I sent the following e-mail to the Journal Sentinel after reading their editorial wherin they propose a year long community wide discussion on quality of life issues. I hope they print it.
I am delighted that the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board is initiating a series of discussions on quality of life issues concerning our region and state. Clearly there are problems in the areas of crime, education, economic opportunities, and health care to name a few. I share your urgency in addressing these problems.
However, I am dismayed by the following paragraph of your editorial: "We know that there is no silver bullet for what ails metro Milwaukee. We also know, however, that nothing can be accomplished unless done collectively and collaboratively."
I am quite certain that many of your readers share the view that some form of collectivism is the answer to our quality of life issues. But you may count me as one who sees collectivism as the cause of many of the problems that plague our area.
As a practical matter, I wonder what contribution opponents of collectivism could make to your important community discussion if you have already concluded that you "know" that they are wrong.
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and what would be your strategy then?
Well CT, if I were to initiate a community wide discussion in the hopes of solving problems, I would not announce at the outset that one perspective is obviously wrong. I would seek to enlist voices from a diverse range of perspectives. Among those would be voices like mine, who think that government collectivism can be hazardous to a communities health. But I think it is a mistake to reach a conclusion (collectivism is the answer) before the discussion has even taken place. The risk is that the discussion will be tainted before it has even gotten under way. Do you think that small government types will be included in the Journal Sentinel discussion? If so, what would be the point, since it has already been decided that they are wrong? What are your conscious thoughts?
I'm hard pressed to find any issue/concern/initiative that was dealt with and reached any level of success solely on the shoulders of one person or entity. Looking back through history, in the context of social/economic ills, it is hard, practicely impossible to find a single instance of that as well.
Collectives of inept, short-sighted, poorly planned, alterior motive based, collaborations have proven to be disastrously unsuccesful, i.e. Iraq, joint dispatch facility to name a few,
Collectives of like minded, well planned, single focused collaboratives have proved to be succesful, i.e. racine sewer agreement, all civil rights movements, HALO facility to name a few
What's problematic for me about your commentary, is that you assume this JS collaborative discussion will be all governmental agencies as solution providers. Their are tons of entities and private citizens that are not government related that can be a vital piece to the puzzle in making a better community. The problem is that individual people excuse and disassociate themselves from the responsibility of their role and place in society, therefore creating a mentallity of "that's someone else's problem" or "their own people need to fix that".
If people took it upon themselves to be a piece of the remedy puzzle, this community would be better off.
I'm hard pressed to find any issue/concern/initiative that was dealt with and reached any level of success solely on the shoulders of one person or entity. Looking back through history, in the context of social/economic ills, it is hard, practicely impossible to find a single instance of that as well.
Collectives of inept, short-sighted, poorly planned, alterior motive based, collaborations have proven to be disastrously unsuccesful, i.e. Iraq, joint dispatch facility to name a few,
Collectives of like minded, well planned, single focused collaboratives have proved to be succesful, i.e. racine sewer agreement, all civil rights movements, HALO facility to name a few
What's problematic for me about your commentary, is that you assume this JS collaborative discussion will be all governmental agencies as solution providers. Their are tons of entities and private citizens that are not government related that can be a vital piece to the puzzle in making a better community. The problem is that individual people excuse and disassociate themselves from the responsibility of their role and place in society, therefore creating a mentallity of "that's someone else's problem" or "their own people need to fix that".
If people took it upon themselves to be a piece of the remedy puzzle, this community would be better off.
I'm hard pressed to find any issue/concern/initiative that was dealt with and reached any level of success solely on the shoulders of one person or entity. Looking back through history, in the context of social/economic ills, it is hard, practicely impossible to find a single instance of that as well.
Collectives of inept, short-sighted, poorly planned, alterior motive based, collaborations have proven to be disastrously unsuccesful, i.e. Iraq, joint dispatch facility to name a few,
Collectives of like minded, well planned, single focused collaboratives have proved to be succesful, i.e. racine sewer agreement, all civil rights movements, HALO facility to name a few
What's problematic for me about your commentary, is that you assume this JS collaborative discussion will be all governmental agencies as solution providers. Their are tons of entities and private citizens that are not government related that can be a vital piece to the puzzle in making a better community. The problem is that individual people excuse and disassociate themselves from the responsibility of their role and place in society, therefore creating a mentallity of "that's someone else's problem" or "their own people need to fix that".
If people took it upon themselves to be a piece of the remedy puzzle, this community would be better off.
Oops, sorry about the multiple posts, Denis. Computer and server were giving me error messages and weren't communicating when i finally was able to submit my post.
what happend to the conversation?
CT, I have no problem whatsoever with private associations, groups etc... that try to make positive changes. But it is true that when a liberal newspaper like the MJS talks about collective solutions, I assume that they are usually referring to government solutions. That assumption is based on experience.
It seems as though you just cannot get past these labels you place on everything. The JT is just a terrible newspaper, period, all across the board. Not because of their political slants. But you can't seem to get past this for some reason.
In a previous post, you mentioned that liberals were the ones putting lables on everything. I would suggest you really re-examine that.
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