"Property" is just a source of Cash Outflow

A couple days ago I recieved a letter in the mail that really boggled my mind. Ever since the property values in the Seattle area went to stupid heights, we've frequently gotten solicitations from real estate outfits looking to make a buck when we slaughter the ol' cash cow. I had never paid much attention to the solicitations, but I read this one and became a tad incensed at the thinking behind it. The letter is in the quoted section below, along with my comments.

Dear Mirko Spasojevic,

Never mind my father has been dead four years, though I have been known to contact particularly obnoxious mail solicitors (like the people peddling pre-paid cremation deals) and tell them "He's dead." with a rather un-Christian satisfaction at their discomfort.

Recently, while doing some basic research, I noticed that you own property in Snohomish.

News to me, unless my parents secretly hold some land out there. Apparently his "basic research" was not thorough enough to tell him we live in Snohomish County (but in the City of Edmonds), not the TOWN of Snohomish some twenty miles to the east.

I've learned over the years that many people don't ever really have the chance to take advantage of their land.
It's either no time or no money.
In the meantime the "Property" is just a source of Cash Outflow every year ie.
Property Taxes
Property Owners Association Fees
Assessments
Possible Liability (if someone gets hurt on your land)
ETC.

Laying aside the bizarre use of quotations around the word property, as well as the inexplicable capitalization of that word and "cash outflow", the entire assumption behind this (and the other solicitations I've recieved) is that the owning of land is simply an economic matter. Sadly this seems to be the way most people think about their property. One generally buys the most expensive place they can afford, and then when the property value goes up it is not a case of if, but when they will sell, reap a profit and move on to the next bigger or better placed house. When your home is seen from the point of view of an economic investment, and not an investment in a "place" and the sense of place that comes with it.

I am interested in buying your property... etc, etc, yadda, yadda...

My girlfriend found the letter sitting on the kitchen table and was so incensed she actually called the people and told them to go pound sand (I've got me a good 'un). This lack of loyalty to a place echos on a slightly larger scale something Rod Dreher wrote about on his Crunchy Con blog. By not being form anywhere, our increasingly mobile and rootless society has replaced a locally-based loyalty and patriotism with a vague and amorphous loyalty to the flag or to "America". At one time a person considered themselves a citizen of their town, or at the most their state, but these days, except in legal matters, very few people seem to identify on a local level. When the US began bombing Serbia in 1999 my father headed there the day after the bombing began, deciding that if his adopted country was going to bomb his homeland, he would rather die on his home soil. Before he left he sat me and my brother down and told us, "Sons, this is your land, your were born and raised here. Fight and die for this land if you need to, but don't fight and die for some dummy politician." Looking back now, I can feel fairly safe in saying that when my father spoke about "this land" he was not referring to the US in general but the actual land we had been born and raised on and the forests, mountains, waterways, and communities that we called home.