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November 3, 2009
Some Perspective
Yesterday was election day, and I am grateful for that. It's a responsibility I take very seriously.
Unfortunately in my state there is an election system for dummies. You can't go to a polling place to vote; they've done away with it, and now mail you your ballots whether you like it or not. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Man and I had to go to a polling place set up for disabled people, because our ballots got wet in the mail and the envelopes are fused shut. So much for Washington states' absurd new voting process. It's obviously fraught with technical pitfalls, and with the shenanigans in the last two gubernatorial elections, I'm not confident in its security. Poll workers were found with stacks of ballots in their cars, and in 2004, Dino Rossi was leading until after a spate of recounts (including an extra one that should have been prohibited by law), after which Christine Gregoire was ahead and Dino caved. Yesterday at Bellevue City Hall it was almost comical; since we brought all our voting accoutrements including the ruined ballot envelopes, they said we could use them or do electronic. I love computers but love the tradition of colouring in a circle even more, so I opted for the paper ballot. Their solution to the ruined envelopes? Slice them open with a scissor, put the ballot in and sign a piece of tape and put it over the slit.
The precedent for recounts and bending of election rules has a long ignoble life, with one of he most egregious in recent memory being the replacement of of Bob 'The Torch' Toricelli with Frank Lautenberg in the 1994 New Jersey Senate race. After winning the Democrat primary, Torricelli was indicted on corruption charges, and against New Jersey law, Lautenberg was appointed to replace Toricelli on the ticket. The GOP complained, citing rules that prohibited such a change so late in the game. The NJ Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Dems, saying that it was an unfair advantage to the Republican, Doug Forrester. To that I say, well then, perhaps The Torch should have kept his nose clean, and when the scandal was brewing, perhaps the Democrats should have encouraged him to drop out of the primaries. The law also never cited exceptions to it, but one was created out of whole cloth anyway. Needless to say, Lautenberg won. Keep in mind how an alleged scandal around Ted Stevens (R), the former Alaska senator, cost him HIS job, but after the election and the charges were dropped, no one cared to see how a unsubstantiated charge of misconduct had given an unfair advantage to his opponent. It's called stacking the deck, and brings me back to New Jersey.
I grew up in Jersey City, NJ, when it was still a truly incredible place, and I stayed there until shortly after my 18th birthday. I spent my entire life in a little house in a good section of the city, on a street filled with families from various ethnic backgrounds (Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, Irish, Indian/Hindu, Persian, etc). My best friends had names like Meetra, Christy, Carmina, and Maria, and were Hispanic, Persian, black. New York was two hops away; the first a short bus ride to Journal Square from the stop around the corner, the second the PATH train to WTC (World Trade Centre), or Christopher Street. Another train could take you all the way uptown to the museums, and my schools frequently had field trips to them. On the whole, I had a great childhood.
The world, however, changes, as much as we might wish otherwise on occasion. As I became older and inevitably took after school jobs, it was hard to not be aware of the gradual change in the city. Crime was up, it became more crowded. The refuse and vandalism you were accustomed to seeing on the periphery of your 'good' neighbourhood started encroaching into it. Houses that had been one family now housed two, in cramped quarters. Trees, like the lovely sycamores that dotted the street and proffered welcome shade during the summer began to disappear, and today, on my once tree lined street, they are few and far between, with 'kerb cuts' for carports replacing them.
Friends of mine probably wonder how I could possibly be a Republican. I have my flaws, but I don't cheat or steal, do my best to be honest and am very loyal; I love animals and I donate to charities and am sentimental to a fault. How can I possibly be one of those hard edged, greedy and thoughtless Republicans? Aside from the fact that those stereotypes are a mischaracterisation of what Repulicanism stands for, there were two great influences in my life that have convinced me there is no other way to be. One is my father, and the other is New Jersey.
In other blogs, I've touched on my father's experiences; his life under totalitarianism, friends dying or being led off to jails as dissidents, his time in a fascist labour camp, his fear of being detained that kept him from ever seeing his young sister again, or visiting Ukraine when his parents died. He felt that America, with its elections and focus on rights of the individual, (including the Second Amendment, which he said was key) was the bulwark that could prevent my brother and I from seeing the horrors he saw in Communist Ukraine. I know none of my liberal friends like to hear this, or care what my father saw or believe it even, but the philosophy behind socialism and communism is evil, and I know this firsthand, in my bones. I saw how it affected my father.
I have seen the encroachment of liberalism as it marches towards communism by confiscation of property in New Jersey. The Democrat stranglehold on New Jersey has only become stronger over the decades, and the conditions have become worse, with corruption endemic and so commonplace as to be expected. Years after my father died, my mother, a poll watcher at the time, saw his name in the voting books with a signature next to it. She was told to 'drop it', when asked about it. Recently a bunch of Jersey City political leaders were arrested in a sting; they have ties to an organ black-market ring in New York. Anyone who knows anything about the conservation and rebuilding efforts on the Jersey City waterfront will tell you of back room deals that benefit developers and politicians but not the people. There have been a few Republican governors over the past 30 years or so- Tom Kean and Christie Todd-Whitman notably - but the local politicians are Democrats, Senators are invariably Democrats and Democrats are the rule in NJ politics, with Republicans being the exception.
In a state that has about 1/4 the land mass of Pennsylvania and 4 million fewer in population, New Jersey spends 4 BILLION more on government infrastructure than Pennsylvania. It is one of the most heavily taxed states, yet it is in shambles. The roads here in Washington state are far better, and Tonnelle Avenue, once a slightly dirty main thoroughfare, has decades of accumulated trash lining its sides. Shops that were occupied when I was a child are in disrepair, or empty, for rent. The Pulaski Skyway is rusting and the US1-9 exchange in Jersey City has crumbling concrete barriers. Buildings are dilapidated, pieces of land that were razed (sometimes destroying an historic building like the Lorillard Tobacco factory), aren't developed and sit empty, with grass growing up between the pieces of rubble that are the only reminder that a structure once inhabited the space.
I don;t need to hear about California and its problems of overspending and high taxes; I've seen it and I've lived in it, in New Jersey. The crowding of neighbourhoods is due to the high property taxes; the neighbour next to my old house converted a garage shed next to a carport into an apartment (illegally). What we might pay in property taxes here for a $700,000 house, you pay for a $300,000 house in Jersey City.
Moving towards a more liberal environment, where government ostensibly supplies more services just creates a power class. Politicians are the new aristocracy in such an environment. Because government controls more and more, they fear the ire of their constituents less and less. Controlling someone's income through confiscatory taxes is denying them their liberty and tipping the balance in government (and the politicians) favour, and this is exactly what America is NOT supposed to be all about. Our productivity should be the fuel for our life, not fodder for government spending.
Now Chris Christie is New Jersey's next governor and I hope things change. Corzine raised taxes last year (during an economic downturn), and Christie has pledged to repeal them and go to work finding out how NJ can spend so much money with little to show for it. New York City - which also has a high tax rate - and New York state are looking at ways to bridge budget shortfalls. Paterson has suggested more taxes on so called 'wealthy individuals'. Look for people to migrate to New Jersey if Christie keeps his promise and New York politicians keep theirs.
I guess it comes down to this; I don't want to deny anyone the right to enjoy their life the way they want to. Buy your nice time share, send your kid to summer camp, buy a boat, retire early, start a business; I don't care. But don't tell me how to spend my money, or that I should prioritize some government programme or initiative over my family and my dreams. If something is important to you, donate your time and money to it, but don't commit my resources and life; you have a right to neither. Liberals are quick to point to the failure of the war on drugs (and to a degree I agree with that sentiment), but they refuse to see that the so called war on poverty, which we have spent far more on, has done little to 'cure' poverty. I heard Rudy Guiliani say something profound when he gave a talk locally and I'll paraphrase. He said he didn't consider charity to be money you throw at someone without an idea of how they will get our of their situation. It is easy for us to throw money at the 'war on poverty' and think that's enough. Money alone doesn't solve problems. How many more decades or mismanaged government social programmes will it take? The only real cure for poverty is opportunity, but it requires you to take its hand when it is offered; no one can do that for you. A government that does everything for you will only guarantee you live as well as it thinks you should live, and to me, that's not very good at all. That is why free enterprise, free markets and a classic Republican mindset, in the tradition of libertarians like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, is the only road for me.
Good luck, New Jersey. You're in better hands now.
Posted by hanyap at November 3, 2009 8:35 AM