Capitalism is liberating: You’re born a peasant but you don’t have to die one. You can work hard and get a nice place in the suburbs. If you were a 19th century Russian peasant and you got to Ellis Island, you’d be living in a tenement on the Lower East Side, but your kids would get an education and move uptown, and your grandkids would be doctors and accountants in Westchester County.

And your great-grandchild would be a Harvard-educated environmental activist demanding an end to all this electricity and indoor toilets.

H/T: Pundette.

If that looks to you like a couple of scattered shrubs on a giant dirt lot (and a giant mud pit after the next hard rain), you’re not alone.

And what’s with the size of that back yard? The owner of the yard said “We wanted to teach our children about sustainable living and self sufficiency.” So why is her backyard alone triple the size of my entire lot? Most California environmentalists would advocate at least one or two dozen families of four living in that space in some kind of “smart development.” Evidently, mudpits are permissible sprawl.