Comments on: Planning ahead: Obama and the suburbs

By: Breakfast Links | Points and Figures

Breakfast Links | Points and Figures — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 09:58:09 +0000

[…] and many of his accolytes want to abolish the suburbs. Think I am joking. Seriously, there are academics at Ivy League schools that do studies on that […]

By: hutch1200

hutch1200 — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 04:51:12 +0000

This is my 1st ever hearing of this. Scranton, Pa is re-instituting a commuter tax. This will make farmers like me, who saw lands turn into suburbia revert back? Since people fled high taxes, why leave I guess?
Regional police, fire etc..sounded like good conservative ideas. The economy of scale. Buy police cars buy the dozen, not 1 or 2 per borough every few years. No more speedtrap villages. No more corrupt magistrates.
So this is like the school bussing I barely remember in ’70s Boston..only HUGER?
Now I’m scared. As a Man, father, parental caregiver… that is hard for me to admit. SHIT!

By: logprof

logprof — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 01:12:35 +0000

Artfldgr Says:
August 2nd, 2012 at 8:40 pm

“(the Vatican is the only country with a birth rate of zero. its also the only country that is inside another country… (i think))”

–Swaziland. Monaco (arguably). Then there is San Marino, completely enclosed by the very same country Vatican City is.

By: waltj

waltj — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 17:33:36 +0000

Foxmarks: good luck in your city council race. Not surprisingly as a regular on this site, I’m all for limited government individualism. But you’re right, the Greens are very much interested in dictating to people how they should run their lives to (in their view) save Mother Gaia. My experience with US Greenies is limited, but I saw their Australian counterparts at close range when I lived Down Under, and the dictatorial impulse is strong in them. And, in reality, they don’t give a rat’s ass about the poor, no matter how much they may say they do.

By: foxmarks

foxmarks — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 17:16:47 +0000

waltj: Half of the Green Party’s 10 Key Values fit pretty well with limited government individualism. I plan to stress that half when I run for my City Council next year.

Of course, the actual Green platform aims to support those values in autocratic, individuality-crushing ways. It’s another variant of “rich peoples’ leftism”, that claims to care about the poor and the earth, but in meatspace leads to suffering and exploitation.

By: SharonW

SharonW — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:47:28 +0000

I manage an office that designs and builds for high-end residential construction in Los Angeles. Ten years ago I could put together a bill for our clients that included reimbursements for permits in about 40 minutes. In the last 3 years, it takes me 10 hours per bill, due to the absolute confusion of succession and the absurd number now required. I’m convinced that if required to do so, the employees at B & S would not be able to account for the costs, etc. The supervisors have sat down with the city officials (building & safety & fire, etc) and no one can fully explain the requirements or wants to take responsibility for a final verdict. One project in Malibu after a year of drawings, meetings and permit payments almost didn’t get built (which would have meant no income for our office and the subcontractors we hire) because of a requirement from the fire department about the owners having to install a fire hydrant due to a dimension from their property (would have cost the client a minimum of $250,000). At our cost we hired a specialist to look into it and it turns out that the city official who worked on the drawing didn’t actually go out and measure, just put an errant figure in. Actual figure…problem solved, the project went forth. Last year a client remodeled their kitchen in Beverly Hills, $4,000 for permits. The wheels are off the cart!!!

By: Kurt

Kurt — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:57:13 +0000

Waltj: I don’t normally go so far as to describe what the “sustainability” crowd wants as a “return to the Bronze Age,” instead, I say that they want us all to emulate the lifestyle of Chinese peasants of 100 years ago–which may essentially be the same thing.

By: Armchair pessimist

Armchair pessimist — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 12:13:21 +0000

What GP said above. Stalin’s forced collectivization.

By: waltj

waltj — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 05:10:23 +0000

Foremost, the Green Party stands for community-based economics and regional trade. ….Through foreign trade, they can then export that which is extra…

So what the Greens are essentially advocating is a return to a Bronze Age agricultural community that engages in subsistence farming and takes any crops that are left over to the market or the port to barter for what they don’t have. I wonder how many of them actually comprehend what all that would entail. It’s like Thoreau, who, when living in the “wilderness” of Walden Pond, still sent his clothes out to be laundered. Living in the wild is great when you have civilization to fall back on. Otherwise, not so much.

By: foxmarks

foxmarks — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 02:53:25 +0000

My Progressive city is well down the slope to regionalism. Discussions of moving more power out of municipalities and into our (unelected) regional board are not uncommon.

This ties into one of my major impressions of Chickenstock. Out next civil war is getting ever closer. Gay rights are currently on the front lines, but the deeper question(s) are about the same as those in our last Civil War.

Under what conditions can men consent to be governed? Is there an inherent right to secede from any gov’t determined to be injust?

Lincoln was correct in concluding that secession for the purpose of continuing slavery was immoral. But his solution set the stage for the inescapable Massive Administrative State.

The attendees of Chickenstock are parallel to secessionists. And the regionalists will decide that such self-determination is immoral and must be crushed.