It’s only Wednesday, I haven’t seen this weeks Elbert County fish wraps, and there’s already 2 Democrat points to rebut.

First, McShay’s cartoon,  .

Anyone familiar with my history with the Republican Party here knows that we parted company years ago, that I have extensively criticized the buy-one-get-two local brand of Republican/RINO politics, and even went so far as to form an issue committee and sent out county-wide mailings critical of the status quo.  The message has not changed and there are several posts on this board to that same end. McShay is flat wrong to paint me with that brush.

Secondly, on the Democrat Headquarters Vandalism, it is deplorable and, I agree, probably politically motivated.  I feel very sorry that the nice lady who owns the property had to fear for her safety and perhaps even more.  She is a victim and there’s no justification for it.  All that said, I think Mr. Thomasson has gone hyperbolic again.

A day or so before the headquarters vandalism, persons unkown vandalized many of the Republican campaign signs along the highway in Elizabeth by covering them with “no”signs:  .

Was breaking the windows at Democrat campaign headquarters a reasonable response?  Of course not.  But could it have been an extreme form of “blow back” for the campaign sign vandalism inflicted on Republican candidates?  Possibly.  We’ll probably never know for sure.

Democrats have been escalating their rhetoric and campaign tactics ever since they lost the 2000 presidential election.  If they don’t turn that movement around toward peaceful and fair ends, toward responsive conversation, away from monologues of talking points, I shudder to think at what partisan violence they may be leading the country into.  And even though I sense that hardcore Democrats will take to the streets and riot if McCain wins the election, I won’t let that threat change my vote.

At least Hollywood is doing its’ part to tone down the election rhetoric.

“The BOCC needs to recruit small business in the county, veteran-based businesses, and an agricultural-based local farmers’ market. We need to seek grant money from the State of Colorado for developing cellulosic ethanol from indigenous switchgrasses and set up small distillation coop facilities. We need to utilize the dry and windy eastern half of the county to bring in the production of clean electricity via wind and solar technologies. We also need to develop our historical sites within the county, and sponsor a vibrant day tourism industry.”

From:What Patty Sward & Robert Thomasson Will Do To Fix It

Good grief!

A farmer’s market where there are no truck farms.  State subsidies and state coops.  Power technologies that require state subsidies to be economic.  A handful of local historic sites.  A vibrant day tourism industry to attract the tourist segment that likes to watch switchgrass grow when they’re not skiing in the mountains.  Maybe we can find some descendants of indigenous Americans to claim some land for a casino. Look out Central City, we’re going to need some of your tour buses.

Come on people!!!  This stuff is beyond pathetic.

America is a republic governed by elected representatives.  The will of the people is expressed at the point in time those representatives are changed out for new ones.  The will of the people is the engine of an orderly election.  In America, an election is the only functional expression of the will of the people.  It is not an expression subject to interpretation by anyone, especially those standing for, or succeeding in, an election.  It’s simply a matter of electoral mathematics.

Marx’s Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, took several decades, a civil war, and a couple of economic depressions, to fully gestate into organized political action in America.  It took the form of socialist progressivism late in the 19th century, and like the drunk at the party who just won’t go home, it’s been with us ever since.  The Left, who subscribe to variations on Marx’s themes, don’t limit or recognize the role of the will of the people in America as outlined in the Constitution.  For them, the will of the people constantly evolves.  For them, the role of leadership is to enunciate this moving target, each day if need be, and rule on policies in accord with their anointed divinations.

This point is worth restating.  For the right, the will of the people is an election.  For the left, the will of the people is a mythology.

To our great collective misfortune, governance based in Marxism failed miserably wherever it was tried.  It directly led to the deaths of 100’s of millions of citizens, innocent people put to death through war, famine, and persecution by progressive states acting under the authority of the will of the people.

One of the minority candidates for commissioner in Elbert County thinks he can ‘advocate for’ the will of the people here.  The first problem is that by definition, a minority candidate cannot represent the will of the majority unless he succeeds in defrauding the majority.  Moreover, beyond the scope of a specific election, the will of the people cannot be abstractly known or advocated, by anyone.  Anyone who advocates for the will of the people is, in reality, advocating for their own subjective concept of the will of the people - for their myth.  Elbert County voters should not reward this delusional approach since, as history has shown, this path leads to extremely negative outcomes.

To be sure, it’s a free country and commissioner candidates can advocate for whatever they want.  As voters, we must decipher the candidates’ well known self interests and their myths about the will of the people.  Those candidates who sell myths about the will of the people that happen to confirm their own self interests should come under the most scrutiny.

And elected commissioners should be guided first by the law, and secondly by factual assessments grounded in objective circumstances.  Delusions and myths about the will of the people are a very poor substitute for good governance.

ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

(click to enlarge)

http://justsaynodeal.com/acorn.html

From: Senator Greg Brophy
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:12 PM
Subject: The Amendments 2008

The Amendments 2008

The cheat sheet here at the top with my recommendations on the left; make yours in the blank and take it with you to the polls.

A46    yes  ______
A47    yes  ______
A48    yes  ______
A49    yes  ______
A50    yes  ______
A51    no   ______
A52    yes  ______
A53    no   ______
A54    no   ______
A55    no   ______
A56    no   ______
A57    no   ______
A58    no   ______
A59    no   ______
Ref L  yes ______
Ref M yes ______
Ref N  yes ______
Ref O  yes ______

(analysis below)

(more…)

RE: abe21.net GOP Strategy

“Our water resources are under siege. The Master Plan is being made irrelevant by BOCC policy moves. No prospects, no jobs, no leadership. Elbert County Republicans have risen to the occasion by coming out with three uninspired candidates with no detailed platform to solve our problems.”

Lets look at this lament.

Water resources are under siege by who?  The Left who want to regulate water resources in Elbert County.

The Master Plan is advisory and when the BOCC moves to clarify this fact in county regulations, who complains?  The Left.

Who have stonewalled and fought all economic development in Elbert County for as long as anyone can remember?  The Left.

Who thinks they can plan and design the best solutions for Elbert County?  The Left.

We need candidates who will shrink government, reduce and remove regulations, and prevent government from impeding the private sector in doing what it does best - capitalism.

To the Left, capitalism is the “C” word, never to be uttered in polite company.  Candidates who do not exhibit signs of totalitarian tendencies are “uninspired.”

The Left got exactly what they fought for - a stagnant local economy that is hardest on the middle class (the poor don’t stand a chance here.)

Elbert County must move beyond the Left’s failed country-in-county utopia and embrace a prosperous future.  We’ve reached a dead end with the Left’s empty visions.  It’s time to admit that mistake and dump the Left’s failed ideology with all the prejudice it deserves.

“In response to Schwab’s allegations, Thomasson said to hear that he is out of control is hurtful, but he refuses to fling mud at them.”

“This is absolute character assassination,” he said.  “They just don’t care.”  ElbertCounty News, 10/2/08 Page 1.

Mr. Thomasson refuses to fling mud?

Indeed.  Since the inception of his website Abe21.net, a day has not gone by that Thomasson ever stopped flinging mud.  Talk about unclean hands.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention in Port Huron, Michigan. It begins:

The main concerns of the statement included racial bigotry, nuclear weapons, and the gulf between ideals such as “all men are created equal” and the “facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North.” Overall, poverty and the civil rights of African Americans were the main concern, while Cold War and peace issues were secondary. Opposition to the war in Vietnam became a central concern of SDS only a few years later. In 1962 it was generally viewed as a US advisory effort. It is mentioned just once.The statement popularized the idea of participatory democracy: a democracy rooted in the principles of decision-making being carried on by public groupings, politics being defined as the art of collectively creating an acceptable pattern of social relations as well as having the function of bringing people out of isolation and into security, and the political order being focused on providing outlets for expression of grievances. It was to provide channels relating men to knowledge and power so that private problems are formulated as general issues. This idea later was translated into “community control” and led to school decentralization in New York, Detroit,San Diego, Parma and other places, with mixed results.

I feel for you Mr. Thomasson. I admire your efforts to bring accountability and transparency to Elbert County.

Please understand, your party’s derivative Marxist philosophical basis is deeply flawed. The left’s economic system is doomed to failure, and the left’s theory of historical progress through dialectic confrontation is complete baloney. That doesn’t take away, however, from the honesty of your attempt to improve the political process around here. (more…)

2008 Colorado Statewide Ballot Initiatives

YES on Amendment 46, Nondiscrimination by the State. It’s time to end the mistake of affirmative action.

YES on Amendment 47, Colorado Right to Work Amendment. Unions should not be able to monopolize labor available to employers.

YES on Amendment 48, Life Begins at Fertilization.  Obviously it does, and our laws should reflect this fact.

NO on Amendment 49, Limits on Payroll Deductions for Public Employees.  This is an unnecessary limit on public employees contract rights.

YES on Amendment 50, Increased Gambling Limits in Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek.  If you’re going to allow gambling at all, the degree to which a person chooses to engage in it should be a matter of personal choice, and not kept artificially low.

NO on Amendment 51, Increase Sales Tax to fund state services for developmentally disabled people.  This looks like a bad law that contains many escape clauses for funding to be directed away from the intended beneficiaries of the law.

NO on Amendment 52, Reallocate Fuel and Mineral tax revenues to I-70 highway construction.  In effect, this law appears to create new subsidies for the highway construction and ski industries.

NO on Amendment 53, Change Business Executive Liability rules.  This law creates a loophole to excuse an executive from liability if the executive discloses an offense to the attorney general prior to the onset of criminal charges.

YES on Amendment 54, Political Campaign contribution limits by government contractors.  After observing how special interests bought themselves a sales tax in Elbert County last year, this measure seems like a very good idea.

NO on Amendment 55, Cause for Employee discharge.  Colorado should remain an “at-will” employment state.

NO on Amendment 56, Employers Required to provide health insurance.  With the volatility in the insurance and health care markets, these benefits should be freely negotiable between employers and employees, and not mandatory.

NO on Amendment 57, Additional workman’s compensation requirements.  Existing workman’s comp rules are sufficient.

NO on Amendment 58, Increase state oil and gas severance taxes.  No new taxes.  Tax revenues will continue to rise without the addition of new taxes.

NO on Amendment 59, Give Tabor refunds to an education fund.  Colorado should keep Tabor in effect.

NO on Referendum L, Lower the age for serving in the Co. legislature to 21.  The current age requirement is 25 and that is already too young.

NO on Referendum M, Land improvements no longer exempt from property tax.  Tax exemptions should be increased.

YES on Referendum N, Liquor purity laws in Colorado constitution.  No point in keeping this law in the constitution.

NO on Referendum O, Revise Citizen Initiative process.  Citizen Initiatives should not be further encumbered.

2008 Colorado Statewide Ballot Initiatives

“Social Issues in Local Races” by Patty Sward, Commissioner Candidate

With smug indifference, Candidate Sward dismisses all questions in her bid for higher office about “social issues” as “irrelevant.”  Before even hearing the question, her answer is “irrelevant.” Talk about dictatorial hubris.

The left turned our county commission into a battleground where every issue, no matter how trivial, devolves into Gaia’s last stand in Elbert County — a huge “social issue.”

But don’t ask don’t tell Ms. Sward, as if there’s any doubt about which way she’ll jump on the question, and as if we should not know.

“[L]iberal economics fail for precisely the same reason that liberal environmentalism fails–they are both defined by the politics of limits.” (more…)

The Stench

“The right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” in Elbert County has become a license to infer magisterial malfeasance in every official set of circumstances, and to wantonly publish an unending stream of innuendo.  Much as the left suffers from OBS (Obsessive Bush Syndrome) at the national level, the Elbert County local left also suffer from a deviant strain of that national illness, OCS (Obsessive Commissioner Syndrome).

Those so afflicted know no political season.  For them, elections have the weight of a comma, not a period.  Elections are merely momentary pauses to take the pulse of the electorate, after which, campaigning and the relentless pursuit of agenda immediately recommence.

The left have taken a noble constitutional protection out of the 1st Amendment, one intended to be used responsibly for the benefit of the entire republic, and turned it into an excuse for non-stop politicking.  They prejudge with reckless abandon as they search for any detail to parse into the constructions of their prejudgments.  Never mind the tedium of observing and developing conclusions as facts are presented, their conclusions are too important and long foregone to be seriously questioned.  Facts that don’t fit their bias are held de-minimus, are ignored, or are attacked.  And those who dare to propose inconvenient facts are openly reviled.

This naked lust for power and control gets prettified with concepts like “transparency” and “smart growth” but I think people see through these petticoats to their totalitarian heart.  Just as the courts have become venues for non-representative leftist obsessive compulsive political aspirations, so have our local executive chambers gone.

With every right comes the responsibility to use that right judiciously.  Rights are not licenses to be abused for personal gain or personal agendas.  Habitual disrespect and abuse of our rights will lead to the loss of them for all.    The left seem genetically incapable of understanding this.

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For us, the event lasted over 5 hours.  At the end, my family and I had a chance to each shake hands and exchange words of thanks and encouragement with Senator McCain, Mrs. McCain and Governor Palin.  Law enforcement and secret service agents were professional and extremely courteous.