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The other night, a friend called from the Front Range.
Did you notice anything about the primary, Ed?
she
asked.
The main thing I noticed about the primary was that it came when I was busy with other matters, like remodeling a rental house and promoting a book, and this pre-occupation with mere personal pecuniary matters regretfully prevented me from exercising all the duties of an informed citizen.
This explanation did not dissuade the caller. You
notice how they all talked about abortion, highways and
education, but skirted the main issue?
I pressed to learn the main issue.
What is it that Colorado people talk about in the
cafe every morning, or at the post office when they're
getting their mail?
Aside from gossip about the sex lives of public officials, the main topic is growth, I told her.
Precisely,
she said, and has any candidate
even mentioned it?
I pointed out that Colorado was a politically competitive state as recently as 1992, but we've since imported hundreds of thousands of white suburban Texans and Californians who are mostly Republicans.
This gives the GOP a big edge, and so you can't really
expect a conservative
candidate to actually want to
conserve
anything about Colorado -- the more sprawl
in Jefferson County, the more ranchettes in Douglas County,
the more development in El Paso County, the more those
alleged conservatives profit politically.
You're not going to hear anything from Colorado
Republicans about growth, except maybe about how we need to
build more highways to accommodate this wonderful expansion
of opportunities,
I said.
But what about the Colorado Democrats?
she asked.
Aren't they supposed to care about what we care
about?
They've all been busy trying to attract the national convention, I observed, adding the hope that we might hear from them once that settles down.
But hope is a fragile thing, and so I offer, in a spirit of public service, the following speech for any candidate of any party who wants to speak honestly about growth.
Fellow Coloradans, I share your concerns about growth
and how it is affecting the quality of life that we all
cherish.
However, that's about all I can do, now or if I
should gain office this November. Let us candidly address
what government can do, no matter who is or is not in
office.
For one thing, we have to respect private property
rights -- or certain rights, anyway. If we find someone
cultivating marijuana for his own use, he's a threat to
society and we'll confiscate his home and car after
shooting his dog.
But if he wants to build a shopping mall that will
congest our traffic and pollute our air while putting our
ma-and-pa shops out of business, we have to allow him to do
this. If we don't, he'll take us to court under the
'takings' clause, and since his lawyers get paid more than
ours, guess who wins.
Some studies have shown that every new resident costs
existing residents about $7,000. This suggests that since
we seem forced to subsidize growth, we should have a say in
how we spend our money, say by requiring narrow streets,
small lots, alleys, broad sidewalks, neighborhood
commercial zones, etc. These may appear to be decisions
that a local government might properly make.
But if we tried that, we will be accused of 'social
engineering,' even though the usual method of
californication -- freeway offramp commercial strips, broad
streets, no sidewalks, huge lots -- is also a form of
'social engineering,' even if they call it 'natural forces
of the free market.'
The terms of the debate have already been defined, my
friends, and until we change that, we will lose.
Further, if I were to attempt to stop the
subsidization of this madness, perhaps by making the
state's tax structure fair by eliminating enterprise zones,
I would be accused of raising taxes, and my political
career would end about 20 seconds later.
And finally, throughout the course of American
history, the United States government has always sided with
the invaders who want to destroy your communities and their
social fabric, not with the protectors -- whether they be
cohab Mormons or indigenous Utes, the feds have always
supported disruption, not protection.
So I must conclude, regretfully, that there isn't
really a damn thing that I or any other Colorado politician
can do about this invasion that threatens you and all that
you cherish.
I suppose you could move, but then you'd be somebody
else's growth problem.
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