Charles Krauthammer endorses McCain
Works for me.
"Just the facts M'am, Just the facts." -- Sgt. Joe Friday
By Brooks
By Brooks
I wasn’t planning on doing this but a friend asked, so here they are. Thank Dave. I’ll be brief. This may seem like a party-line vote, but it is not. Also, I’m not running for any political office so my comments may offend some people.
I will choose the 3 Republican candidates for commissioners in Elbert County for the following reasons.
The reasons I will not choose the 3 Democrat candidates for commissioners in Elbert County are as follows.
That’s it in a nutshell.
By Brooks
By Brooks
Scene from a meeting this morning.
P1 said, “Did you hear that Joe Biden was in Parker yesterday?”
I thought, “What’s the punch line?”
P2 said, “Wow, really?”
P3 said, “Cool!”
P4 said, “Hey, maybe Obama will visit the Elizabeth headquarters!”
I thought, “Oh God, they’re all drinking the cool aid.”
P5 said, “Yeah, maybe he’ll come out to Elizabeth!”
P6 said, “That would be awesome!”
I said, “Someone get his birth certificate if he shows up in the jurisdiction.”
Crickets.
Meeting adjourned.
Obama loses, they’ll riot. Obama gets thrown out on constitutional citizenship grounds, they’ll riot. Obama wins, cities will burn.
By Brooks
By Brooks
October 21, 2008
POLITICAL TERRORISM
Vandals seek to silence voices of opposition votersRecently, the Obama Campaign for Change Office in Elizabeth experienced an act of vandalism. Every window in the office was smashed out. This comes on the heels of incidents where local Democratic candidates have had to deal with signs being torn down and/or destroyed around the county and Obama/Biden signs being removed along Elbert Road.
Elbert County is a very conservative, Republican county but about 1/6 of its citizens happen to be registered Democrats. The lack of tolerance and the disrespect shown toward Elbert County Democrats is extensive. Beyond that, the smashing of windows at the Obama office is a clear act of intimidation; in fact it is an act of American terrorism, designed to threaten those who would stand up and be counted in the political process. Those who perpetrated these acts are attempting to deny local Democrats the political rights conservative Republicans are so eager to defend and promote on battlefields around the world.
I call on all decent Republican candidates to issue statements deploring these actions. I also wish to gain the attention of those of you who are undecided or independent in the upcoming election. I want you to notice what some of your neighbors will do to stop you from noticing that you have a choice to vote for Democratic candidates in the upcoming election.
Arty Smith, Elbert
Arty considered it impolitic to mention the Democrat provocation for the vandalism. Note that in the first paragraph, the window breakage was accurately described as an act of vandalism. Yet in the second paragraph Arty’s true gripe emerges. The refusal of the majority to tolerate and respect Democrats is an act of American terrorism intended to prevent Democrats from “standing up and being counted.” So, evidently, the vandalism at Obama headquarters somehow interferes with Democrats’ voting franchise. And people in the majority who don’t tolerate and respect Democrats for, I guess, being alive and consuming water and food, are American terrorists.
I, for one, am glad Arty cleared this up.
In the third paragraph we find Arty prescribing the content of speech from “decent Republican candidates,” — if they fail to issue statements deploring these actions they are not “decent.” Now, it’s one thing to be measured by the content of your speech, that’s only reasonable, however, apparently in the new regime, silence is also grounds for condemnation.
As Bill Maher likes to say, “new rules!”
Arty, and Democrats in general for that matter, seem to think that their willingness to show up for the political process guarantees them a seat at the table — i.e. they should be “tolerated and respected.” Au contraire mon fraire, it is the content of your character plus the viability of your ideas that earn you tolerance and respect. Even if one grants Democrats the first element of that test, they’ve got a long way to go on the second.
It is in that second element that America is about to get a painful lesson. Socialism has never worked, can’t work, and won’t work under an Obama administration. As for all the marxist revolutionary characters involved with Obama, let’s hope he keeps them out of his administration so we don’t have to endure another national drama, like what the Clintons put the country through.
By Brooks
“The title was founded on the right of discovery, a right, which was held among the European nations a just and sufficient foundation, on which to rest their respective claims to the American continent.”
“It may be asked, what was the effect of this principle of discovery in respect to the rights of the natives themselves. In the view of the Europeans it created a peculiar relation between themselves and aboriginal inhabitants. The latter were admitted to possess a present right of occupancy, or use in the soil, which was subordinate to the ultimate dominion of the discoverer. They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal, as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion. In a certain sense, they were permitted to exercise rights of sovereignty over it. They might sell or transfer it to the sovereign, who discovered it; but they were denied the authority to dispose of it to any other persons; and until such a sale or transfer, they were generally permitted to occupy it as sovereigns de facto. But, notwithstanding this occupancy the right to grant the soil, while yet in possession of the natives, subject however to their right of occupancy; and title so granted was universally admitted to convey a sufficient title in the soil to the grantees in perfect dominion, or, as it is sometimes expressed in treatises of public law, it was a transfer of plenum et util dominium.”
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833, Book 1, Chapter 1.
In other words, you were living here before me, but when I discovered your land, I became the owner. You can stay here but you can’t sell the land unless it’s to me. And even though you still live here, I can sell the land out from underneath you.
When I think about regulatory planning and land conservation, I can’t help but think how the more things change, the more they remain the same. And it didn’t work out too well for the Indians either.
By Brooks
Shipper’s position on regulatory planning
Thomasson’s position on regulatory planning
Randal O’Toole’s
Brilliantly Smart Growth
20th October 2008
Smart Growth has proven so popular that it is time to talk about the next step, which I call Brilliantly Smart Growth. If housing people in mid-rise, mixed-use developments can measurably reduce their daily miles of driving and carbon footprints, just think what higher densities will do. [Read more…]
By Brooks
Obama’s America – See how many classes fit you.
“The official Obama-Biden website provides the following alphabetical list of Party-approved minority groups who must live and act within the boundaries assigned to them by their progressive betters, as indicated in their group-specific Obama logo:
African-Americans, Arab-Americans, Asian-Americans, Disabled-Americans, Environmental-Americans, Euro-Americans, Faith-Americans, First-Americans, Foreign-Americans, Generation-Obama-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Kids-Americans, Labor-Americans, Latino-Americans, LGBT-Americans, Mediterranean-Americans, Military-Americans, Pacific-Americans, Republican-Americans, Rural-Americans, Senior-Americans, Small-Business-Americans, Sportsmen-Americans, Student-Americans, Veteran-Americans, and Women-Americans.
Real-life examples of Party-approved ethnic, gender, age, regional, and other minority voices in the skillfully directed chorus declaring Obama a new supreme leader.” The People’s Cube
By Brooks
Summarized History for Bill Number HB07-1246
04/12/2007 Signed by the Speaker of the House
04/16/2007 Signed by the President of the Senate
04/16/2007 Sent to the Governor
04/25/2007 Governor Action – Signed
Excerpt: THE MASTER PLAN OF A MUNICIPALITY SHALL BE AN ADVISORY DOCUMENT TO GUIDE LAND DEVELOPMENT DECISIONS; HOWEVER, THE PLAN OR ANY PART THEREOF MAY BE MADE BINDING BY INCLUSION IN THE MUNICIPALITY’S ADOPTED SUBDIVISION, ZONING, PLATTING, PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT, OR OTHER SIMILAR LAND DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS AFTER SATISFYING NOTICE, DUE PROCESS, AND HEARING REQUIREMENTS FOR LEGISLATIVE OR QUASI-JUDICIAL PROCESSES AS APPROPRIATE.
Elbert County’s Master Plan is already referenced in zoning, subdivision and 1041 regulations, prior to the enactment of this legislation. This is why the BOCC is trying to remove references to the Master Plan from county regulations. Elbert County has always had an advisory Master Plan, and unless references to the Master Plan are removed from county regulations, the Master Plan may be held to be regulatory by default, as it was in the SVV case.
Note that the new law also contains notice, due process and hearing requirements. The Master Plan has never been noticed and heard in the county under the terms that it would become a regulatory document. This fact would appear to present a due process problem to the assumption that the plan is already regulatory.
To remove all doubt, I support 100% the current commissioners’ intent to firmly establish the Master Plan as advisory by removing all references to it from county regulations.
I condemn with extreme prejudice the planning commissions’ attempts to make the Master Plan regulatory over all property holders in the county without holding an election on the question.
THE PLANNING COMMISSION DOES NOT REPRESENT THE PEOPLE. I HOPE THE NEW BOCC CLEANS HOUSE OF THE LOT OF THEM.
By Brooks
By Brooks
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.
By Brooks
Did you read the above?
Here’s the problem. What Mr. Thomasson described isn’t democracy. The room contained a self-selected group of people who were 99% in favor of regulatory planning. The planning commission members were in favor of regulatory planning. They brought letters from their friends who were in favor of regulatory planning. Mr. Miller from county planning had switched his recommendation to also favor regulatory planning. To be generous, from all those sources there may have been 200 votes in favor of regulatory planning.
Those 200 non-representative people were busy determining (amidst applause, self-congratulations and jokes) a county policy about regulatory planning that will have the authority of governing law over all of the land owners in Elbert County. They had a good ol’ time manipulating a system that most people in the county don’t even know exists.
Not one of those people in the room were elected to represent the people they were, effectively, governing. That is not democracy. No way. No how. Not even close.
Before they can reasonably connect the word “democracy” to “regulatory planning” in Elbert County, Mr. Thomasson and friends will need to put it to a vote of all the people.
Acting like thugs and courting sympathetic judges does not earn them the right to claim democracy.
By Brooks
Elbert County needs 2 planning commissions. One for districts 1 and 2, and another for district 3.
Land owners in districts 1 and 2, who have all the economic options they need in nearby Douglas and Arapahoe counties, can keep the current socialist planning commission and socialist master plan. They can regulate themselves until the cows come home and sleep soundly each night in the knowledge that no one’s freedom in districts 1 and 2 will interfere with their anointed collective will.
Land owners in district 3, who need economic growth and real jobs in capitalized businesses to support families, provide benefits, make for career paths, and bring about the educational and cultural opportunities that attend to a modern economy, would have a new planning commission. This new commission would have the needs of district 3 as their primary focus and be dedicated to entrepreneurship, business-friendly tax incentives, relaxation and removal of regulations suited to a command economy, and fast track commercial and industrial development.
Districts 1 and 2 would go down their socialist road devoted to preserving their upscale bedroom ranchette lifestyle. District 3 would pursue capitalism and free enterprise and become a center for careers, jobs, manufacturing, the benefits of economic activity, and the accumulation of real wealth.
District 3 would no longer be a playground for the district 1 and 2 eco-socialists. It’s time for district 3 residents to quit subjecting themselves to the dead end policies and oppressive regulations that district 1 and 2 residents have to offer. Those policies, attitudes and regulations simply don’t work in district 3.
Out here in district 3, we need a real economy. Most of us cannot afford Utopia.
By Brooks
Issue: Advisory vs. Regulatory Master Plan
October 9, 2008, Elbert County Planning Commission Meeting Audio
(42 Megs, please right click and download to your computer for listening. Sorry about the file size. It is a very clear recording and with headphones you can hear pretty much everyone in the hall. The meeting lasted approximately 45 minutes.)
Of particular interest was the closing discussion about continuation of the issue. This planning commission has no intention of forwarding a recommendation to the current BOCC for an executive decision.
This planning commission and every member of the audience who spoke, often to applause, and excluding myself, favor a regulatory master plan. The audience contained many SVV activists. Listen to the audio. This is not democracy. This is not a vote of the people. These people don’t care about legalities. They will have their regulations one way or another. This is mobocracy.
By Brooks
“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.
By Brooks
RE:
Original August 28th Planning Document for regulatory amendments
Revised August 28th Planning Document for regulatory amendments
Both of these documents are dated August 28th. All of the detailed changes to existing regulations in both documents are identical.
The recommendations section, however, has been reversed in the revised version. There is no indication in the revised document that it now contains a reversal of opinion.
Mr. Miller’s revised recommendation would perpetuate Elbert County’s exposure to the spurious conclusions of Judge Holmes in the SVV case.
The BOCC should act with all due prejudice in this matter as soon as possible, and Mr. Miller’s subversion of his original recommendation should not be tolerated. Mr. Miller is quite wrong in characterizing the “advisory” nature of the master plan as a matter of “desire.” This is a matter of law, a matter of a long-standing precedent course of dealing, and a matter of rectifying an act of judicial hubris.
Mr. Miller’s new-found position that a resolution of the advisory nature of the master plan, if “desired” (by whom?), should be left to a complete re-write of all county regulations, is completely disingenuous. He knows full well that Elbert County can’t even get a rewrite to the master plan done, let alone a complete revamp of county regulations. The BOCC should put a stop to Mr. Miller’s hubris too.
If Elbert County citizens want a regulatory master plan they should vote on the question. Judge Holmes and Mr. Miller should not be deciding this matter between themselves.
(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)
By Brooks
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.
By Brooks
ACORN is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(click to enlarge)
By Brooks
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)
By Brooks
As Lars Olfen in A Mighty Wind
i.e. My answer to the question, “What is your favorite line from any movie?”
By Brooks
“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.
By Brooks
By Brooks
“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.
By Brooks
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:
“ | We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit… | ” |
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.
By Brooks
“The individual’s ability to decide for himself how to use specific things, being guided by his own knowledge and expectations as well as by those of whatever group he might join, depends on general recognition of a respected private domain of which the individual is free to dispose, and an equally recognized way in which the right to particular things can be transferred from one person to another. The prerequisite for the existence of such property, freedom, and order, from the time of the Greeks to the present, is the same: law in the sense of abstract rules enabling any individual to ascertain at any time who is entitled to dispose over any particular thing.” F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit, 1988.
Elbert County’s Current Master Plan Vision Statement:
Elbert county schools have significantly lower CSAP scores than Douglas County schools. Elbert County has no “diverse employment opportunities.” Elbert County has no reasonable levels of “recreation, commerce, and industry” to balance. Development does not pay its own way. Individual property rights are subordinate to the intentions of county planners. Commerce and industry are not encouraged. Take home pay in Elbert County is lower here than in surrounding counties, and commuting expenses are substantially higher.
By most measures, the original Elbert County Master Plan has totally failed. The magnitude of this failure provides no hope whatsoever that future planning efforts will succeed where this one has not. It is time Elbert County cut loose the albatross of managed growth and planning regulation. These fatal conceits have cost us the future they promised.
“Hume noticed clearly. . .how the maximum freedom of all requires equal restraints on the freedom of each through what he called the three ‘fundamental laws of nature’: ‘the stability of possession, of its transference by consent, and of the performance of promises’.” ibid.
Regulatory planning substantially impedes all 3 of Hume’s fundamental laws of nature.
By Brooks
Ahmadinejad`s Speech Addressing the U.N. General Assembly (Full Text)
I had to create 3 new blog categories for this piece of work.
By Brooks
RE: Recommended Changes to Elbert County Regs to affirm the advisory Master Plan
In response to the SVV case regarding the authority of the county Master Plan,
see: https://elbertcounty.net/blog/2008/02/13/spring-valley-vistas-case-docs/ ,
and see: https://elbertcounty.net/blog/2008/02/03/is-master-plan-regulation-or-advisory/ ,
the BOCC affirmed the advisory nature of the county Master Plan by directing all Master Plan language in county Zoning Regulations, Subdivision Regulations, and 1041 Regulations, to be changed or removed to reflect this fact.
Well done Commissioners! Thank you for doing the right thing by rescuing the county from Judge Holmes’ judicial activism. His attempt to direct county regulatory policy from the bench was wrong headed and the BOCC was absolutely correct to nullify it.
Moreover, the ambiguity of the Master Plan question has been a festering thorn in Elbert County’s side for years. This BOCC of John Metli, Suzie Graeff and Hope Goetz, has done the county a great service by resolving it, and by resolving it the correct way.
* 9/25/08 update *
Comments to Elbert County Planning Commission
Commissioners engaged in some dialog with me after I read this statement. I was able to reinforce the point about the inconsistency between general planning directives and regulatory law, and how the former due to its ambiguity should never become law. One commissioner brought up the new master planning efforts and I was able to make the point about how the transportation master plan contains language that is quite extraneous to transportation. This commissioner expressed favor for the master plan and said that the planning commissioners could make it regulatory if they chose. I think he over reached on that comment. In an effort to understand his favorable disposition toward planning in general, I asked him how the existing master plan had benefited Elbert County since its inception in 1996. I believe the answer was, “a lot of arguments.” The point was made.
After my bit, the planning commission heard a subdivision application. The application entailed a novel use of an existing category of subdivision regulations applied to a new set of circumstances, with the intent of cutting down on bureaucratic red tape.
Many provisions of this regulation set were held to not apply to this particular application, and many provisions of the application were repeated verbosely numerous (5 or 6) times in different sections of the application. After hearing the entire thing, my guess is that if you took out the redundancies and the inapplicable provisions of the application, a 20 page document could have been narrowed down to one or two pages, and a tremendous amount of time and expense could have been avoided by the Elbert County Community and Development Services Department, the property representative, the planning commissioners, and those attending this meeting. So much for one-size-fits-all governmental solutions. It’s a real tragedy to see so much brain power wasted on mind-numbing redundancy and inapplicable details.
By Brooks
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. [Read more…]
By Brooks
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.
By Brooks
“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.
By Brooks
“[L]iberal economics fail for precisely the same reason that liberal environmentalism fails–they are both defined by the politics of limits.” [Read more…]
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." Thomas Jefferson