A brief philosophical examination of Libertarianism and Collectivism

By Seth Richardson

It is the claim of Collectivists that Libertarians are greedy, heartless misers interested only in their own profits. Cast as the ultimate Scrooge, the Libertarian is attacked at every turn for having insufficient empathy and concern for the poor and downtrodden.

Let’s examine this claim.

The natural instinct of most people is to help the helpless and wish for the prosperity and success of all, and this is as true of the lumpen Collectivist proletarian as it is of the Libertarian, and indeed almost all Americans, regardless of their political ideology. If you place the philosophical goals of Collectivists like Socialists, Liberals and Progressives side by side on a list with those of Libertarians, they are practically identical, at least insofar as the idealistic goal of securing the health and happiness of the average citizen is concerned.  In this, we are not at all so far apart as it might seem sometimes. But there are some important fundamental differences.

Libertarians believe in almost all of the ultimate goals that Liberals, Socialists and Progressives do; they believe in justice and fair treatment and economic prosperity and a laundry list of other ideals that align with the propagandistic idealist arguments of the competing Collectivist political ideologies.

What differs is how the two sides attempt to achieve the goals.

The libertarian seeks to achieve the goals of universal prosperity, happiness and equality through a strong, free-market economy made up of competent, mutualistic adults engaging in altruistic and charitable acts as a function of their natural propensity to do so in a free, fair and voluntary association and contract with others.  In short, Libertarians trust their neighbors to act with rational self-interest just as they themselves do.

Libertarians feel that equality of opportunity along with the natural free-market’s potential for unlimited success unconstrained by excessive government interference is the best way to achieve fundamental fairness and prosperity for all. They believe that vibrant free-market economies are a tide that raises all ships, even the poorest of the poor, which principle is proven by the fact that even the poorest of the poor in the U.S. enjoy a much higher standard of living than the poor of other, third-world nations.

But unlike Collectivists, Libertarians also believe in the value of consequences and the virtue of personal responsibility, and they believe that the natural consequences of an individual’s failure to act mutualistically and with rational self-interest inevitably results in negative consequences generally sufficient to amend bad behavior. Therefore Libertarians do not seek to intervene in the lives of individuals who exercise bad judgment, bad faith, or who engage in force or fraud against others. Libertarians believe that people should suffer the consequences of their malfeasances, including the consequences of sloth, idleness and lack of personal industry and willingness to work. They view this as a natural progression that the person must suffer through if he is to learn, grow and become a better person. They believe that saving people from the consequences of their actions, particularly through government intervention, actually harms them in the long run and causes them to become dependent and damages their self-esteem and therefore their ability to improve themselves and find true prosperity and happiness.

But this is not to say, as some do, that Libertarians are heartless cads who would watch children starve in the gutter, it just means that they do not approve of mitigating the consequences of bad judgment or bad acts. For those who are helpless or damaged by circumstance or disaster, Libertarians are as compassionate and altruistic as anyone, if not more so, as is amply demonstrated by the existence of a healthy private charity system in the U.S.

Moreover, Libertarians act in rational self-interest when it comes to the poor because for the Libertarian, every person is a potential customer, and those living in poverty not only are poor consumers, they are a drain on the community, so it is in the rational self-interest of the Libertarian to help these people to rise from poverty and find gainful employment, so that they can become both productive members of the community, as well as consumers of the merchant’s products. Libertarians are no more anxious to see the gutters filled with the corpses of the starving than Collectivists are, and it’s preposterous to presume that they do.

Libertarians differ in their desire for peace, prosperity, justice, health, welfare and safety from collectivist ideologies not in their equal desire for the conditions of liberty and community, but in how those goals can be best achieved.

Collectivists believe that the tyranny of the majority and the forcible redistribution of wealth by the State is the only way to achieve fairness and equality in society. These collectivist ideologies take a jaundiced view of human nature and hold that individuals are selfish and cupidinous and cannot be trusted to act altruistically or mutualistically, and therefore must be controlled and guided and forced into service to others by the State. Therefore, socialists do not shrink from taking that which belongs to one by force and giving it to another whom the State deems more worthy of the benefit.
Libertarians believe that economic prosperity and equality are a function of individual industry, unlimited opportunity, and the lessons of consequence, and that it is the duty of the individual to put forth that industry which is required to create economic and social success on his own, without the interference or support of government, but not necessarily without the support of one’s fellow citizens, acting in voluntary, mutualistic rational self-interest.

Another distinction, and it’s a major one, is that socialists believe that social equality and prosperity are a zero-sum game; that the success of one person requires the oppression of another; that there is only so much “opportunity” to go around, and if one person has an “unfair” share of opportunity (by inheritance for example) that this is oppressive to those who do not enjoy an equal “opportunity” to be wealthy without working, but this is not equality of opportunity that they seek, it is equality of outcomes, something that is not and cannot be guaranteed by any Constitution or social system. Collectivists do not understand that there is no limit on the opportunity to succeed, and so they do not shrink from taking from the person who is deemed to have an “unfair” opportunity in order to provide a “fair” outcome for others.

But Libertarians know that opportunity is unlimited and economic prosperity is available to anyone who applies sufficient industry and has a will to succeed. Libertarians are always seeking out those with industry and good ideas in order to help them to achieve their dreams, because libertarians know that innovation and hard work are rewarded and by investing in the success of others, their own success is enhanced as the economy improves. Thus, Libertarians do not believe that success is a zero-sum game that requires oppressing anyone, rich or poor, in order to provide opportunity, which is there waiting to be plucked by those who care to reach out and grasp it.

It is this fundamental divide, the divide between collectivism, tyranny of the majority and collectivist redistribution and individualism, free-markets and unlimited opportunity for economic and social advancement that is the nut of the dispute between the two camps. And it’s one that will likely never be resolved, because the innate distrust of Collectivists in the better parts of human nature make it impossible for them to comprehend the fact that people can work together altruistically and mutually in enlightened and rational self-interest without the blunt force of government bludgeoning them into submission at every turn.

© 2009 Altnews

Glenn Beck primes the pan for retaking Congress

By Seth Richardson

Tearmonger Glenn Beck is at it again with his new book “Arguing with Idiots.” In stores now, Beck’s new book is chock-a-block with all the facts and data one needs to successfully and authoritatively rebut the Left’s preposterous proletarian propaganda.

One small problem is that Beck is advocating wrestling with pigs, and as the old saw goes, “When you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

The idea that facts are going to change the minds of the lunatics who are at the moment in charge of the asylum is a bit too credulous to be of much use in preventing what’s coming. Where was this book before Obama was elected, when we really needed it?

To be fair to Beck, Obama played a masterful game of demagoguery in his presidential campaign, promising “change” and never delivering a hint of exactly how much or what sort of change he had in mind, so Beck can perhaps be excused for not be as prescient as he usually is when it comes to clear thinking and common-sense about political intrigue.

Beck’s unfortunate failure of his future-reading para-psychic abilities and his only-slightly dilatory Revere-esque ride through the countryside must be forgiven in light of his sterling defense of liberty and Paine-like speaking of truth to authority that has tossed iron bar after pole into the tracks of the tank-like Obama juggernaut. It may not be enough to stop it, but it’s certainly slowed it down and caused it to veer off course.

Of many small victories, one of the most satisfying is the discomfiture of ACORN’s former Embezzlement-Concealer-in-Chief Wade Rathke, who has been sitting silently in the gloom, at the center of the web of false-front organizations he controls, quietly plucking the threads.

Now Rathke, like Tolkein’s giant spider-like monster Shelob from the Lord of the Rings, has been flushed from his lair and is recoiling from the brilliant light of truth, and has been fatally stung by the sword of Justice wielded by the small but doughty Samwise-analog of fortitude and courage, Glenn Beck.

Rathke, raging in frustration, told the Washington Post “It’s balderdash on top of popoycock. It is a tactic they are trying to aggressively use to attack Obama… to paint the president and anybody else they can as radical.”

Well, not exactly. It’s certainly an attack on Obama and the people around him, but if there is any painting going on, it’s coming from Rathke and his ilk as they attempt to paint the cadre of Leftist radicals and self-avowed Communists that Obama has surrounded himself with as “moderates.”

But enough about Rathke and his whinging, he’s just imitating a stuck pig.

“Arguing with Idiots,” subtitled “How to stop small minds and big government,” while perhaps a half-a-day late and fifty cents short in preventing the oncoming apocalypse, will certainly provide plenty of “I told you so” moments in the coming months and years. The hope of the Republic when Obama was elected was that he and the Democrats would go insane with power and would be unable to restrain themselves, which is clearly coming to pass. Beck’s position in the debacle in Washington has been, like a latter-day Thomas Paine, to put out the call for vigilance and waken the sleeping giant that is the American spirit.

Beck covers all the bases in the book, from defending Capitalism to the nanny state and universal health care. Twelve chapters cover the bulk of the disputes between liberal/progressive/socialists and libertarians and conservatives. This is no dull, academic recitation of facts either. Using his inimitable style, “the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment,” Beck infuses this book with humor, satire and cutting sarcasm that keeps the reader chuckling and giggling while simultaneously stimulating them into the occasional “Amen, brother” ejaculation.

Beck plays the Interlocutor and schizophrenically plays the “Ideeot” foil for his analysis and debunking of the common stupidities of the well-indoctrinated lumpen proletarian. “So not only do you not want to penalize oil companies, you actually want to help them make even more money by letting them slaughter innocent polar bears and arctic seals,” whines the Ideeot. Whereupon Beck proceeds to shred the vacuous argument in detail. This is the specious-claim/authoritative rebuttal format of the main text of the book, and it’s a very effective way of demonstrating the idiocy of the Left’s propaganda by using their verbatim nitwit arguments against them.

Filled with amusing asides labeled “A.D.D Moments,” and appearances by “Guest Ideeots” like Barney Frank, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and a host of other quotables (if not notables), and flashy graphics, the book is a pleasure to read, if a bit, well, attention-disordered from time to time. One needs the discipline to finish a paragraph or section before being distracted by the many asides and boxes of amusing and enlightening information, so that one does not lose the thread of Beck’s cogent and typically hilarious butchering of the sacred cows of the Left. Barbecue anyone?

The meticulous analysis and documentation of sources found in the 25 pages of references and links to original source materials provides at least a year’s worth of reading for purchasers. By the way, if you intend to follow up on the source material, be sure to buy a magnifying glass at the bookstore when you buy the book. If you’re over 40, you’re going to need it because the citations are in micro-type, which is the only thing that allows the references to take up only 25 pages of the book’s 325 pages.

Beck’s new book may not be completely effective in changing the course of the insanity that’s overwhelming common sense and clear thinking at the moment, but everything he says needs to be said so that when it comes time to throw the bums out of Congress and retake control of our out-of-control government, the research has been done and the arguments marshaled.

That task Beck has been working at relentlessly, and “Arguing with Idiots” is a valuable resource for those who know that becoming informed and adept at debunking Obama’s idiocy will be of inestimable importance in the next Congressional election and into the future. Buy it today, study it and learn the lexicon of Truth, Justice and the American Way…you’re going to need it.

© 2009 Altnews

Supreme Court appears on the verge of rectifying an egregious wrong.

By Seth Richardson

The Supreme Court was startled to wakefulness after a hundred-year Rip Van Winkle slumber in it’s consideration of Citizens United v. FEC, in which a movie critical of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, set to be released during her run for the presidency, was challenged on the grounds that it violated the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act. “That’s pretty incredible,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in response to an assertion by a government lawyer that drew an audible gasp from the spectators, that the law prohibits publishing a book paid for by a corporation that advocates the election or defeat of a political candidate. Never before has the Court sanctioned prior restraint or censorship of a book that’s not obscene, and it appeared shocked that it might have inadvertently allowed such a legal argument to slip by them.

Congress has a long history of meddling with free speech when it comes to political campaigns. As early as 1905 Progressive President Teddy Roosevelt argued that contributions from large corporate interests were tainting the election process.

The Tillman Act of 1907 and the Corrupt Practices Act of 1910 prohibited banks and corporations from donating to federal election campaigns, and was the result of Roosevelt’s pressure. Named after Democrat Sen. Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman of South Carolina, who, it happens, was censured by the Senate for physically attacking another senator on the Senate floor (as opposed to Joe Wilson’s minor verbal heckling), the Tillman Act was in part Democrat retribution for the 1896 election of William McKinley.

McKinley’s campaign was funded largely by Cleveland iron-and-coal industrialist Marcus Alonzo Hanna, who raised some $4 million in campaign funds for McKinley, which would be about $82 million in today’s dollars. Not a huge sum compared with the nearly one billion dollars spent by Obama, but at the time it was a staggering sum. McKinley, assassinated in 1901 by anarchist Leon Czolgosz, was followed by Teddy Roosevelt, who is acknowledged as the progenitor of the Progressive era of American government, which we’ve not yet been able to recover from.

Historically speaking however, the Supreme Court had usually held that the best arbiters of the truth or falsity of a campaign claim is the People. The rhetoric we hear today is nothing compared to the vitriol published in the early years of the Republic. The Court always felt that the People were intelligent enough to sort out the wheat from the chaff and the sheep from the goats, and generally declined to get involved in regulating political speech. But the Court went to sleep in 1907 and is only now waking up to the unintended consequences of trying to be paternalistic and patronizing towards the intellectual capacity of the People. A somnolent Court snoozed its way past the First Amendment in 2002, with its ratification of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which drove a stake through the heart of free speech in political campaigns. Although subsequent cases have overturned some provisions of the Act, it’s still illegal for a corporation or entity using corporate money to broadcast “electioneering communications” within 60 days of a federal election. This includes express advocacy corporations like the NRA and the Sierra Club.

The practical effect of this law is that the free flow of information and opinion about candidates and issues has been severely inhibited by Congress, while the Court pillowed its weary head on the Constitution and snored away. But when it came to the Court’s attention the other day that the Federal Election Commission’s attorneys believe that the law allows them to ban books that contain “electioneering communications,” the Supremes snorted, jerked half-awake, sat up and began to take notice.

It may be that the Court has finally shaken the cobwebs from its collective conscience and is preparing to take hold of the tiller of the drifting ship “Justice” and chart a course back towards the founding principles of our Republic. It’s too early to be entirely confident, but let’s hope that the Court will come to the realization that there is a rational distinction to be drawn between for-profit commercial corporate meddling in elections and individuals banding together under a non-profit corporate banner formed expressly for the purpose of political advocacy, which is their sovereign right.

For-profit commercial corporations should have no rights whatsoever to say anything about any election, candidate or ballot issue. Such corporations are artifacts of the state, not human beings, and only human beings are allowed to vote. Therefore, only human beings should be permitted to speak about elections, although they should be allowed to speak collectively through organizations which represent them before the government. And when human being speak about politics and elections, they must be allowed completely unfettered political speech. Political speech is the most important category of speech we as citizens have a right to express, and nothing should be barred in the political arena, nothing at all, so long as it is spoken or written by an individual and not a commercial interest.

The Court needs to once again place its trust in the wisdom and intelligence of the People, and get government completely out of regulating campaign and political speech by individuals or the non-profit organizations that represent them. The idea that the government can censor or suppress a book, or a film, merely because it expresses political opinion or advocacy is utterly repugnant to the foundations of the Republic. We, the People are perfectly capable of discerning truth from fiction in campaign rhetoric, we neither need, nor want, nor will tolerate the government interfering in our political free speech.

ACORN employees thrown under bus by management in a desperate bid to avoid scandal

By Seth Richardson

If you are a prostitute hoping to open a brothel employing 13-year-old El Salvadoran sex-slaves, and you need help with the paperwork because when you present your business plan to bankers, they discriminate against you by tossing you physically out of the door and calling the police, never fear, ACORN is here to help you get a fraudulent government loan. Not only that, but ACORN will also provide you with a free tax advice professional who will show you how to commit perjury, violate RICO statutes, engage in income tax evasion and fraud, evade employment taxes, cheat your child-prostitute employees and otherwise manipulate the system to make your “business” appear legitimate.

In two cases now, in Baltimore and Washington D.C., ACORN employees were caught on hidden video and audio advising a pair of journalists posing as a prostitute and her pimp how to beat the system and violate federal and state laws. The videotapes, available at Glenn Beck’s website, are damning evidence of yet more corruption at ACORN (as if any more were needed to institute a RICO investigation). Already under investigation in 13 states for voter registration fraud, and having admitted to falsifying more than 400,000 voter registrations, at least 50 ACORN employees are under indictment for criminal offenses. ACORN officials predictably throw these low-level dupes under the nearest bus while trying to maintain plausible deniability, but the stench rising from the former funeral home in New Orleans that houses nearly 300 front organizations linked to masterminds Wade and Dale Rathke may finally be overwhelming the normally immune-to-the-stench-of-corruption bureaucrats and elected officials on Capitol hill.

The breaking news is that the Fox News Channel’s Major Garrett is reporting that the Census Bureau director Robert Groves has sent a letter to ACORN severing all ties with ACORN for the upcoming 2010 census. A small victory perhaps, but an important crack in the facade of the Obama-approved “community organization” that has every appearance of being nothing more than a giant organized crime ring run by Wade Rathke, one that has already obtained more than 53 million dollars in taxpayer money, and stands to gain access to more than 8 billion in stimulus money in the coming months. This is a start, but the Justice Department and Congress need to launch a full series of investigations of the Rathke brothers and ACORN, as well as the host of shell organizations that they evidently use to frustrate the ability to account for taxpayer money properly.

The cracks in the facade are important because the only hope for the future of the Republic is, as I predicted some time ago, that the liberal fascists in Congress, once in power, would be utterly unable to restrain their base motives and have gone insane with power. The good news is that we the People now see them, and their former employee and booster Barak Obama for what they really are, and the slumbering giant is aroused.

It’s going to be a difficult time, but on this day of all days, the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed more than 3000 U.S. citizens and others, we must remember who we are as a nation, and how we responded on September 12, 2001 to a threat to the Republic. We responded with courage and compassion, with strength and self-sacrifice, with altruism and loyalty to our fellow citizens and the ideals expounded in the Constitution, with resolve and dignity, and with an undying determination to remain the beacon of hope and freedom that drives the huddled masses yearning to breath free to board leaky boats and build rafts from inner tubes and venture forth across hundreds of miles of open ocean in an attempt to reach this golden shore and the promise of liberty and justice.

Remember the victims of 9/11/2001, and then think of the despicable corruption of ACORN and the taint it leaves upon the presidency of the United States, and ask yourself, “Is this the sort of fundamental change that I want for my country?”

If it’s not, then it’s time to stand up and hold the President and Congress accountable to the will of the People.

© 2009 Altnews

More reasons to dump the storm water enterprise system and take away the city’s enterprise authority.

Taxpayer8675309 wrote:

“On the re-broadcast of the 8/24/09 informal council meeting on comcast cable channel 18, aired last night, there was the city manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft speaking to Jerry Heimlicher re: “item 2,”  recommending to council that street sweeping be added to the stormwater enterprise! This way, she suggested, street sweeping can be charged to citizens directly by fee also.  Then Heimlicher agreed. He said, effectively, “we can argue [sic] that keeping streets clean, helps the stormwater situation”.

The way she described it, by adding street sweeping to the stormwater enterprise, that portion of the current budget allocated to street sweeping can be eliminated, saving the city $1m dollars in the budget! Since no tax cut was discussed, I guess it never crossed the minds of Penelope and Jerry that this tactic, again, would illegally place increased burden on tax payers, to pay for things they are already being taxed for, without voter approval! A clear violation of TABOR. 
Is it unclear to anyone why these illegal enterprises, like stormwater, are so insidious!?!

After the re-broadcast of the 8/24/09 meeting ended. The tax-payer-funded Springs TV channel was used to try to convince viewers why it doesn’t have enough tax dollars to pay for all of the things it believes it provides for by asking “did you?” questions, like “did you enjoy the clean air?” “did you sit on a park bench?” etc. In other words, Springs TVs being paid for by you for the city to advertise to you why you should give the city more of your tax dollars, or rationalizes why it will just take more fees from you.”

Taxpayer8675309 is precisely correct. This sort of cooking of the books and slithering around the constraints of TABOR is what “enterprises” were created to facilitate, and why they should be made illegal. And the use of public television to propagandize voters should also be outlawed. It is a communication channel to permit citizens to keep watch on their public servants, not a tool for government propaganda or for pandering to City Council.

In our system, taxes are exactions imposed on all citizens in a fair and equitable, and equal manner, to pay for the necessary operations of government on a collective and compulsory basis. Fees are payments for specific services that an individual may either choose or not choose to take advantage of. We must all pay taxes for highways and water systems and salaries of public employees because we all, as a community, make use of these amenities. If the public pool charges a fee however, and you don’t want to pay the fee, you don’t swim at the pool.

When government characterizes the ordinary and necessary operations of government as optional services, but does not at the same time allow the citizenry to opt out of the resulting fees, the fee is in all legal and rational respects a tax, and should be subject to public approval as provided for by TABOR. Recently, jurisdictions all over Colorado have been jumping on the “user fee” bandwagon and have been grossly distorting the definition of a “fee” as a specific tactic to evade TABOR. Unfortunately, the Colorado Supreme Court has been complicit in this fraud on the public, so it is now necessary for the People to act directly to once again force government back into it’s lawful, appointed role of serving the public.

People usually know about their Miranda rights, which the police are supposed to read to you before they question you while you’re in custody, but most people don’t really understand why Miranda rights exist. The rule exists because police coercion and physical abuse were commonplace during interrogations of suspects. So, the Supreme Court reined in the authority of the police to interrogate people in a coercive manner.

And TABOR is to elected officials what Miranda is to the police: constraint upon the improper exercise of  authority delegated by the People. It was enacted because elected officials were engaged in a pervasive pattern of fiscal shenanigans and fraud on the public.

But politicians balk at the bit, and so they consistently seek, through pettifoggery, obfuscation, lies, deceit and outright fraud, to evade both the spirit and technical requirements of TABOR. So like Miranda and the origins of TABOR, the government has abused its authority and needs to be directly constrained by the People yet again.

What I propose is that the words “or fees” be added to TABOR, both at the city and state level. These two words would do to elected officials what Miranda did to the police: put them firmly back in their place. It’s a simple, elegant change that would rein in government abuse. If they need more money, regardless of how it’s characterized or collected, they just have to ask us first. That’s the essence of TABOR.

And while we’re at it, let’s forbid all public officials or employees from making any public comments whatsoever about any citizen initiative, either for or against, while in the performance of their public duties or under color of their official authority. Public servants do not enjoy constitutional protection of personal speech when they are on the public’s dime, nor should they be permitted to trade on their official position when making private personal political statements. They have no right to object to or support a citizen initiative as public officials, and their duty is to remain silent and do as the People direct.

Therefore, I propose a citizen initiative to ban public employees and elected representatives from speaking or publishing any form of support or opposition to any citizen-lead petition or initiative. Oh, wait…that’s ALREADY what the law says. To be specific, C.R.S. 1-45-117.  Never mind…

The duty of all public officials, elected or otherwise, is to be humble and obedient to the will of the People, not to arrogate to themselves unauthorized powers, assume positions of intellectual or political superiority, or exercise unsanctioned control over the liberty and direct decisions of the People in constituting their form of society and government as they choose, for better or for worse. It is their duty to obediently serve the public, not, as Woodrow Wilson and the liberal fascists of both his day and our own believe, to place bureaucrats in positions of power over the People on the premise that the bureaucrats know better what the People need than do the People themselves.

The People may make unwise decisions, but that is their right, and they will suffer the consequences of doing so. It is not within the authority of bureaucrats to suborn or evade the clearly enunciated will of the People in the performance of their assigned duties, and when they try to do so, they forfeit the lawful authority they have been granted and become instead merely petite tyrants.

© 2009 Altnews

Colorado Springs City Councilman Tom Gallagher is predictably piqued at Douglas Bruce.

Since when are personal attacks on the character of citizens of this community by elected public servants acceptable? Don’t they remember that they work for us, and that they need to keep their yaps shut when it comes to insulting voters or questioning their right to petition the government?

Colorado Springs City Councilman Tom Gallagher wrote a guest opinion for the Gazette on September 4th. In it, Gallagher complains that Mr. Bruce’s objections to last-minute ballot title language on the initiative to do away with city enterprises are “trivial at best.” Fair enough, but Gallagher goes far beyond “set[ting] the record straight,” and flows straight into an utterly unacceptable personal attack on Mr. Bruce that has nothing whatever to do with the ballot title issue. Such deliberate insult from a public official cannot be left unremarked upon, and ought not be tolerated in a public servant under any circumstances.

If, as Gallagher claims, the change was indeed “trivial at best,” this begs the question of why the City Council would seek to amend it at the last minute? It’s pretty obvious that the City Council is opposed to the initiative, so what motivation could the Council have to amend the ballot title unless that amendment is somehow detrimental to getting it passed?

According to Bruce, who is now seeking a court order to compel the city to use the language of the petition, “They want to ask a Yes/No question without Yes/No boxes, but For/Against the Initiated Ordinance answer boxes instead. You can’t ask Yes/No and then offer For/Against choices; the charter says the petition wording is the only lawful wording. Their goal is to CONFUSE voters, as they did last year. Dozens of people told me they voted the wrong way.”

Mr. Bruce had every right to object to tampering with the ballot title language, and his rationale in this case appears to be sound. The court will end up answering the question, and the taxpayers will pay more unnecessary legal fees incurred by the Council trying to play political gamesmanship rather than simply honestly inquiring of and being obedient to the will of the people. This sort of jiggery-pokey is a commonplace tactic by bureaucrats and politicians who despise the limitations of TABOR, and don’t like the petition process any better.

But that’s not really at all relevant to Councilman Gallagher’s diatribe in the Gazette. What is relevant is that his letter comprises little more than a petulant, childish personal attack on Mr. Bruce that uses the ballot title issue as an excuse to berate the Council’s favorite enemy and whipping-boy. It’s reprehensible smear tactics and nothing more.

Councilman Gallagher is free to complain about Mr. Bruce’s “cheap theatrics” if he likes, but the bulk of his letter is composed of red herrings, straw man arguments and the logical fallacy of Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. For those unfamiliar with this logical fallacy, let me explain: Ad Hominem Tu Quoque occurs when, as in this case, Mr. Gallagher says, “While Mr. Bruce was an El Paso County Commissioner and a member of the State House of Representatives he made no substantive effort to control county or state spending, reduce county or state taxation, or impose fiscal constraints on county or state government even though he was in a position to do so. Instead Mr. Bruce chose to engage in concerted and repeated efforts to reduce the revenue available to the city of Colorado Springs.”

The fallacy occurs when Gallagher concludes that Bruce’s actions as a County Commissioner and State Representative are inconsistent with his attempts to “reduce the revenue available to the City of Colorado Springs” as a private citizen, and that therefore his argument for forcing the city to abide by both the City and State TABOR laws by petitioning to repeal the City’s enterprise system is “hypocrisy.” But it’s not hypocrisy on Bruce’s part, it’s fallacious and manipulative illogic from Gallagher.

The fact that Bruce is or is not consistent as a private citizen with his past actions as an elected representative neither impeaches Bruce’s claims that the city has exceeded its authority by creating “enterprises” as a way to evade the restrictions of TABOR, nor does it make him a hypocrite for petitioning to eliminate the City enterprises now. For one thing, as Councilman Gallagher should know, one’s position as an elected representative imposes upon one a fiduciary and moral duty to represent the citizens of the district, not to pursue personal agendas. Therefore, it would have been improper for Mr. Bruce to focus solely on tax reduction efforts while in office because his duty to the taxpayers happens to include considering the financial needs of the district and how to obtain those funds necessary to serve the best interests of the People whom he represented. Evidently Representative Bruce recognized this duty and, being an honorable man, was obedient to it. That’s hardly cause for calumny from Gallagher.

But as a private citizen, Mr. Bruce is under no such moral or fiduciary constraint and is perfectly entitled to follow his heart and his reason in lawfully petitioning his government for redress of grievances, as is explicitly provided for and protected by the First Amendment and the City Charter. Public servants on the City Council may not like Mr. Bruce’s agenda of throttling government by closing the purse strings to government excess and requiring bureaucrats and elected public servants to ask the permission of the people before imposing new taxes and fees upon them, but that is of little interest and to be expected from bureaucrats. That’s why TABOR exists in the first place. Elected representatives have proven that they cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of the public when it comes to taxation, so the public has removed that authority from them and subjected them to public oversight and permission, as is the public’s right.

Councilman Gallagher continues his vicious personal attack in saying, “Mr. Bruce chooses to portray himself as the self proclaimed advocate for and defender of the people’s right to vote. Mr. Bruce’s actions, however, are all about obstructing the people’s right to vote on issues he finds personally objectionable (i.e. revising TABOR). Mr. Bruce has repeatedly demonstrated that his respect for the will of the people extends only to those decisions that agree with his position. (i.e. His latest petitioned initiated ordinance is simply a rewrite of his previous failed legislative efforts.)”

What’s important to remember, and what Councilman Gallagher has evidently forgotten in his anger at being subordinated to the will of the People is that this isn’t just Douglas Bruce’s initiative. In fact it’s not his at all, it’s an initiative undertaken in accordance with the City Charter in which at least 20 percent of the number of people who voted in the last mayoral election decided that Douglas Bruce has the right idea. The City Council, and particularly Councilman Gallagher commonly forget this salient fact whenever they choose to pillory Mr. Bruce for his activism. And in so doing, they grossly disrespect and arrogantly dismiss the rights and opinions of the tens of thousands of citizens who signed the petitions and exercised their right to petition the government as well. Let’s hope the voters don’t forget Gallagher’s or the Council’s arrogance come election time.

Gallagher goes on to falsely claim, “The Webster’s Dictionary defines this type of behavior as hypocrisy and the practitioner of such behavior as a hypocrite.” Actually, Councilman Gallagher, Webster’s does nothing of the kind. Your failure to acknowledge the different relative positions of an elected representative, who is a servant of the public, and a private citizen, who is the master of the elected representative, indicates a degree of hypocrisy, and more seriously, an unacceptable degree of arrogance in a public servant that should be taken into account at the next election by the People.

And this statement by Councilman Gallagher is the crowning hypocrisy: “I have always encouraged, advocated for, and defended the people’s right to petition their government and their right to vote. I have never deliberately obstructed the established public processes. I have respected and complied with the decisions made of the electors of the city.”

Except, it seems when Douglas Bruce is the author and defender of the petition, in which case personal attacks and disrespect for the tens of thousands of voting citizens of Colorado Springs and their rights are the order of the day.

Now THAT is the definition of “hypocrisy,” Councilman.

© 2009 Altnews

Colorado Division of Wildlife owns up to its own inadequacy.

By Seth Richardson

Last week the Colorado Division of Wildlife finally admitted that it doesn’t have the manpower to deal with the number of dangerous bears besieging Aspen. For several years now, foraging bears in Pitkin County and elsewhere have been wandering into urban areas in search of an easy meal. Drawn by their powerfully sensitive noses to homes, cabins and urban dumpsters, bears in the Aspen area in particular have become more than Yogi-like cuties waddling about for tourists, they have become a real and present danger to humans and pets both.

Although bears are less aggressive than mountain lions, they are still dangerous predators who can easily injure or kill humans. And they do. Several recent bear attacks, including the fatal mauling of 74-year-old Donna Munson on August 7th, 2009 in Ouray prove this. There have actually been more injuries from bear attacks than from mountain lion attacks, which makes bears far more statistically dangerous than lions.

In Aspen, more than 460 calls for assistance have been made to law enforcement since July of this year for bear break-ins and other encounters, including non-fatal attacks. Maureen Hirsch of Aspen, who was attacked by a bear looking for sweets in her home, displayed a remarkable and reprehensible degree of tolerance for bad bear behavior when she blamed humans rather than bears for the claw-marks on her back, even as she was being treated by paramedics. According to the Wall Street Journal she said, “This is a people problem. It’s not a bear problem.” In response to requests from the CDOW that citizens do what they can to frighten and haze intruding bears to adversely condition them to urban areas, Hirsch’s husband said, “Why would we haze bears?” What a pair of knuckleheads. If they get eaten by a bear next time it’ll be just desserts. Then we have to kill the bear.

Why haze bears? Because bears are dangerous predators and when people fail to make every attempt to recondition them to be afraid of humans when they have the opportunity, they exacerbate the problem and perpetuate the threat to others, including children. It’s only pure luck that some child standing at a bus stop or walking downstairs to curiously investigate unusual noises hasn’t been killed by a bear…yet.

If you love bears, then do them a favor and get a shotgun and some rubber-pellet rounds and give any bear that comes within range a spanking that will hopefully persuade them to stay in the woods, where they belong. If you don’t do so, then you bear some responsibility (no pun intended) for the eventual death of that bear at the hands of someone who cares more about human safety than bear rights. Like me.

I have a simple rule when it comes to dangerous predators: I carry a handgun, and if I encounter any dangerous predator, be it a vicious dog, or a mountain lion, or a bear, and it does not immediately flee from me, or it approaches me, I make the reasonable and lawful assumption that my life is in danger and I shoot to kill and keep on shooting till the dangerous predator is dead. This policy is completely legal and morally correct, and if pressed, the CDOW will admit it, but only if pressed. The aversion the CDOW has historically displayed to telling citizens that they have an unassailable right to defend themselves against dangerous predators using lethal force is completely irrational and is a grave disservice, indeed it’s malfeasance to the public whom they serve.

They are getting better at facing facts though. At least now they are admitting that they can’t solve the problem or protect everyone from predation, so they are asking local law enforcement in Pitkin County to assist them in simply killing dangerous bears without having to wait around for a CDOW employee to show up to do it. This is a step forward for the CDOW and I compliment them on their movement towards a rational response to incursions of dangerous predators into human habitat.

Yes, I said human habitat. Sorry bears and lions, but humans have carved out habitat that you are not allowed to venture into. You’ll just have to be satisfied with the millions upon millions of acres of National Forests and wild lands that remain. But if you venture into human habitat, which is defined as any place a human happens to be or live, your life is forfeit. That’s just the way it is. Humans, like any other animal, will defend their territory and their lives against invading predators and, like any other animal, need make no apology for doing so. We don’t need to, nor should we “adapt” to living with dangerous predators in our midst.

So long as bears and lions stay in the woods, where they belong, and don’t begin to view humans or their possessions as potential food sources, we’ll all get along fine. But there are plenty of bears out there, and the species isn’t going to suffer in the least if Joe Average Citizen shoots a dangerous bear from time to time, particularly the ones who have made themselves at home in human habitat. The same rationale applies to mountain lions. The fact with lions is that if you see a mountain lion, and it’s close enough for you to draw a handgun and shoot it, you were factually in grave danger of being eaten, and that’s all the justification that you need to defend yourself.

So, Joe, if a bear breaks into your home, you can spank him with rubber pellet or bean-bag rounds if you want (one rubber round backed up by two or three or more #4 or OO buckshot is my preferred loading), or you can just shoot him dead (and don’t forget to ask the DOW for the meat, which is incredibly tasty when prepared properly) and do your neighbors and their children and pets a big favor.

But if you fail to do anything, and indeed refuse to do anything, like the nitwit knuckleheads in Aspen, you are endangering others through your negligence and you are not doing the bears any favors either.

So, if you live in bear country, prepare yourself to take a course of action appropriate to the situation you might face, and then take action when the opportunity arises. Doing anything else, or nothing at all, is immoral and an abrogation of your duty to society.

© 2009 Altnews