• Tea Party Central Important Story Developing in Elbert
• Teaparty Update on the Commissioners Rubbish Program
• Jill Duvall’s Budget Meeting Turned Into a Rubbish Ordinance
• New Plains Anonymous’ Why You Should Be Vewy Vewy Afwaid
• William Thomas’s New Plains Editorial

Lots of garbage this week.

First off, Rowland misrepresented the process of enacting this law.  Ordinance NO. 12-01 replaces Ordinance NO. 11-01 which commissioners signed last year at this time.  To infer that this is an extraordinary action on the part of the Commission misrepresents the facts.

As for this law offending a conservative sensibility, if anything, it appears the new law actually expands the zone of liberty from the old law by exempting industrial tracts of ten or more acres and agricultural land.  Last year’s law contained no such exemption.  Moreover, a number of clauses in the old law dealing with motor vehicles have been taken out of the new law.

Once again, Rowland demonstrates his intemperance, leaping into issue after issue spouting fire and brimstone with no foundation, no material contribution to the discussion, and another sack full of mudballs flung wildly at his targets.

Where was he last year at this time when Ordinance NO. 11-01  was first brought up and passed by this Commission?   Oh that’s right, Rowland wasn’t a Republican candidate at that time, or even a Republican?

And what’s with this nom de plume Edwin P. Jasper? Are the left so scarce in Elbert County that the only people they can find to agree with them have to be simulated?  Is this someone’s avatar they paid good money to publish?   He’s not on any of the voter rolls in Elbert County.  Maybe he’s just too young to vote, though it’s a little surprising that a youngster would spend his lunch money for advertising to encourage everyone to register to vote, presumably against the current commissioners.

And then you have Pippin buying his own letter writing space, County Government & Me, because evidently it is all about him.  It’s a sad admission, having to buy space in the local fishwrap to make his point,  you know, that lunker he keeps fishing for in the recesses of county file cabinets.

Another load to pick up from this week’s fishwrap comes from Mr. Ross’s reprise of his remedial sojourn through the dictionary at the candidate forum last week.  I know he means well, but it felt weird to hear a lecture on these definitions at the candidate forum, and it doesn’t stand up much better in print.

Then we have web contributions fueling the fires of populist umbrage and righteous indignation from Mr. Rowland, Mr. Thomas, Ms. Duvall and New Plains Anonymous, all of whom dither about their purported right to input, also known as hijacking county government for their personal unelected agendas.

In sum, the BOCC is acting within the statutory powers they were elected to perform.  If people don’t like it, the ballot box is the time and place to voice that opinion.

Calling for demonstrations, whipping up the usual populist suspects to come on down and make a good ol’ fashioned clamor,  this self-aggrandizing narcissism is no portend of sound leadership or good government.  No one elected these people to represent us.  They appointed themselves.  God forbid any such rabble be given the reigns of county commissioner.

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“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrines and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence.  It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves—and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.

It is obvious, therefore, that, in order to succeed, a mass movement must develop at the earliest moment a compact corporate organization and a capacity to absorb and integrate all comers.  It is futile to judge the viability of a new movement by the truth of its doctrine and the feasibility of its promises.  What has to be judged is its corporate organization for quick and total absorption of the frustrated.  Where new creeds vie with each other for the allegiance of the populace, the one which comes with the most perfected collective framework wins…..[T]he chief passion of the frustrated is “to belong,” and that there cannot be too much cementing and binding to satisfy this passion.”
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“the most perfected collective framework wins”

These words were published in 1951 and I think are as true now as they were 60 years ago.

Context, however, changed substantially in those years. (more…)

Parade & GOP Exhibit Booth: Volunteers are needed to serve at the Elbert County Republican Booth Friday, Saturday and Sunday (June 1st, 2nd & 3rd 2012) at the Elizabeth Stampede. Our booth is in Casey Jones Park, Elizabeth. We should be located along the main walkway near the entrance of the arena. We will be handing out Republican literature, water and candy for the kids. Families are very welcome, this is a great opportunity to reach our community with our conservative values. (more…)

Leadership gets to the heart of the question.  3 syllables, easy enough to say, but elusive and even fleeting to find in practice.  Saturday morning, people came to find it, to see it in the flesh.  As one Republican put it to me later that day, in hearing the candidates dialog he was expecting to find a compelling reason to change commissioners.  He expected the challengers to make a passionate case that something with the current commission had gone horribly wrong.  He wanted to hear the compelling reason the commissioners should be ridden out of town on a rail, perhaps trailing tar and feathers.  You know, a reason akin to the situation facing us with Obama in the presidential race.

If you haven’t listened to the 4 streams of commissioner candidates answering questions (Del Schwab, Larry Ross, Robert Rowland, John Shipper), now would be a good time to do so.  If you listen closely you’ll be able to pick out several factual problems in the New-Plains reportage of the event.  As an aside, I like this form of presentation that removes all input — crowd, answer sequence, moderator influence — extraneous to the candidates’ speech itself.  All that extra theater can confuse some people.

At the end of the meeting on Saturday, none of the mudballs thrown by challengers and their supporters over the past few months turn out to have stuck.  No bad decisions, no smoking guns, no graft, no corruption, no skullduggery, no mismanagement, no financial impropriety, no bad faith, no conflicts of interest, and no failures of any leadership duties.  None of the innuendo the left so liberally distribute on the web and at public meetings has panned out.  Not a single nugget left in the pan after all the swirling mud drains out.

Turns out the commissioners already were transparent and they already had been facilitating various venues for citizen input to substantive government.  They’ve upheld statutory financial requirements, they’ve balanced the books, they’ve had open doors to hear every public and private interest group. They have ongoing relations with every subordinate governmental organization, every department head, and every citizen in the county.

So then, what complaints did the challengers bring yesterday?  What fuels their passion and makes them rise from the status quo of normal life to seek public office now?

After taking out all the unsubstantiated mud from the mix, we’re left with:

• an incumbent leader who might not be too comfortable blowing his own horn but who can lead a public meeting like a symphony concert master, and
• challenger “I’m a nice enough guy, here is my phone number, call me,” and
• challenger salad spinner throwing off “we the peoples” and other conservative sound bites like water droplets, and
• an incumbent leader who may not be terribly smooth in front of an audience but who inspires confidence in his understanding and control of county finance.

As for the Republican gentleman who came looking for an answer to the challenger question, using Commissioner Schwab’s phrase, “Finding none,” he found his answer.

Commissioner candidates answer questions at an Elbert County Republican Breakfast on Saturday, 5/12/12.

Del Schwab
Larry Ross
Robert Rowland
John Shipper

“Table 2
Members of victimhood groups as a percentage of total population,
% adjusted for multiple discrimination

Female gender    51
Ethnic minority     8
Disabled             22
Non-Christian     5
Elderly               18
Gay or lesbian     5
Grand Total       109

How was the estimate of 109 per cent reached? 51 per cent of the population are women and ethnic minorities make up another eight per cent, according to the 2001 Census, and some 22 per cent of the population of Great Britain are said to be disabled.   Eighteen per cent of the population are pensioners. And at the time of the 2001 Census about five per cent belonged to non-Christian faiths.  A similar proportion were gays and lesbians.”

We’re (Nearly) All Victims Now!   by David G. Green

Since the beginning of 2012 Obama propaganda programs have cycled through women, racial minorities, illegals, and now sexual minorities.  Surprisingly and despite their significant numbers, disabled and the elderly haven’t been tagged yet.  This could be because the left already control them through their significant pre-existing long-term dependence on government entitlements.  Those friendly reminders from AARP aren’t just offers for insurance; they’re messages to the elderly about who’s their daddy.

In the non-victim category we have public union members, government workers, private union members in publicly owned formerly private corporations, and government entitlement beneficiaries.  Those boxes don’t get checked through propaganda.  They just get large amounts of cash.

Each of us is an interest group to the left.  Our personalities are no more than the group characteristics they can buy, persuade or coax out of us.  We are their subjects, all 109% of us.  What we love, choose, think, value, and do, means nothing to the left until we venture outside the group norms they’ve dictated to us.  Only when we step out of their bounds does our freedom concern them.

For these breakouts, politically correct speech police backed up by mass media artillery stand ready to suppress excessive freedom with vilification, branding, re-definition, spinning, shunning, and condemnation.  Few in public life risk stepping outside leftist norms because the price of an offense is a public image hanging.  These largely electronic social events have replaced the old west town squares where public hangings were attended by all in a jovial atmosphere of shared moral certainty, perhaps not unlike that found at a Muslim stoning in a number of contemporary Islamic backwaters.

The more things change, the more they don’t.  So you’d better shape up, big brother really is watching, and these days he’s paying top dollar.

“The Desire for Substitutes

There is a fundamental difference between the appeal of a mass movement and the appeal of a practical organization.  The practical organization offers opportunities for self-advancement, and its appeal is mainly to self-interest.  On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.  A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement.  The prospect of an individual career cannot stir them to a mighty effort, nor can it evoke in them faith and a single minded dedication.  They look on self-interest as on something tainted and evil; something unclean and unlucky.  Anything undertaken under the auspices of the self seems to them foredoomed.  Nothing that has it roots and reasons in the self can be good and noble.  Their innermost craving is for a new life—a rebirth—or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause.  An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both.  If they join the movement as full converts they are reborn to a new life in its close-knit collective body, or if attracted as sympathizers they find elements of pride, confidence and purpose by identifying themselves with the efforts, achievements and prospects of the movement.

To the frustrated a mass movement offers substitutes either for the whole self or for the elements which make life bearable and which they cannot evoke out of their individual resources.”

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

What irremediably spoiled past life is Obama substituting?

“Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.

The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama’s first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers’s home.

The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association.” Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools, Stanley Kurtz WSJ

(click to enlarge)

A couple things in Candidate Ross’s recently published campaign statements raise concerns.  He said, “Elbert county government should not be in the business of facilitating the export of this precious water.”  Fair enough as a political sentiment, but Elbert County really only has a legitimate authority over water properties underneath land it holds in the name of Elbert County.  In Colorado, water is not the community’s property.  It doesn’t sound like a Commissioner Ross would limit the scope of his water reach to county owned properties.  This raises a concern of government overreach from aggressive water zoning and other county approvals and licensing that could become politicized.  That’s just not a conservative, rule of law orientation.

Candidate Ross goes on to say, “Decisions regarding any development project must make economic sense and be of true benefit to Elbert County.”  Hold on there.  Since when is it government’s role to decide winners and losers in the market?  In a free country private citizens take economic risks with their property and capital.  What’s the constitutional basis for county government deciding beforehand what the prospective economics of a private project will be – and predicating licensing on that decision?  Oh that’s right, there isn’t one.  So, this is another big problem.

Turning to Candidate Rowland’s recent statements – which requires the turn of a page in this weeks’ Prairie Times, thank you to the Bishops – more effluvia from the tea-drinking upholder of “conservative values and principles” rises to the surface.

Skimming off the top layer, Candidate Rowland’s position appears to be that commissioners Schwab and Shipper intended to bankrupt the county, sell vast amounts of Elbert County water, pollute the pristine water they didn’t sell with dirty Arkansas River water, deny citizens a place to dump their garbage locally, and wrongly direct business to a struggling local employer.  Then they succeeded in shutting out a clamoring mob from a non-policy making commissioner business meeting, and wrongly supported county employees in a harassment case.

I don’t see it that way at all.  The commissioners I know have no such malice, short sightedness, or incompetence in their direction of Elbert County government.

On the contrary, people who exacerbate circumstances in favor of their personal political ambitions are a big problem in this Elbert County political season.  These meeting occupants grab the limelight every other week to sling innuendo and mudballs at decent public servants doing a fine job for the county.

Someone asked me yesterday what I thought the biggest problem in the county was.  I said jobs, but a close second would be political self-aggrandizement because it clouds everything and makes reality based decision making much more difficult.

The circus sideshow of public sharing at BOCC meetings does nothing to elevate discussions or add information that could be used to solve a real problem — which was the commissioner’s intent in giving them a microphone.  Instead, they self-aggrandize with impunity and permit their lust for power to overcome all shame.  As difficult as it is to witness these occupant monkey shines, I’m glad the commissioners put them on the web so we can see what our government is up against.

Occupy’s Attack On Democracy                                   Posted 05/01/2012 07:10 PM ET

The Left: After a day of mayhem, Occupy protesters have shown themselves to be little more than a dangerous mob. Democrats coddle them even as their outrages escalate. Criminal behavior has no place in a democracy. (more…)

Republican committeepeople are expected to find unaffiliated voters to sign up as Republicans.  Apparently it’s what we do.  Except, what we’ve been doing has brought a heavy contingent of RINOs into the Elbert County Republican Party.  And now we’ve got this hybrid party working that’s half liberal and half conservative.  And I don’t mean just a little bit liberal.  There are committed leftists calling themselves Republicans around here.  I’ve been writing about this for years.  Rather than potentially bring more RINO voters into the party before the primary election, I thought it would be best to focus on conservative people to try to bring into the party.  So I wrote the Are You A Republican? blog item yesterday.  The blog is an effective way to reach people since it gets about a thousand hits a day.

I really didn’t expect that the post would drive the New-Plains boys over the edge.  But it did.  Click on their editorial below.

Anyway, science, I love it!  Now we have evidence that Republicans don’t have to be progressive-light to effectively campaign against the left.  If Republicans just speak the basic messages and values they stand for, the left melts down.  This stuff is like droplets of water landing on the Wicked Witch of the West, or a puff of air on a hillside of quaking aspen leaves.  Simple truth has a mysterious power over them.

(click to enlarge)

• Do you think people should try to help themselves first before they ask for help from others?
• Do you think it’s wrong to game the public treasury for your own personal advantage?
• Do you think government entitlements discourage individual initiative?
• Do you think as taxes go up, charitable giving goes down?
• Do you think death should be tax exempt?
• Do you think business taxation is just another way to tax consumers through higher prices?
• Do you think everyone should pay the same tax rate?
• Do you think unfunded government mandates should be eliminated?
• Do you think private enterprise based on the opportunity for profit is the fairest way to allocate scarce resources?
• Do you think government force is a negative power that leads to corruption when used to control private enterprise?
• Do you think it’s wrong for government bureaucrats to use law to force private property owners to use their property in certain approved ways?
• Do you think zoning laws and regulatory laws should be proven with demonstrated outcomes before they are allowed to become law?
• Do you think that government codes, regulations, statutes, and zoning have choked off way too much creativity from the private sector in a vain attempt to achieve utopia?
• Do you think the earth is far more vast and resilient than environmentalists have shown?
• Do you think private property owners are the best stewards of the environment?
• Do you think there’s too much government in America?
• Do you think government is the least desirable place to look to find a real solution to a problem?
• Do you think the ends do not justify the means?

There are a million ways to ask these questions; this is no official list.  It’s just a few things that come to mind as I think about expressing some Republican values.  Republicans hold values like these because they lead to a robust, creative, evolving, sound, reality based, equitable, and peaceful society where everyone benefits.  Ironically, the beneficiary model the Left promotes benefits precious few beneficiaries and a whole bunch of bureaucrats.

If you answered yes to the above questions, then you believe in fairness, freedom, individual responsibility, non-socialist solutions for successful living, and you’d make a good Republican.  You can register as a Republican before May 29th to participate in the Republican primary election.  Do it online, just Google it.

I went to the Schlegel v Pippin permanent protective order hearing today, 4-27-2012.  The Denver Post’s immediate coverage of the hearing seems to be scripted to a narrative the Post is comfortable with.  I have some different take-aways. (more…)

In today’s BOCC webcast, Commissioner Schwab once again admonished that the BOCC’s open mic segment was not to be used for political campaign purposes.  Shortly thereafter candidate Rowland led off with a little campaign number that could have been titled, “I’m Transparent And You’re Not.” (more…)