When you get right down to it, our constitution only prohibits taxing direct work, not profits one makes from the labors of others. In other words, while the crops of the farmer and the labors of a factory worker are protected, the profits in excess of those labors is not. In other words, if a widget is determined to be worth $1.00 and the materials and equipment cost is $.50 and the labor cost is $.30 then the last $.20 is subject to tax because it is not the direct product of the investors labor. It's not treated that way and the workers share has been decreasing through the years, but that's the way the constitution reads and if it went through the system could well be the way it was ruled, but no one with the money or power would ever go through our state court system to enforce our constitution because workers, not business owners, would be the beneficiaries.

Next you'll probably try to get me started on the constitutionality of interest rates in excess of 10%.

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Everyone should print this off and read it. It's a thing that will make you go "Whoa dude! This is deep and not what I thought it would be."

I doubt Knox Co is the only insane county capable of parlaying bad court decisions into years of dysfunction. It's much more likely this is the beginning of the line. Any number of counties now have a gimmick at their disposal for refusing to put State House candidates from neighboring counties on their ballot, and not just candidates who happen to own property bisected by a county line.

Once that happens, the courts will have to get involved again, and they'll have to rule that the Constitution really means "district," not "county." At that point, Breeding will have grounds to file a civil rights suit against KCEC (if she does not already), and this will cost Knox and perhaps the state a pretty penny.

This was a petty, unprincipled act by KCEC and Mark Goins. Whatever skill Stokes and Cope may have in other areas of law, this should put an end to the notion that governmental law is their strong suit.

I didn't just drop an idle opinion. I've offered substantial analysis of the rulings here and in my MP column. Your response completely ignores that substance.

That the court made its decision based on maps is the bulk of the problem. A court should base its rulings on the law. The law does not support treating this issue as a mere boundary dispute. That was an invented standard created by Chancellor Brown, literally because he found it "easier" to reach his conclusion by pretending it is simply a cut-and-dried matter of lines on a map.

To his credit, Stokes was quite critical of Brown on that point, but he did not offer a more compelling framework for a decision, so the appellate court also based its decision on maps rather than the law. The absence of a more compelling, positive argument from Stokes is what leads me to think this case was poorly argued, particularly since I've come up with a better argument myself.

Regarding the boundary dispute, which is not legally dispositive except in the mind of a lazy chancellor, it's obviously a challenge to figure out where straight lines cross natural terrain, but some boundaries can be easy to find, for example if a natural feature like a creek or ridge defines the edge of a parcel. I can't be certain of this, but it looks to me like the Knox/Anderson line in that area follows the ridge south of Beaver Creek. If that ridge is in fact the legal boundary, then determining where Breeding's house lies relative to the county line is a simple matter of whether the house is on a south-facing slope or a north-facing slope. If that ridge is not the legal boundary or if the terrain was substantially altered during development, then an expensive survey would be necessary.