“Marxism as a serious political system came crashing down with the Berlin Wall in 1990. Aspects of it certainly linger in European-style “social democracy” and in surviving elements of the New Deal in America.  Every time you suffer an energy blackout, for instance, you are probably suffering from the Depression-era laws that let to a fragmented electricity transmission grid in the name of preserving jobs.

Yet the instinct to broadly and aggressively apply the tools of Marxism–central planning and government control–lives on.  The instinct is the same as it was when Marx articulated it in the nineteenth century, but the old justification just doesn’t fly.  Free enterprise has proven itself not to oppress the working man, but to free him.

If the working man is no longer oppressed, the central tenant of Marxism no longer applies, but surely there must be another victim of capitalism to take its place?  Women and minorities have advanced themselves under free enterprise just as surely as have the working man, and so they are not ideal candidates.

Luckily for the Left they have a victim ready on the shelf.  This time it is one that will not exercise free choice in rejecting the ministrations of those who claim to speak for it.  In the leftist’s world view, the worker has been replaced by “the Environment.”

Iain Murray, The Really Inconvenient Truths, Regnery 2008, pp 210-211.

More West Elbert County Sun politics from 8/28/08:

“Thomasson added that what is needed are “a lot of small ideas that are achievable. In bringing jobs to the area, it is going to be five to 10 new ones at a time that are compatible with what we have here, not bringing in a GM-sized industry.”

“Patty Sward…added that her goal is to ensure smart growth[.]”

A patient lying on her death bed does not need an aspirin and a gaggle of government planners sucking up all of the oxygen in the room with empty platitudes.  She needs serious medicine and air to breath.

Elbert County does not need jobs that are compatible with economic stagnation and poverty.  Elbert County needs real industry, real manufacturing, and real capitalized enterprises that produce substantial profits.  Elbert County needs a relaxed regulatory climate to encourage those economic engines with the freedom to start and grow.  “Smart growth” will keep us quaint, rural, struggling to make ends meet, dependent on government handouts, purchasing our goods in Douglas County, and exporting our children to Douglas County for education.

Elbert County Sun reported 8/28/2008:

“Where requests for mill levy overrides have been turned down for being too broad and non-specific in the past, the school board has this time specified its needs and is committing to spend 86 percent of the mill levy override on raising salaries to a competitive level; 10 percent to provide students with additional curriculum and instruction…and 4 percent to upgrade technology and computer applications[.]”

Ballot text:

• “86% will be used for retaining and attracting high quality teachers, counselors and support staff.”(not a word about “salaries” or “raising” them)
• “10% will be used for providing students with the curriculum and instruction necessary for success in college and the workplace; and” (not a word about “additional” curriculum and instruction)
• “4% will be used for upgrading technology and computer applications to promote student success in the 21st century[.]”

The Ballot text will control the C-1 Board’s future spending discretion.  Expressions of intent do not control.  While binding terms were used to describe how the board would direct future spending of the mil levy funds, those key binding terms were omitted from the ballot language.  96% of the future spending discretion of the mil levy funds will be controlled by ballot language that is vague, arguable, and easily corrupted.

Time after time, the directors of Elbert County taxpayer-funded public agencies thumb their noses at the governed.  Until this pattern changes, they should not be rewarded for their hubris.

“Welcome Democrats!”

“Forget carpooling, bicycling, walking, or your scooter.  We encourage you to drive.”

“Spend your carbon credit money on something worthwhile.”

“Where the only thing GREEN is the paint.”

Caution: Leftists who have had their sense of humor surgically removed are hereby excused.

Abe reported this across-the-board 10% budget cut meeting with the following graphic of alarm using blinking letters.

The thought of a government budget cut truly horrifies the left. This must be a real black eye for them down at the Pepsi Center this week.

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The tornadoe to the West of us between Parker and Castle Rock is on the left. The second tornadoe was North of us near the county line. It appeared much larger though it did not appear to connect to the ground.

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Apparently I have so befuddled our local Democrats that they went straight to the ad hominem card. Normally they pretend to argue for a bit before they start name calling.

While I am not worthy of this honor, I am thankful for my enemies since they allow me to distinguish myself as not a pro-tax and spend, pro-planning and control, pro-grow government, pro-Dunn, anti-boy scout, not-in-my-backyard, elitist, country-in-county, condescending, leftist, and as one who respects private enterprise more than government because private enterprise must produce a real benefit to society in order to survive while government need only rely upon force and imposition.

The left think that their mere ability to propose a departure from the status quo should be enough to warrant a change. While they are quick to produce theories about how government can make things better for us, they never seem to point to any examples where that has actually happened. In our second century of progressivism you’d think that somewhere, someone might have got it to work. Even though no one has, the faith in progressivism that our local Democrats carry in their hearts remains strong.

It must be terribly difficult for them to slog on, year in and year out, without a single positive outcome to show for all their effort. Imagine how the world might look if all that progressive energy was spent on philosophies that actually work. “And if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their asses a’ hoppin’ on the ground.”

Political speech, above all other sorts of speech, is what the 1st Amendment was enacted to protect.

This morning I took a call from Mr. Thomasson, Democratic commissioner candidate for District 3 in Elbert County. Mr. Thomasson is a principal content provider on the website Abe21.net. The content on Abe21.net is mostly about local political issues. I read Abe21.net and when I take issue with something printed there, I make an image record of the writing, show it here on this website in full context so people can read what has motivated me to comment, and then make my comment. Moreover, I have published, verbatim, all comments received about items on this blog.

In the early days of this blog I tried referencing the content on Abe21.net with hotlinks, but the content would invariably be moved and the links would become useless. Now I include the political content on this website that I respond to in picture image format because I want there to be no confusion about the source of the content being Abe21.net, I want there to be no claim that something was taken out of context, and I want the writings preserved for historical reference. Full context and explicit attribution remain available on this blog after they have been deleted from Abe21.net. Since many of the political issues on Abe21.net and here have long life spans of their own, I believe this is an important service to the community.

A couple weeks ago, Mr. Thomasson informed me that it was his policy to not respond to issues raised on this blog because he did not want to legitimize the debates raised here. Well ideas, whether or not Mr. Thomasson chooses to debate them, have consequences — a fact of which Mr. Thomasson is evidently aware since today he threatened me with a copyright action.

Now, if Abe21.net was not political speech, or if Abe21.net was not freely available, or if Abe21.net had a requirement for some sort of consideration to be read, or if Abe21.net preserved its political speech to enable reasonable rebuttal, or if my inclusion of Abe21.net content was in any way plagiarism, then I would gladly return to using hotlinks to reference the debatable political content there.

More interesting however is that while Mr. Thomasson does not consider issues raised on this blog to be worth discussion, he evidently thinks they are worth trying to chill.

elbertcounty.net/blog - speaking for the ideas, holding political candidates accountable.

Facilitating speech, not chilling it.

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Historical perspectives to consider in this election. File under, “dooming ourselves to repeat history,” or “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

2004 Commissioner election 1

2004 Commissioner election 2

2004 Commissioner election 3

2004 Commissioner election 4

2004 Commissioner election 5

2004 Property tax debate

2004 Property tax debate

As if history weren’t challenging enough, there’s also outright misrepresentation:

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“When John Dunn left office twelve days into the year 2001, there was a $1.6 million surplus.”

False. Dunn’s parting act was to take $1M of that surplus and allocate it to county employee salary increases. It was Dunn who gutted the county’s reserves. The citizens were right to vote him out after 1 term, and Dunn’s budgetary dead-hand carried forth by Mr. Thomasson should be kept off county finances.

“I’m up to the challenge and look forward to bringing honesty, integrity and transparency back to Elbert County government.”

Robert Thomasson at http://vote4robert.net/index.html

Except when it comes to issues presented to Mr. Thomasson on this website which, as he told me last Saturday, he doesn’t want to “legitimize” with debate. Four months before the election and Mr. Thomasson has already mastered a key technique of Elbert County public agency leadership — just ignore what you don’t want to answer.

And here I thought having the Democrats take a more active role in this campaign would actually lead to meaningful public debates on policy issues. 

District 1

Schwab 1707, Valdez 1184

District 3

Shipper 1485, Wyer 1341

Posner on Faith Based Morality and Public Policy

“Modern representative democracy isn’t about making law the outcome of discussion. It is not about modeling politics on the academic seminar. It is about forcing officials to stand for election at short intervals, and about letting ordinary people express their political preferences without having to defend them in debate with their intellectual superiors.” Link

Claire Levy - Urban sprawl drives up the cost of living

Smart Growth: Retarding the Quality of Life

Americans have moved to the suburbs:
The air is cleaner, but road expansion has lagged behind population growth:
A strong anti-suburban movement has developed.
The anti-sprawl movement suggests so-called “smart growth:”

The anti-sprawl diagnosis is flawed:

• Urbanization does not threaten agricultural land:
• Most suburban growth is not from the cities:
• “Walkable” cities are an illusion:
• Open space is expanding more rapidly than urbanization:

Smart growth would intensify the very problems it is supposed to solve.

• Smart growth increases traffic intensity:
• Smart growth increases air pollution intensity:
• Smart growth reduces housing affordability:

From Social Engineering to Freedom:.

• Sufficient road capacity should be provided to accommodate growth:
• People should be allowed to live and work where and how they like:

4th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2008

Once again, the Demographia survey leads inevitably to one clear conclusion: the affordability of housing is overwhelmingly a function of just one thing, the extent to which governments place artificial restrictions on the supply of residential land.

Myth No. 1: Smart Growth is good.

In reality, it’s not. Portland and San Jose, the two top “Smart Growth” cities in the U.S., have more unaffordable housing, higher job losses, higher urban unemployment and greater congestion, with much higher confiscatory tax and fee levels, than before they adopted their “Smart Growth” policies. Yet their leaders proclaim “success” from their policies. Hypocrisy has become the norm - lies and deceitfulness their standard operating procedure for government. Only their union employees and congestion management consultants are profiting - and the bankruptcy attorneys.

90% of Elbert County citizens who work commute to a job outside of Elbert County.

Average commute times in Elbert County are double the state-wide average.

In an economy where fuel is prohibitively expensive, we must bring jobs to Elbert County. The interests of the 10% of Elbert County citizens who do not have to commute should not control the public planning agenda to keep the rest of Elbert County impoverished by commuting time and expense.

“Managed growth compatible with a rural life style” is a tyranny by a small minority.

Sources:

• Elbert County Census Quick Facts ….. source link
• Rural Urban Commuting Area Codes ….. source link
• Rural Urban Commuting Area Code Definitions ….. source link