FREE WHITEWATER

Monthly Archives: October 2007

City

Citizens, Fully and Completely

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Readers may have noticed that I did not review the October 2nd Common Council meeting. I’ll offer remarks, instead, on a single topic from that meeting.

Perhaps I should not be surprised that one council member, ill-disposed to student housing, is ill-disposed to a voting station on campus, too.

I am sure that citizen-students on campus, over the age of eighteen, are entitled to vote as a matter of state and federal law. I believe that the city should — as a presumption — make it convenient for them to vote. They have that right apart what anyone in Whitewater thinks of them, of their youth, or politics. These are settled matters of federal and state law; no one in Whitewater — no matter how self-important — should inhibit that right. It says much about the arrogance of a few that they feel no shame in posing every objection to voting on campus. Dislike of the campus, and its students, is a trait that many of the town faction share.

Students on campus should be able to vote smoothly and reliably, and a campus-based polling station will make that happen.

Most of these students will vote their conscience for conservatives, or liberals, and not libertarians. I wish there were more libertarian candidates, and that more voters would support those candidates. No matter; I do not fear the contrary preferences of others. Even if I were so weak that I did fear those choices, I hope that I would not be so wrong that I would try to limit the exercise of choice itself.

It’s sad, laughable, and infuriating to watch someone on council grope for ways to object to voting on campus. It’s an exercise in selfish preferences. Let’s consider one misplaced objection: the complaint that if hundreds of students could go across town for “Make a Difference Day,” then they could go to the Old Armory to vote. These two acts are not the same; they are wholly different.

When citizen-students go to the lakefront to work on projects, they confer a benefit on us; when we deny them a polling station on campus, we inhibit the exercise of a right of theirs. They are not obligated to go downtown to help the community, and we should be grateful to them that they do.

We are, by contrast, obligated to them, and all other citizens, to assure effective voting access. When the town faction says that they love Whitewater, they mean that they love it so much their way that they would debase the democratic nature of the community so that they could possess this town forever. They’re no more citizens than any others, no matter how much they want to flatter themselves with the false notion that they know more, count more, and are worthier.

Would someone remind them that they cannot simultaneously argue that students should not register and vote on campus, and contend that when students register and vote at the Old Armory, they make voting inconvenient for non-students. Pick one.

By the way, if you and your stodgy friends walk away from voting when you see too many students at the Old Armory registering to vote, then you’re more tired, and more dissipated, than I suspected. You should find their presence energizing; that you find it discouraging speaks poorly of you.

Inbox Reader Mail

Inbox: Reader Mail (Jefferson on the Register)

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Here is a recent email from Thomas Jefferson, who corresponded to FREE WHITEWATER previously, in July. (Great pseudonym, by the way.) His email is in black, and my reply in blue, regarding my post entitled, “The Register’s Echo Chamber.”

From Thomas Jefferson:

John,

I could not agree with you more on the quality, or lack thereof, in the Whitewater Register.

I thought last week’s Nosek articles were the pinnacle of absurdity. Not only were they not significant issues that generated little debate from the remaining Council, the article on the lot was inaccurate.

Ms. Dampier details how the Council was apparently provided a memo by City Manager Brunner on the options that could be pursued. She notes that the Council decided not to act on these. Someone should inform her of how Wisconsin Open Meeting law works.

The update on the property was placed on the agenda as a ‘Staff Report’, the Council was prohibited by law from taking action.

I am glad she covered other items such as the appointment of citizens to various boards, the 2008 budget assumptions or the stormwater utility credit policy. I guess these items pale in comparison to the correct mix of salt and sand in our streets put forth by an ‘expert’.

As someone who has attended meetings in the past it is interesting to note that many times Ms. Dampier does not stay for the whole meeting, if she shows up at all. She should always watch it from home and just rehash the agenda, which would actually provide more coverage than some of these recent write ups.

Regards,
TJ

Adams replies:

Thanks very much for writing. Your assessment is better than mine. I focused on the idea that Carrie Dampier of the Register was propping up one point of view. I think that she was, but that’s not as significant as the point you’ve made about the topics that she chose to describe. Her chosen focus could not have been, as you note, the subject of any immediate action, based on the those topics’ position on the agenda. Your observation is sound independent of Dampier’s point of view, whatever it may be. As you note, she picked subjects for the front page that weren’t ripe. The alternative topics you list would have been better choices.

Libertarians

“Who Died and Made You King?”

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“Who died and made you king?” is a wonderful expression, and one that many people have heard over the years. I grew up in a libertarian family, and have heard the expression since I was a small boy. (Typically for many libertarians of that time, no one used the term, “libertarian.”) Growing up in a libertarian environment is a wonderful, rich, and fulfilling experience.

My maternal grandmother would use the question, alternatively, as either serious rebuke and teasing inquiry. If, as small boys sometimes do, I would tell my grandmother what I would do if I ruled the world, she would teasingly ask me, “Who died and made you king?” Her point was clear, then and now: no person should want to rule the world, or imagine himself worthy of it.

We were a robust, vigorous family, that favored debate, feisty discourse, free markets, and personal liberty. It was a childhood steeped in love of liberty, free expression, underdogs, and a conviction that a person could do great and exciting things in private life. The state was merely a necessary evil, and viewed with healthy but level-headed skepticism.

Public service was, at best, a temporary pursuit before a return to private life. Every man in our family from my father’s generation served in the military during the Second World War. Each volunteered; no one wanted to be drafted. There were two reasons for volunteering: (1) they wanted their service to be a free choice, and (2) they all had a deep dislike of everything connected to German ambition. Decades after the war, there would still be debates about who in America or abroad had been soft on the Germans or Soviets in the 1930s. (If you mentioned — even as an obvious provocation — Beatrice or Sidney Webb, for example, you were guaranteed to hear at least a few choice epithets directed toward the Webbs.)

No one conceived of a career as a bureaucrat or civil servant; the vigorous, the bold, and the adventurous did not work in government service. I know there are fine people in that work, but the work itself always seemed confining to us.

No one ever worried what our neighbors were doing. That was their concern. God Himself would have to help the neighbor who pried too closely into what we were doing.

Libertarianism is — traditionally — a limited philosophy about the role of government. It doesn’t directly address theology, for example. Some libertarians are religious; some are not. We were certainly religious, and I grew up in family with a traditional, ‘high church,’ orientation. Scripture was far more than politics, but like many families with our politics, parables and passages that recounted God’s love for individuals were always special favorites. (Matt. 18:12-14).

A religious life meant first the gift of faith, and thereafter a desire to help others through private, charitable works. That’s true for me, and for my family, today.

There were no stuffy rules growing up, and no overly mannered requirements for discussion or demeanor. You were expected to be able to take a position and advocate for it; prissy concerns about taking the proper, socially acceptable position meant nothing. Squeamishness was disapproved. In cowboys and Indians, the Indians were always slight favorites, the popularity of their underdog cause being lessened only by their apparent dislike of private property. (That’s a joke, by the way.)

A science project or scale model could be constructed anywhere in the house that didn’t obstruct traffic. Pets could be anywhere, too, so long as they didn’t get underfoot, or threaten to devour another pet.

A good education meant the world. There was no one in the family who didn’t want and didn’t commit to academic success. Everyone was reading, all the time. There were working class families nearby, outwardly like ours, who disparaged academic life; aside from Nazis, communists, and anyone who thought wage and price controls were a good idea, they were targets of our particular scorn. It was always a good, not a bad, thing to be a student. The idea that students were wrecking a community would have seemed crude, and ignorant. Scholarship was evidence of personal and social fulfillment and success. Schooling was not the end, but merely the formative ground of education. You were expected to read all your life, so long as you could see the page.

An adult man or woman might be happy, sad, or angry, but never shocked. We often heard — and I believe it was true — that the twentieth century mostly took away our right to shock or surprise.

Other than small children, I cannot recall anyone crying; by contrast, we laughed often, and did not take ourselves too seriously, even if we took our positions seriously. There was a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor in our family.

I know of other libertarians who had childhood experiences like this, and it was just a wonderful way to grow up, with clear commitments, but free from worry about stuffy, hide-bound social demands and pressures.

Press

The Register’s Echo Chamber

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Last Thursday’s Whitewater Register is evidence of the decline of that weekly, and how it has become an echo chamber for a small number of residents.

“Editor” Carrie Dampier devotes precious front page space, above the fold, to a single council member’s pet topics from the last Common Council meting. Two topics preoccupied that council member, and so, Dampier, also: (1) what to do about the old middle school’s lot, and (2) salting of our streets in winer.

Neither topic is critical to the success of our town, and the issue of the right mix of salt on the city’s streets was little more than a personal imposition on public time.

Dampier leads with one topic, and publishes both on the front page. If you suspect that neither topic is really significant, then you’re right. These stories, and the space that Dampier devotes to them, are just a valentine to one council member, and those who support his views.

The Register‘s not a newspaper for Whitewater; it’s a confidence-building memo for the stodgy town elite. Dampier tells them what they want to hear.

How do I know? Well, consider a recent advertisement, inside the Register, about a ‘baker’s dozen’ subscription offer. The Register lists, in its favor, these points: “It’s All Here. Local Government. Local School News. Local Photos. Local Ad Specials. Local Columns.”

That’s only believable if one defines “all” as “next to nothing compared to other papers and websites.” No one outside the Register‘s ever-shrinking subscriber base believes that the Register truly offers these things in abundance. The subscription offer is less an enticement than a reassurance to ostrich-like subscribers that the paper still has relevance.

It’s more than that, though. It’s reassurance to the town faction, itself, that they’re still in charge, and that they will keep mattering, and that their views will be presented exclusively, as they prefer.

The Parakeet’s Choice!

Beautiful Whitewater, City, Development, Economy, Free Markets

Challenges of the Community Development Authority

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What’s a group’s underlying philosophy? On the City of Whitewater’s new website, there’s a link to a page for Community Development Authority. That page describes the CDA, and touts its accomplishments. Here’s part of what it says, as of October 1st:

The Whitewater Community Development Authority is the economic development organization for the City of Whitewater. We exist to encourage and help people and businesses to invest in the city, creating jobs, increasing the tax base and improving the community’s quality of life….

The CDA has declined to attract businesses which might have a negative impact on the area’s quality of life due to such things as heavy truck traffic or potential odors. It has turned down loans to businesses which do not offer good-paying jobs with benefits. The restrictions it places on land it develops exceed those that the city imposes through its zoning, and the CDA has been instrumental in securing and restoring land for parks and conservation. In fact, the Whitewater CDA has been nationally recognized for its “Smart Growth” practices.

Turning aside businesses that don’t seem adequate doesn’t mean that workers will be better paid; it means that there will be that many fewer jobs for workers in Whitewater.

I know that some members of the CDA disagree about matters with others — my point here is the perspective of the CDA’s own description.

You know, I’ve been concerned about several things, but after reading the CDA link of the City of Whitewater website, I realize that the real problem here is that we don’t have enough green space next to all these pastures, fields, forests, groves, meadows, etc. Thanks, CDA — what a lovely vista we have.

Heavy truck traffic? A single roundabout won’t make this L.A. In fact, ten roundabouts won’t make this L.A. Odors? Thanks, you’ve saved me from a life of Febreze.

When a group prides itself on demanding restrictions that “exceed those that the city imposes through its zoning” in a city that’s too restrictive anyway, that’s a recipe for troublesome results.

Readers know that I’m ill-disposed toward planning, generally, other than planning to compete. I am convinced that it seldom works well, and when it works, the free, private exchange of goods and services likely would have worked better. I dislike planning because I think it produces mediocre results, and restricts individual liberty and opportunity. Finally, planning enlarges the state, and I am convinced that’s a power temptingly wielded to the detriment of rivals, and small, ordinary people.

Picking business prospects this way — deciding on some directions of growth other than market growth — is to decide on less than optimal use of labor and capital. The CDA, or any other organization of planners (voluntary or paid doesn’t matter), will never pick so well as the free combinations of experienced buyers and sellers in the market. Each mistake limits future ‘best possibilities.’ If you’re empowered to decide, you’re disposed to feel justified in your judgment. One might be right about a dozen, dozen things, but one will never be so right or good — ultimately — for the community as the private parties in countless voluntary, unpredictable transactions.

I know — and you know, too — that not all government restrictions, regulations, and interference is the same. Economic regulation may not seem as threatening as a police use of force. The former softens the ground, though, for the deep pit the latter represents.

Now, that’s a libertarian perspective. It’s an economic perspective, but underlying it all is a general preference for individual liberty (over egalitarian schemes), and freedom from state coercion. I think that it’s a model for a great way to live, one that both respects the rights of the individual, and unleashes free markets to advance prosperity (and lift people from poverty). It’s far more than a way to better allocate labor and capital — libertarians believe that it’s a way to protect individual dignity at the same time.

Better, actually, than ‘smart growth’ schemes.