Power must never be trusted without a check.
John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, Feb. 2, 1816
Be not intimidated....nor suffer yourself to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.
John Adams
Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
John Adams




The Bitty Blog With the Vast Vision
"I learned by experience that democracy lives on the exercise and functioning of democracy. As a child learns and grows by doing, a people learn democracy by acting in democratic ways. I knew from the history of other countries that even the best democratic constitutions did not prevent dictatorships unless the people were trained in democracy and held themsevles etermally vigilant and ready to oppose all infringements on liberty."
Harry Weinberger, March 1919

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain

"If you don't have this freedom of the press, then all these little fellows are weaseling around and doing their monkey business and they never get caught.
Harold R. Medina

Action from principle, - the perception and the performance of right, - changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with any thing which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; aye, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.
Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Let the government handle it?

I've always been astounded by peoples' willingness to turn their problems over to government departments or agencies. After watching situations disintegrate even further after government departments and agencies get involved in a bad situation, people still seem to think that contacting these folks will help to resolve their problems.

Case in point in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, the paper relates the story of the people of Camden still living with the ugliest house in Camden. The state has taken over running Camden. As the Philadelphia Inquirer relates it, a law was passed in 2002 - that would be 8 years ago now - that the state of New Jersey would take over running Camden and that dangerous homes would be destroyed. These dangerous houses still stand, as does the ugliest house in Camden, because funding was not made available by the state until recently. Even with $500,000.00 available now, the house still stands.

What made the legislators, elected by the people of Camden, think it was in the best interest of their constituency to delve more deeply into governmental bureaucracy as a solution to the decimation of their city by poverty, crime, and hopelessness? Wouldn't it make sense that decreasing the amount of bureaucracy and enabling the people suffering the effects of the poverty, crime, and hopelessness to have an increased level of involvement and control would be a more fruitful route to turning around the decay of Camden? With the amount of time and energy invested by citizens in attempting to wander through the quagmire of red tape to get dangerous homes destroyed, their commitment to the project at hand shouldn't be questioned. The citizens are the people who would directly benefit from a quick solution. How about putting the power and control back in the hands of a committee of the people with the most to gain, the citizens? Or is there more to be gained by those involved in the massive machine that is the state?
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