense, and the expense of a few other county officials, when they sort of accidentally approved construction of a building for low income seniors without realizing it was on a flood plain and that it was going to be nine stories high.
But that was then, and this is now. And even if the question is only about junk cars, Owens was right on point about unlawful seizure.
The city wants to deal with the problem of junk cars in people's yards, despite the fact that they apparently are considered ornamental in some parts of the city. A few years back some people in my neighborhood moved and finally towed the junk car out of their yard - only to have it replaced by the junk car towed in by the new tenants of the house.
Part of the problem is in who gets to decide what constitutes an eyesore. In my poorer days, what would have been taken for an eyesore junker in my driveway was actually my only means of transportation, and, no matter what you hear, none of them were ever declared public health hazards.
The problem, as usual, comes in specifying who can, perhaps arbitrarily, decide what is and isn't a junker, and then just go onto private property and tow it away.
The truth is that there are legal, and constitutional - there, I said it and I don't care - ways to deal with the problem and it is to Owens' credit that she said so and to the credit of other city officials that they listened.
Maybe other branches of government can take note - that such things as property rights and free speech and privacy and not being arrested and held captive without charges, can exist without giving any individual or agency permission to keep trying to prove that the end always justifies the means.
