Liberty559

Bass Pro Shops is a $1.5-billion company. That means that they have very smart people running the business. My guess is that someone in the higher levels of the company has heard of Fresno, California and, perhaps, even knows of its relative size and location in comparison to other California and western cities. Someone at Bass Pro may even know something about the economics of the area and its suitability for a Bass Pro Shop. So why did the Fresno City Council need to come dangerously close to violating the Brown act in order to lobby Bass Pro? And why did Bass Pro entertain such lobbying when it's going to base its decisions on financial considerations, and not how hospitably and/or desperately the councilmembers approach them?

The Fresno Bee reports that Councilmember Jerry Duncan and Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Marlene Murphey said that the reportage of the council's wooing of Bass Pro may clue in other cities to do the same thing (as if reportage of what government officials, especially elected ones, are doing is a bad thing). Guys, the cat is out of the bag. Take a gander at this article from Oklahoma City. It appears that Bass Pro's modus operandi is to get cities to fight over each other to get the best package of tax cuts (a good thing because they keep their own money) and tax subsidies (a bad thing because they get their hands on OUR money). The $6 million Macon GA deal reported in the Bee is just peanuts! The article also cites some of the failures of Bass Pro deals in other cities.

Bass Pro would probably have found its own way to Fresno like most of the other commonly seen big-boxes. But, of course, Bass Pro wants to use other people's money to pay for the store if they can get away with it, and the council does not want Bass Pro to end up in River Park or Clovis (who had their own dog and pony show in Lost Taxes ... er ... Las Vegas). They want Bass Pro to be the crown jewel of its efforts at redevelopment of downtown Fresno south of that other crown jewel that has been so successful in enriching downtown businesses, Grizzlies Stadium (I really do need that audio laugh tract on this blog). It is a disservice to us as consumers and, more importantly, constituents that our elected public officials would work to force a private business into a position where the business cannot offer its customers the best deal possible.

There's hope, however, on the horizon as far as redevelopment reform is concerned. It is commonly known that the federal government owns obscenely huge chunks of most western states. But what about city government ownership of large chunks of land within a city's limits? This California Supreme Court case involving San Jose may bring about unprecedented reform of redevelopment activities.

We at the LPFC understand and share the desire to raise the economic profiles of indigent citizens and blighted areas. We are frustrated, though, that despite the overwhelming evidence of the power of free market principles and the numerous failures of governmental activities, especially "redevelopment", our public officials in Fresno County continue ad nauseum to turn to economically coercive policies rather than economically consensual policies. Our only choice as concerned citizens is to continue to bring to the public's attention the best information and reasoning available for libertarian reforms in this geographically wonderful valley.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously two days ago to draft an ordinance to partially ban wood-burning fireplaces in new homes in unincorporated Fresno County. They are additionally urging the other incorporated cities of the county to follow the trail they and the Fresno City Council have blazed with fireplace bans. That blaze will cause far more pollution than the fireplace bans will eliminate.

When the Fresno City Council passed its ban over two years ago, the LPFC issued a press release condemning the ban. They, like the Fresno Bee editors, see such a ban as leadership on the critical air pollution issue. Unfortunately, leadership that targets innocent people is failed leadership. Polluters should pay for pollution problems.

Besides, the wood-burning pollution local governments are reacting to is a small part of a problem that is being solved by technology. Research done by the Reason Public Policy Institute shows that particulate matter, the primary pollutant of fireplaces, has been falling consistently in all parts of the San Joaquin Valley since 1985. Furthermore, Dr. Adrian Moore of the institute says that there is no correlation between asthma incidence and air pollution levels. Many California cities and counties with increasing asthma incidences have declining particulate matter and/or ozone levels. He adds that a small percentage of older cars cause a majority of the vehicular air pollution, and that the air is being cleaned as these oldest cars are gradually being taken off the valley's roadways.

Newer technologies are also being made available for fireplaces. Additionally, greater daily air quality alertness through the media (including the Bee; thanks) makes for more efficient and effective voluntary compliance.

The fireplace bans are overkill. Enacting policies that punish innocent people is more dangerous to the valley than the present-day levels of air pollution.

So far, my research has not found many blogs about Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley. I don't mind being a near monopoly, but (hopefully) as a service to my neighbors who may be interested in blogging in the future, I strongly suggest visiting this Mudville Gazette post. It has been enormously helpful to me in getting Liberty559 started. Plus the blog itself is pretty interesting. I hope to have one as popular and as well-done some day. Thank you, Greyhawk.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Man, I hate to keep picking on the editors of the Fresno Bee, but like Art Linkletter's kids in the '50s and '60s, they say the darndest things.

Today, the editors say that California Supreme Court Associate Justice Janice Rogers Brown is unfit for the U.S. Court of Appeals because of her "19th century economic theories". The theories they abhor are those that move Judge Rogers Brown to be, as the Bee characterizes, "willing to use judicial power to reverse government's role in the economic life of the nation." Sounds like my kind of gal.

The judge has the belief in the inverse proportionality between economic health and government intervention, which is as close a theory to fact as Newton's law. The Bee seems to believe more fervently in another set of 19th century economic theories that promote government intervention. So, it seems that their beef is not so much with the age of the theory.

The Bee editors also seem to believe that the Constitution, born in the 18th century, must be interpreted in a way that embraces the 21st century. Not Newton's nor Ohm's nor Boyle's nor any other scientific law is going to change because of the millenium celebration. The economic laws of supply and demand do not change because we are more modern. The "problems of the 21st century" are not going to be solved any more effectively by violating core economic principles that are ageless.

Moreover, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, also adopted in the 18th century, is still there. The federal government has no authority to act unless the Constitution explicitly says it can. The Amendment has not changed, so why should our judicial treatment of it change?

While I don't think that anti-Christian bigotry is as prevalent as the judge does, her clearly libertarian outlook in economic matters and police authority (the latter supported by the Bee editors rightfully) makes her not only qualified for the DC Circuit Appeals Court, but the most qualified jurist for a Supreme Court nomination in decades. As a fellow African-American, early-seventies, Sacramento high school graduate, I am proud of her and hope she is able to go the distance.

Meanwhile, Ray Appleton and the conservative audience on KMJ is bemoaning the fourteen senators who have seized the initiative in the judicial nomination process. They are really fuming over the seven Republicans, calling them some pretty mean names. Some Rs have called in to say that they are changing into Is because the Rs are too wimpish. We never heard any of these Rs as pundits or callers or politicians upset about Clinton's judicial nominees not getting up-or-down votes because of Senate Republican tactics. You have to have an inexhaustable store of righteous indignation to waste some of it on this blatantly hypocritical judicial campaign.

The Libertarian Party of California supported Proposition 1A to give Native American tribes the authority to have Nevada-style gambling on tribal lands. We believed then and now that tribes should have sovereignty over their lands and the level of autonomy they the tribes choose to have, whether they choose national, state, or county status. Gaming has shown to be the economic engine that has been previously elusive for Native American people. Tribes should be able to generate and keep revenue with minimal interference from outside governments.

We also believe that tribal governments are just that, governments. They have a duty to behave as governments. As Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters suggested on May 6, tribes have alternatively asserted governmental sovereignty and the rights of private citizens, depending on which serves them best. As governments, tribal organizations should act with transparency, equity, and respect for the rights of citizens inside and outside the tribe.

The Fresno Bee chronicled today a gathering in Temecula, home of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, and the home of the Pechanga Resort and Casino, one of California's largest. Over one hundred Native Americans were organizing to overturn disenrollments -- expulsions from tribes -- served upon them by tribal governments. There have been an estimated 1000 disenrollments in California alone, most taking place since the passage of Proposition 1A. It is highly likely that at least one of the one hundred who met yesterday was one of those disenrolled from the Chukchansi tribe in the months preceeding the opening of the Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino.

The Fresno Bee editors also opined that the North Fork Indians and Station Casinos should not be allowed to build a casino on Highway 99, forty miles away from their tribal neighborhood. The political process throughout the state and the nation has led to tribes being allowed to build off-reservation casinos or allow landless tribes to build casinos hundreds of miles from ancestral homelands. These maneuverings belie the spirit of Proposition 1A. The Bee got this one right (broken clocks once a day do).

The relationships between local, state, and national governments and native tribes needs reform. Tribes should be granted the authority to be sovereign, but should also be expected to heed the duties of sovereignty. No county or state can decide who is a citizen and who isn't, and neither should tribal governments. Casino ownership, if it is to be a monopoly, should be linked to geography, not ethnicity. If tribes can build casinos off tribal land, so should everyone else be allowed that right.

Today, Fresno Bee columnist John Ellis ponders the future of the San Joaquin Valley Taxpayers Association specifically and tax advocacy in the valley generally. Will the SJVTA survive the deaths of its leaders, Jack Fiorentino and John Santoya? Can the more recent Valley Taxpayers Coalition, with former SJVTA members Chris Mathys and Jeff Reid, fill the perceived void?

I cannot answer either question, so I won't venture to comment. But I believe that there is a more pertinent question for valley residents: will there ever be a consistent, effective anti-tax organization in this area?

The SJVTA and the VTC monitor the local governments to help promote efficiency of tax utilization. That is a good thing. However, with all of the successes of the SJVTA, the organization supported school bond issues and some fiscal ballot measures, such as Measure Z last November, that increased our taxes. I believe that it has also been reported that the VTC supports a continuance of Measure C, a sales tax for transportation. And even the Lincoln Club, the primary support group for that party that says they believe in less government and no tax increases (lack of audio precludes use of laugh tract), supported school bonds in Clovis (although the Assemblyman, who lives in that district, couldn't bring himself to commit one way or another) and Measure B and was frozen in indecisiveness on Measure Z.

These organizations (well, the first two) to date have been taxpayers organizations. What the valley needs is a taxfighters organization.

We need an organization that fights for every person's right to sole dominion over their property. We need an organization that believes that the burden of proof is on government to prove its need for our money, not on the citizens to prove our need to keep our money. We need an organization that acknowledges that optimal wealth in this valley will come from all individuals having the full range of options for the use of his/her money and property, and not by having all-knowing solomons who substitute themselves as the decision-makers about our possessions.

We need an organization that questions the very need for taxation itself. There is such an organization and I am proud to be its Chair.

Local and state officials and media have been advancing "reforms" for addressing methamphetamine production in the valley at a rapid-fire pace. It is understandable that they, along with all of us who are citizens, would like to curb the abuse of crank and all chemical substances. But do the ends justify the means? Have we learned NOTHING from alcohol prohibition?

The Fresno Bee printed a letter-to-the-editor today from Assemblyman Dave Cogdill about his bill to make it illegal to possess more than a half-pound of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine. Assemblyman Cogdill also referred to the Bee editors' May 4 opinion about Sen. Dianne Feinstein's legislative efforts to limit the availability of these compounds.

What the Bee editors, the Senator, and the Assemblyman ignore -- or don't accept -- is that the illegal status of chemical substances sets up an attractive nuisance for those who want to make really big money with a lot less effort. Making reasonably good money in a free society is not excessively difficult: become reasonably educated and work reasonably hard. Making really big money is not so easy.

Unless, of course, you can find a commodity that is worth its weight in gold and distribute it in a market of high demand. Items with illegal status -- whether chemicals or weapons or sports betting or whatever -- have both these "advantages" to the person who doesn't want to work hard to make really big money. Crank would not be that expensive if it were legal because its ingredients are not very expensive. And its demand would not be as great if it was sold at quantities that were not optimized for creating addiction by its vendors who are looking for easy ways to make really big money.

People looking for easy ways to make really big money are not going to let locked store counters or half-pound possession limits get in the way of making gold -- errr -- meth. These measures may deter some small timers, but that only creates more market share for bigger fish with greater resources -- and greater incentives to defend its operations by all means necessary.

Chemical abuse is a medical problem. It is best treated by medicine, not by incarceration. Throwing really big money into prohibition did not work for alcohol, has not worked for marijuana or cocaine, and will not work for meth.