Michael Atherton wrote: > Encouraging broad neighborhood support and receiving it are two > different things, as McKenzie pointed out. Government by those > who show up is not representative democracy. I want tax dollar > decisions made by the people I elect, not a group civil servant > wantabes who think they are God's gift to volunteerism (Just > speaking from local experience. I am sure there were some > well informed, well meaning, ethical, and intelligent individuals > involved in the NRP, I just haven't meet them yet.)
Rereading this, I think it may be a little harsh. I have met a few individuals involved in the NRP that were well informed, well meaning, and intelligent; such as Cam Gordon and Paul Zerby. However, my ethical principles hold that one cannot and should not remain silent in the face of injustice. Thus, I still fault Mr. Gordon and Mr. Zerby not calling for a fair and just resolution at the time of our conflict. That is, all we were requesting was that the city verify that the level of support claimed by our neighborhood association be verified (and we proposed a means of doing so that would have been inexpensive and easy to carry out). Mr. Zerby has admitted to me that in retrospect this might have been the best course of action, but hindsight requires far less courage than standing up to do the right thing when the stakes are much higher. WizardMarks wrote: > Among those who showed up in my neighborhood, all the qualities listed > above were present. So were the qualities that make people want to pull > out their hair like classism, racism, sexism, and all the other > careless, heartless, anti-social behavior that flesh is heir to. I have > developed a theorem in addition to that which says that each > neighborhood is assigned by cosmic forces (choose the one you're most > accustomed to here) to contend with two genuine nut cases who are there > to act out their personal pain and suffering at public functions. So the > guy the neighborhood has nicknamed "the weasel" will be there, and the > narcissist will be there expecting everyone to kow-tow to his/her > personal notions, the hippy-dippy wonder bunny who has fried a few too > many brain cells will be there, as will the one with the permanent kink > in his/her colon, the burr under his/her saddle, the dumber than a > bucket of hair person, etc. If you leave it to your public officials > whom the few who vote elected, you get the same mix. Life, what a pain > Yes, unfortunately in a democratic country one does not get to tailor the populace. The Germans showed us the disastrous results when a government attempts to. In a free society you have to take the fringe with the norm, because the fringe may sometimes be right and the norm wrong: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aamhtml/aamsp.html http://www.momomedia.com/CLPEF/chrono.html Michael Atherton Prospect Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
