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This was going to be about Dan Kimmis's keynote speech Wednesday in Cañon City at the second annual Upper Arkansas Watershed Forum.
Kimmis, former mayor of Missoula, Mont., has written a
thoughtful book: Community and the Politics of
Place.
It belongs on the reading list of everyone who's ever fretted about the homogenization of America -- that is, why we can find a Wal-Mart, McDonald's or USA Today more easily than a good hardware store, fresh produce or local thought?
Kimmis argues that this is the direct result of decisions made 200 years ago when the Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, argued about how to organize their new nation.
Jefferson advocated small government, especially at the federal level. He wanted an agrarian commonwealth of freeholder farmers. It might not be wealthy, but its people would be secure because their needs were limited and they could themselves produce almost everything they needed.
Hamilton envisioned a different America, with a strong central government that advanced the interests of manufacturers by insuring that their internal market was as large as possible, which meant eliminating local and state regulations which might interfere with commerce.
Kimmis pulls this old argument from history, applies it to daily life in Montana, and shows that it's very much alive today.
For instance, Montana once set a minimum price for milk. The argument against is simple -- milk prices stay high, which serves neither a woman trying to feed children on a low income nor the big milk producer, whose economies of scale produce no competitive benefit in the marketplace.
The argument for? The citizens of Montana might decide that it is in their long-term best interest to have many small dairy farms dispersed throughout the state, and further, they want to insure that the money spent on dairy products goes to people close to home.
But under the U.S. Constitution, a deeply federalist
document,
the citizens of Montana really can't make
that decision about their communities. The interstate
commerce clause of the Constitution, along with the equal
protection provisions, has insured that if the Amalgamated
Milk Products Corp. of Minneapolis wants to run every dairy
and dairy farmer in Montana out of business, there's not
much Montanans can legally do about it.
His analysis extends much further, with the wonderful
observation that in a small town, one resident's pickup
might sport PRO-LIFE
on its bumper sticker, and
other's PRO-CHOICE.
They might argue vehemently in
town. But if Pro-Choice slides into a ditch on the way home
and Pro-Life chances by, Pro-Life will stop and pull
Pro-Choice out.
That's the nature of community (or at least it should
be), and it makes you realize that even if we hear a lot
these days about traditional values
and
functioning communities
and the like, the people who
run this country really don't want functioning
communities.
I'm glad I live in a place where, if a neighbor pulls a
neighbor's pickup out of the ditch, they shake hands, the
pullee owes the puller a favor to be paid back someday (or
paid forward
-- that is, you repay the favor of
being pulled out by pulling out the next person you see in
need), and they go on down the road.
But I sometimes venture into Mainstream America, a very different land. The pickup in the ditch represents an opportunity to enhance the gross national product by at least the $75 that a tow truck would charge.
Suppose something went wrong -- say a chain snapped, and the pulled pickup rolled on down the bank? Who's responsible? Who's liable? What's the insurance company going to say?
And what if the pickup in the ditch belongs to a stranger? A serial murderer, perhaps, taking advantage of helpful folks. Or even worse, someone who might file a lawsuit if his bumper gets dented in the process of getting him back on the road.
Throughout history, communities have been able to decide that their courts will not hear claims against Good Samaritans. Or that their goods should come from local suppliers. Or that if children want to sled down a certain hill, they can do so at their own risk.
But with the federal court system, a community can't do these things in modern America. Most Americans live in cities and suburbs where their neighbors are strangers, this is a democracy, and the majority standards thus apply uniformly and nationally -- to the benefit of tow-truck operators, national corporations, attorneys and other campaign contributors.
So, what did Kimmis say in Cañon City last week? Alas, we had a foot of snow on the ground Wednesday morning and more falling. The roads were slick and visibility poor.
Maybe somebody would have pulled me out if I'd slid off, but every mile toward Cañon City is a mile closer to Mainstream America where you're lucky if a passing BMW driver uses his cellular phone to call the state patrol.
Someday, I'll get to hear Kimmis, and besides, there aren't many better ways to spend a day than sitting at home with a good book while the snow piles up outside.
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