On the Eve of Iowa

Posted on by David Rodeback

The Iowa presidential caucuses are tonight. (Finally? Already?) I suppose we could try to analyze the polls, the history, and the weather forecast, in order to project who will win for the Republicans and the Democrats. But I’d rather just see what happens — because for once the results will be real. It’s the first time in what already seems like a long campaign that we will get actual votes instead of polls.

Sometimes the votes follow the polls. Sometimes they don’t. People don’t always tell pollsters the truth, due to social pressures. Polling samples can be flawed. And maybe there’s one more thing.

Maybe when it’s a real vote, people are more inclined to look pass their anger and frustration and consider the merits of sending a capable leader, not just an angry message, to Washington.

Will Republican voters be more serious, all of a sudden? We’ll come back to that.

Snowbird, American Fork Canyon, and Property Rights

Posted on by David Rodeback

It’s now common knowledge in northern Utah County: Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort wants to develop property it owns in American Fork Canyon, over the ridge from the existing resort. Setting aside the controversy over who wasn’t involved or informed as this plan was developed, it comes down to a question of property rights – as so many local issues do.

Mineral-Basin-American-Fork-Canyon

According to this recent Fox13 News story, Bob Bonar, President of Snowbird, asserts that Snowbird’s plan is within the rights of the property owner.

This is still the United States of America, after all, where we acknowledge and protect fundamental rights. Property rights are among these; we speak of them in the same breath with life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and freedoms of speech and religion.

On its face, it might seem simple. Snowbird owns the land, and property rights belong to the owner. That should settle the question, right? Can’t we just dismiss any opposition as grouchy politics, or as acronymic, nuisance sentimentality in a league with NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), NOTE (Not Over There Either), BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), or NOPE (Not On Planet Earth)?

Actually, it’s not that simple. (You saw this coming, right?) Land ownership doesn’t settle the question legally or philosophically. Let’s talk about why.

Assuming Opinions Are Facts

Posted on by David Rodeback

There’s a new issue of City Weekly in the boxes this morning in Salt Lake City, but until yesterday the extant issue’s cover story had this headline: “Biting the Bullet.” It had this subhead: “How a peace-loving British journalist ended up shopping for a gun in Utah.” It’s an excellent story by Stephen Dark, well worth reading. But my point is the subhead, not the story.

City Weekly - Biting the Bullet

Often our words reflect or even promote unspoken biases. We may or may not be aware of this. We may or may not be attempting subtly to persuade people of our unspoken views. We may or may not notice a problem when it’s done to us — but it would be nice if we did.

Careful writers and careful readers do well to consider what’s between the lines.

The subhead plays on the presumed contradiction between being “peace-loving” and shopping for a gun. But this is only a contradiction if you believe than peace-loving people don’t shop for guns, or that gun-shopping people don’t love peace.

This belief might locate you in a certain part of our political spectrum. It’s not the part I inhabit. The gun-toting — let alone gun-shopping — people I know love peace. A lot of the peace-loving people I know carry guns. For me this is not a contradiction.

So, in the parlance of the courtroom — or the courtroom drama, where I’ve spent far more time — I object to this subhead. It assumes facts not in evidence. In fact, I don’t think they’re facts at all. They’re opinions I do not share, packaged with the suggestion that I unreflectively embrace them as facts and read on. (I did the “read on” part.)

And I wonder if the subhead doesn’t trivialize the complexities which the article addresses thoughtfully and at length. So the subhead is not just subliminal politics. It’s questionable writing too.

The Post I Never Finished Last Year (Updated)

Posted on by David Rodeback

For me 2015 was, among other things, a year in which I didn’t blog as much as I hoped to, and didn’t finish some of the writing I started.

I’m trying to avoid that this year, in part by scaling back my expectations, but also by doing a little better outside of election season. There are things other than politics and government about which I want to write — am writing — elsewhere, but these things matter too.

I have fragments of an unpublished post from last year in which I predicted some things for the coming year. I thought it might be interesting to look back, forward, and around on the same topics one year later.

Learn Before You Vote: afelection.info

Posted on by David Rodeback

Folks, if you’re in American Fork, you’ll want to check out afelection.info for information about candidates and issues in next week’s municipal election. We keep adding more, so keep going back. You’ll find infographics, audio and notes from meet-the-candidate events, explanations of some of the popular misinformation coming from AFCitizens (again) and their pet candidate (but less, as he learns that their numbers are often bad).

This weekend will also bring the 2015 edition of David’s Handy Little Election Guide. Stay tuned.

American Fork: 4 Candidates, 3 Seats, 2 Public Events, 1 Friendly Request

Posted on by David Rodeback

Election Day is two weeks away, early voting starts today, and this is my first blog post about the American Fork City Council election. Granted, there was no primary, but I’ve still been slow doing my homework this year.

This post is informational (except, arguably, for the “1 Friendly Request” at the end). I’ll post some event notes, commentary, and recommendations after this week’s candidate events.

4 Candidates, 3 Seats

We’ll be choosing three candidates to serve four-year terms on the American Fork City Council. Each voter may vote for up to three on the ballot, and the three with the highest vote counts win. There is no districting in this race; all candidates run citywide.

There is no substitute, in terms of conscientious voting, for personal contact with local candidates. Here are the candidates, with the contact information I have for each. (If I’m missing something, please let me know, and I’ll add it ASAP.) They’re in alphabetical order by last name, not necessarily in the order of my preference.

Constitution Day: A Big Deal

Posted on by David Rodeback

US ConstitutionHappy Constitution Day!

228 years ago today, the 1787 Constitutional Convention finished its work and formally sent its proposed Constitution of the United States of America to the states for ratification. It was a pivotal day (and then some) for the United States, but also for the world.

Granted, the Founders each brought large, vigorous bundles of competing interests to the convention. Granted, they were imperfect on many levels, as mortals tend to be. Granted, some of them owned slaves, and the rest of them were (just barely) willing to defer that problem as the price of having a functioning government at all. Granted — and inevitably — their work was imperfect, incomplete. That’s why they established a mechanism for amending it. But their compromise of compromises was the best they could do under the circumstances. It was the best we have ever done. They gave us a flawed, tempestuous republic which survives to this day.

A Tale of Two Teachers, Part 2: They Got It Right

Posted on by David Rodeback

After a personal introduction last time, I promised we would speak of Hadleyburg (not its real name), and so we shall.

Last year, about this time, the administrators at Hadleyburg Valley High School (HVHS) needed to find a new math teacher for the coming (now the current) academic year. They didn’t just post the job, then sit back and wait for whatever applications might come in. Their commitment to their students and to academic excellence demanded more. They went out looking for the right candidate.

They found a teacher who was highly regarded not only for his mastery of math and math curricula and his creative command of the teacher’s art, but also for his diligence and his care for each student. They persuaded him to leave his comfortable position in the big city, move his family to Hadleyburg, and take the job.

SB 296, SB 297, Religious Freedom, and Nondiscrimination

Posted on by David Rodeback

My readers may know two things about me, based on statements in public meetings, private conversations, or what I wrote at this blog’s predecessor, LocalCommentary.com.

First, for a long time I have supported local and state legislation to prohibit discrimination in housing and employment based on actual or perceived gender identity or sexual orientation.

Second, the level of my confidence in the Utah legislature is perennially low.

These two themes came together last year at about this time, as the Utah legislature sat on its hands and refused even to debate last year’s version of a non-discrimination law (SB 100). I wrote:

It’s an extraordinarily discerning litmus test, where Mormon Utah Republicans are concerned. It tells us where people land on the freedom-versus-using-my-power-to-compel-universal-righteousness spectrum, which sometimes seems to be the primary axis of Utah politics.

Beyond the moral principles on which society generally agrees, and finds suitable for regulation by law, I believe that sinners as I define them and sinners as you define them deserve political, economic, and religious freedom. I believe that a person’s violation of someone else’s sectarian principles (or his own) should not jeopardize the roof over his head or his means of earning his daily bread, assuming he doesn’t work for an organization with a primary mission to promote those principles. . . .

I . . . believe that the greatest and most constant threat to free and healthy society and good government in Utah is the subset of Mormons who think the law is a suitable tool for imposing their principles on all people — and who think that this is somehow a proper exercise of their religious freedom. (“I Am Unfit for the Utah Legislature,” February 5, 2014. See also “Rights and Rites and Right and the Rights” and “Tonight in American Fork.”)

When the Utah Legislature took up the topics of nondiscrimination and religious freedom this year, I was skeptical of their competence to produce wise legislation on such a topic, and skeptical of their good will, too.