Mather Byles' fear has come true.
Quick: Without looking anything up, name your city councilmen or county commissioners.
Remember, they can stifle business every bit as effectively as anybody in your state capital or in Washington, D.C.
For all the Two Minutes' Hate over the economy directed at the Dear Reader by the Tea Party crowd, he has a lot less influence over your local economy than do various licensing bureaus and zoning boards. And you have a lot less influence over him.
(H/T to Unc.)
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Which is why some Tea Party groups are pounding local stuff too.
Here's a couple examples from a quick Insty searth.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/116012/
Protesting a proposal for a “Daytime Curfew”.
Quite right Tam, Provo City try what Congress can't (yet) dare dream of.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/10/tea-party-continues-to-grow/
Some general stuff
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=15241030
And School Board Elections in Utah.
That's another question for you parents out there. Do you know who is on your school board?
WV: Undecon, Conservative Underwear.
Even if you can name them, can they name you?
Tam, very true. We seem to forget that local politicians have more direct control of our every day lives.
BTW, I'm new to the blogging world. if it's OK I want to link you on mine. Thanks.
Duke.
Duke,
It's a free internets (mostly); you can link to whomever you'd like. :)
Thanks!
Local elections and statewide primaries represent the biggest bang for your activist buck. It doesn't take but a few minutes of effort every month to make yourself known to your local reps.
I couldn't do that without a crib sheet. I'll admit that many years ago I did the disgusted with and and didn't vote thing, but that didn't last. I've voted straight ticket at times, and I've also voted for folks I liked that didn't have a prayer of winning. I've written politicians and received nice perfunctory letters in return.
Maybe I am too pessimistic but I tend to fall in to the we aren't voting our way out camp. That doesn't mean I am not going to give it a shot.
Dave_H,
I don't see any way we're voting our way out of this, either, but I figure I may as well flap my arms on the way down. It gives me something to do and, what the heck, maybe I'll fly.
Met mine at a cookout/kickoff during Hurricane Irene last Saturday.
Our city/county is ranked #13 for job growth nationwide. Doing pretty good with him.
wv: fabil - what Thursdays jobs speech will sound like.
"I figure I may as well flap my arms on the way down. It gives me something to do and, what the heck, maybe I'll fly."
I'm with you there. In any case, I reserve the right to piss and moan in addition to the other things I do on the subject, even if it sometimes makes me sound like a guy in a bunker surrounded by spam cans of ammo and mre's. If you can't vent on the internet then what the hell is it good for? Surely it has to be a venue for things besides porn, gambling and Ebay.
Vote. Try to be informed/involved, if only peripherally.
It may cause some difficulties. I had an argument with my parents about a man running for office because they remembered him from High School thirty years earlier as "a good guy" while I remembered him as the postal worker who deliberately held mail for a week or more to keep an opponent from knowing about what was going on.
I live in a county that surrounds a small city of about 50,000 people.
The county judges seem to work at just making sure the county services run fairly efficiently.
The city is always trying to “improve the living conditions of its inhabitants” by passing new ordinances and regulations. They include no smoking laws, selling fireworks, not selling fireworks, how bright your sign can be, condemning old buildings to build a minor league stadium and performing arts center and stopping other folks from tearing down the their own old buildings.
If you live in the city your tax rate is twice as high as the county rate.
City officials are perplexed when they try and annex county property and the residences vote them down by huge margins.
Gerry
The swarthy gentleman illustrated in the picture they chose *looks* a loot like one of the many illegal aliens we have around here, selling boxes of oranges and what-not on street-corners. He's got a bicycle (no CA driver's license, he's not buying no expensive gasoline) and it's a nice one... is that who they mean when they count "Americans?"
As far as the uncontrollable idiots in Sacramento (and San Francisco and LA) goes, we have them passing a regulatory bill that would affect Babysitters over 18, yet they are relentless and unstoppable based on Machine Politics. For years and years they have bankrupted their own Party by filling their ranks with unserious, unchallenged, and unaccomplished intellectual lightweights for whom ideology has trumped rationality and skill, so the California Legislature (mainly Democrats but also many hair-spray Republicans) have fill their ranks with simple-minded bumpersticker ideologues who win the Party acceptance-stamp. I don't see much light at the end of the tunnel.
AAMOF I can name several of the commies on the Martin Luther King, Jr., County Council. They might not like what I can them, though. (Re-naming the county with no voter input is typical. And expensive.)
I can't think of names members of the city council off the top of my head, but we just moved here. (I do know the mayor's name, what with he being an enthusiastic supporter of amateur radio...)
Drang
always remember why they renamed the county. In the local school black kids would be suspended for fighting and white kids wouldn't be for the same fight. In other words do something that looks nice instead of addressing the real problem. Ya, the parents of the suspended kids were not impressed.
Tom O'B
Most of you do have watchdogs looking out for you [or they should. It's called a Grand Jury.
I am a member on our countys and we have our eyes open and listen well.
Mostly conservative with a couple other gunnies too.
Oak City's having a genuine apoplexlypse.
http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/raleigh-food-trucks-continued/
Here in NH if you have a small enough town, like I live in, they are the town selectmen and several other unsavory boards. I can't name them off the top of my head, but every time I go to the town meeting they are sitting on the other side of the table. I usually write down the names and which was an Ahole and which knew what they were speaking of. Crib sheets I guess. Just so I know who to vote against in the next election.
Our town is only ~8300 people so it stays quite personal. Probably the reason why there were blank entries on the ballot the last go around. I thought of running, but a lot of my neighbors seem to only want those that will piss away money building ball fields for the kids. I know exactly what you mean by control being more local.
Sadly I had to look them up, still knowing most of my generation can't even find them out or know about them I think I'm still ahead of the game.
Dammit, Ma'am, you punched me good and hard right up under the breastbone, and I had it coming, too!
I do know that our local Mayor belongs to (spit!) MAIG.
It's a lot easier to remember the names of the [relatively] honest ones.
That list is much shorter.
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