FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Daily Bread

Daily Bread 3.11.11

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Good morning,

It’s a mostly sunny day for Whitewater today, with a high temperature of forty-two degrees.

The Comment Forum will be on hiatus today, but back next week.

The New York Times recalls that on this day in 1941, President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill:

Five minutes after the bill was signed the President approved a list of undisclosed quantities of war materials to be transferred at once from the American Army and Navy to the British and the Greeks, to bolster these powers in their life-and-death struggle with the Axis. Most of these first materials, the nature of which the President guarded, will go to Great Britain. Having thus promptly set the machinery to motion toward making the United States “the Arsenal of democracy,” Mr. Roosevelt began work on a request to be sent to Congress tomorrow for an immediate appropriation of $7,000,000,000 with which to press the lease-lend effort to the fullest possible extent under the new law.

 

Libertarians, Liberty

The Libertarian Position on Unions: In Support of Freedom of Association

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For all the talk about where different groups stand on collective bargaining and the right of freedom of association, a bit of clarity on where Libertarians stand. (Not where conservatives or liberals think Libertarians stand, but where we truly and wholeheartedly stand.)

Here’s a message from the chair of the LP, excerpts of which I reproduce below:


LP Chair: The problem in Wisconsin is not unions but government

WASHINGTON – While Republicans and Democrats battle in Wisconsin over a bill to reduce the collective bargaining power of state employee unions as a means of balancing their budget, Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle points out that the problem lies with government control of activities it has no business running.

Hinkle comments, “Libertarians are neither pro-union nor anti-union. We believe that the right of association and freedom of contract allows any group of people to choose to bargain collectively rather than individually. Naturally, we oppose violence and threats of such, but unions per se can play a major role in a free society. The problem is that the battle between the Wisconsin state government and state employees isn’t even remotely a free market.

“Government monopolizes many services that could and should be provided in the voluntary sector by profit-making and/or non-profit organizations. This also gives them a ‘monopsony’ as virtually the only potential employer for workers in these fields. Once someone has trained to be a teacher or prison guard, they are essentially at the mercy of government for their employment in that field. Blaming them for wanting collective bargaining representation would be comparable to siding with the Polish government against the union Solidarity headed by Lech Walesa that freed Poland in 1989 from Soviet rule. The problem is with the employer: the government….

Wisconsin has seen an astonishing attack on the freedom of association.

Some Republicans are sure that attack is the right thing.

Libertarians know they’re wrong.

The full statement from the LP is available online.

City, Police

Whitewater’s Search for a New Police Chief

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There’s a story over at the Gazette that mentions the departure of Whitewater’s Chief Coan, an amount of money that he may owe Whitewater under contract, and the selection of a new police chief. (That process begins, but only begins, tonight.)

I’d be surprised if he doesn’t request to keep the ten thousand; there will be a few who insist that the by-the-letter standard that Coan’s leadership expected of ordinary residents not be applied to him.

It’s much harder still when someone describes Coan’s tenure with the observation that “he raised the standards in the department considerably.”

Opinions like that are not at issue in a request by the chief to withhold this amount from the city. The issue should not be conflated with other views.

Beyond this, our best course would be a serious search for a new chief through an independent firm. There will be, also, insistence against that course (with the false excuse that there’s no money for a search. We have money for all sorts of things, but there will be an unwillingness — a stubborn resistance — from some against an independent search.)

There will be an interim chief, but the easier and worse course would be to pick a final replacement without a pool provided from a serious, independent search firm.

For the story, see Whitewater police chief might have to pay to resign post — GazetteXtra.

City, Wisconsin

Consensus, Compromise, and Opposition

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Here, in America’s Dairyland, a place of astonishing beauty, one finds a political preference for consensus, leading to frequent and sensible compromises, but occasionally requiring opposition. That’s true in Whitewater, too.

Consensus.

Of all America, I know of no place that favors consensus more than Wisconsin does. There’s speculation of how she has come to prefer it so very much, but it hardly matters now; favor it she does. In politics, we are a people that prefers a common way. This seems so obvious to me — and likely to you also — that I will not belabor the point.

Compromise.

For most political matters, a compromise makes sense. Policies on spending, taxation, and budgets can be resolved, most especially in a state like ours, where our fellow citizens favor consensus. It’s easier to come to compromise on the ordinary debates of life in a place that favors consensus, so we have a leg up on many parts of the world.

Opposition.

Yet, there are some matters — of the administration of justice, and of the truthfulness of officials’ statements — over which there cannot be compromise. An official’s wrongful conduct, another’s shameless lying, should not be met with acceptance. One should not — of this I am sure — say, for example, “that’s just so-and-so, being how he always is.”

I’ve heard this, about a few in Whitewater, along the lines that one should excuse conflicts of interest, or dishonest statements, or wrongful public actions, on the theory that no one meant ill by them.

That excuse would, of course, exculpate almost anyone from almost anything, on the theory that he lied for a supposedly good, well-intentioned, public purpose.

Any town — and certainly an American town, being the inheritor of centuries of justice — deserves better.

Toward injustices and official lies there can be only opposition. There is no supervening local standard of conduct that trumps America’s tradition of public honest and integrity.

One yearns for compromise, but opposition, rather than compromise, is what dishonest officials deserve.

We are fortunate that there are few such officials; sadly, we are afflicted, as we have some, when no community deserves any.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.10.11

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Good morning,

It’s a day of clearing and milder weather ahead for Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-seven degrees.

There will be a meeting of Whitewater’s Police Commission tonight, at 6 p.m. The agenda is available online.

Note: Link to agenda updated to reflect amended agenda.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.9.11

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Good morning,

It’s a day of rain and snow for Whitewater, with a high temperature of thirty-five degrees. No matter how much some might hope for spring, there’s an undeniable power and beauty to snow, evidence of the power of nature, of the beauty of the created order.

Book fairs continue at Lincoln School and the middle school today, and there are school conferences throughout the district beginning this afternoon.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.8.11

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Our forecast calls for a cloudy day in Whitewater, with a high temperature of forty degrees.

In our schools today, book fairs continue at Lakeview School and the middle school.  There’s a 3 p.m. meeting of the PTO at Lincoln School, proud home of the Leopards.

City

More than a Crock-Pot

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Whitewater, Wisconsin, population 14,454, is many things.

A Crock-Pot is not one of them.

When a bureaucrat sees a community, but no individuals other than a few town fathers, he makes himself a cook, and actual people mere ingredients in a slowly-cooked stew. Chop up this, mash up that, throw in the spices of self-promotion and arrogance, and let it simmer over the course of the day.

Actually, let’s be clear: when a cook-bureaucrat makes a concoction like this, he doesn’t see the community clearly. He sees himself as a chef, maybe even an artist, and those around him as ingredients. (Alternatively, he may see himself in even grander terms.) When someone tells you that he exists for community betterment, he’s probably someone with that sort of view of the world.

That’s because the diversity, the unique aspects of a real community of individuals cannot be reduced to a project like betterment, as that one-size-fits-all idea ignores individuality.

It’s merely the soft autocracy of selfish pride and personal ambition, proclaimed as a supposed altruism.