Eustace Conway: Independent mountaineer versus the government

If there had been Watauga County bureaucrats running the country following the Revolutionary War, the United States would have never expanded past the Appalachians.  It's a wonder we survived before the advent of indoor plumbing...

Eustace Conway, a resident of Boone, North Carolina who's been featured recently on the History Channel's series Mountain Men, is now facing the prospect of his land being condemned and control of it taken from him by the local government.  Watauga County officials are insisting that the nature school on Conway's land isn't up to code and is in violation of numerous health and safety regulations.  Conway believes that he's being targeted because he advocates a more traditional "back to nature" approach to living, one which is at odds with "modern" culture and its trappings of collective expectation.  He cites that his property has been the way it is for the past 26 years and has routinely passed inspections, but only now is it coming under the hammer of the goons in Boone.

Fox 8 WGHP's Bob Buckley has turned in a terrific piece of cinematography and narration in his Buckley Report about Eustace Conway.  Y'all would be well enlightened and even entertained by what this colorful character has to tell us about his life and his current plight.  Especially this...

“I live in a much different way and I’m glad for it. Basically, I’m living like the American heritage pattern of all of our ancestors and the modern world isn’t. They don’t know how to accept me. This is supposed to be the land of the free, government is supposed to help people and protect their individual liberties and freedom. That’s not what’s happening here. My gosh. This is the country that I pledge allegiance to?”

So this dude has put up a couple of old-fashioned outhouses on his own property and the government is trying to take his land because of it? Have I got that right?

Good Lord. This country really has come off the rails.