“Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

From:

Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address

In the Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, March 4, 1801

Open Letter to the BOCC,

Here are the web links for advertising in the WSJ.  Please, take out an ad.  Invite businesses to set up shop in commissioner district 3 in Elbert County, Colorado.  Tell them we don’t need their tax revenue.  Tell them we won’t impose onerous regulations on them.  Tell them we have a labor force in the western portion of the county that is ready to work for them.  Tell them Elbert County wants to work hard for them.

We have land and water in the central portion of the county.  We can support industry here.

Please commissioners, a new retail outlet here and there won’t fix our local economy.  Americans know how to produce things.  Take the shackles off of us and let us have a chance to compete in the global economy.

Lead, or get out of the way.

Wall Street Journal Advertising

Wall Street Journal National Edition Advertising Rates

Contact Them!

Rhode Island, example of Obama’s tax-business policy: Higher taxes = Fewer jobs

Colorado Springs Gazette Opinion 10/26/08 - The Death of Objectivity

Also, Michael Yon endorses McCain

Greetings,The outcome of the upcoming U.S. elections will have a profound impact on the war.  Meanwhile, the day to day fighting continues. If Senator Obama is elected, I expect to spend a great deal of time covering the fighting.  Judging by his words, Senator Obama must be watched closely or we might see some terrible decisions.  I expect 2009 to be the worst year so far in the Af-Pak war, which has serious potential to eventually become far worse than Iraq ever was.  If Senator McCain is elected, I’ll breathe easier in regard to the war.

For a short dispatch, please click, “Are you Connected.”

Very Respectfully,

Michael Yon

Progressives like McShay and Thomasson would find the world a much friendlier place if they stopped assuming that people who don’t agree with them are mental defects who don’t understand progressivism.  Memo to McShay, people like me understand progressivism a lot better than the avant-garde progressives who never pause to look back to see the human wreckage progressivism left in its’ wake in the last century. For all its’ good intentions and admirable goals, no matter how well it’s packaged and sold [see Obama], progressivism will never overcome the basic fact of human nature that people work better when they work for themselves than when they work for others.

Altruism is necessary and nice if you can afford to do it, but it will never pay the rent.  Progressives attempt to cure this “defect” in altruism by making it mandatory with government.  They assume that if everyone is forced to participate then everyone will benefit, however, they consistently fail to take into account the overhead cost of the non-producing government necessary to enforce such a system.  They also never acknowledge that government is inherently corruptible and subject to manipulation, and that progressive regimes over the last century have been the worst offenders in this respect.

An old boss of mine told me a story about a Chinese laundry in San Francisco that was located on the first floor of a two-story building.  On the top floor was a brothel.  The owners of the laundry worked tirelessly day and night but they could never seem to get ahead or make a profit.  They had too much f…….g overhead.

Progressives need to stop scape-goating non-progressives.  The real problems they need to overcome are inherent in, and exacerbated by, progressivism.

Charles Krauthammer endorses McCain

Works for me.

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.

• They all have executive level experience and have made difficult decisions between  competing subordinate interests.  They have learned to say “yes” to some, “no” to others, to get all the facts before making a decision, and to support their decisions with sound circumstantial and legal analysis.
• They all appreciate that the private sector produces, the public sector consumes, that we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity, and that real economic growth is necessary for general prosperity.
• None of them appear to favor regulatory planning.  They understand that planning in Elbert County has always been an advisory process to the BOCC, and that the BOCC is the citizens’ last resort from arbitrary government control of private land.

The reasons I will not choose the 3 Democrat candidates for commissioners in Elbert County are as follows.

• They all think that government can solve our problems for us.  Today one went so far as to say that the “underlying problem in our infrastructure right now is the lack of communication between the commissioners and any department.”  I wish this quote was out of context but it’s not.
• All three want more regulation imposed on private landowners.
• All three want citizen democrats involved with leading day-to-day county policy and decision-making.  In practice this turns into undue influence by vocal minorities who crowd out balanced views from reasonable people who don’t want to suffer through the grandstanding and tedium produced by zealots.
• All three are preservationists of a mythical rural lifestyle that few people can afford these days.
• All three talk way too much while saying way too little.

That’s it in a nutshell.

Mmmmmm, now where have I seen that logo before?

Oh yeah.

When the Founders enshrined freedom of the press in the First Amendment, I don’t think they expected the press to lay down like a drunken prom date for a political party.

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.

Rush does Estrich

—————————————————————————

October 21, 2008

POLITICAL TERRORISM
Vandals seek to silence voices of opposition voters

Recently, 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.

“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.

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. (more…)

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

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

House Bill 1246

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.

….because sometimes politics is funny. (click to enlarge)