Invasive Government

So we've found land in a particular county in Texas that we're looking at and we plan on building our own home. Not a contractor-style dwelling, but either a partially underground home or a simple earthbag home dwelling. I'll do all or most of the work myself and in the end, that's where we'll live.

But I keep bumping up against the concept of building codes, zoning laws, and construction permits. Why do I need a permit from the government to put dirt into a bag and stack it into walls and call that my home? If I dig a hole in the side of a hill and make a burrow like a family of badgers, what business is it of theirs? And if I decide to install septic or to poop into a bucket, then why must I get their permission to do either?

Tomorrow I'm going to call the county seat and ask some very pointed questions before we put down the cash for the land. I do not want to get into a Waco-esque situation because I know that if they showed up with bulldozers to tear down the home I'd built with my own hands for my own family to live in, I'd kill the first one of the bastards to cross the property line.

So we'll have to check around and if this particular county isn't freedom-friendly then we'll need to keep looking and that will just have to be part of our search. But it makes me absolutely crazy that here in the alleged "land of the free", I'm more restricted and confined then a leaf-wearing savage in the depths of Borneo.