Man Serving 17 Days in Jail For Overgrown Lawn

A Grand Prairie, Texas, man is serving 17 days in jail for having an “overgrown lawn.”

Rick Yoes, an electrician for Tarrant County College who routinely works long hours, turned himself into custody Saturday because he lacked the funds to pay the $1,700 fine he received over his yard, which is the equivalent of three mortgage payments for the electrician.

“Yes, we should have been more on top of it, but we were so busy with work, and when we got a warning from the city we handled it,” his daughter Angel told the Fresno People’s Media, adding that they had been keeping the lawn “buzzed” ever since the initial warning.

That wasn’t enough for the City of Grand Prairie, which issued a warrant for Yoes’ arrest and the $1,700 fine.

To pay off the fine by sitting in jail, Yoes has to use every vacation day he accrued at his job, but fortunately, Yoes is well-liked by his employers and the student body at Tarrant County College.

“In 2012, he dressed up in 1776-style regalia and read a copy of the U.S. Constitution to the student body,” Brian Sumner with the Fresno People’s Media wrote. “Because of his dedication he is loved by faculty and students.”

“His collection of beautiful seashells is also on display at the campus.”

The fact that someone like Yoes is spending 17 days in jail over his yard shows you that the real problem isn’t with overgrown lawns, but rather overgrown government.

You see, unlike hard-working Americans like Yoes, government doesn’t actually produce anything – it operates and grows through force. Therefore, in order for government to grow, it must enact bizarre regulations at the public’s expense.

But where does unrestrained government lead to? Totalitarianism in which every aspect of your life is tightly monitored and controlled.

Recently the president of the Virginia Fraternal Order of Police, Kevin Carroll, claimed that “free speech doesn’t say you have the right to insult somebody” and even suggested that using “bad language” on-line should be considered a crime.

“It’s actually against the law to say [bad language] in public; it’s a part of the disorderly conduct statute,” he harked. “If it’s against the law to say it in public why wouldn’t it be against the law to say it to someone through a computer?”

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Image Credits: Casey Fleser / Flickr