I don’t know who is behind examiner.com, but they have my April Fools jest (as improved by Ross Hancock) about Bill Clinton endorsing in the race. Désolé M. Crevaux, c’est un poisson d’Avril. Une blague.
Among the other errors in this article:
- “In reality, no major group or individual has dared to endorse a candidate in the City Beautiful based on what matters the most: the issues.” That’s nonsense, even if it also true that some endorsements, especially the individual ones, are based on personal ties.
- Candidates, “such as Ralph Cabrera and Ross Hancock, don’t even hold official positions on any issue.” That’s also nonsense. It isn’t true of not as many as I want, and it certainly isn’t true of Hancock, which is a key part of Hancock‘s appeal.
I think the suggestion that Marlin Holland Ebbert is almost libertarian is sort of odd too, as she seems like an old-fashioned cozy government Coral Gables type to me.
I also found strange the suggestion that the answer to the crime problem — if there is a problem? — is not more cops on the street but encouraging private hiring of rent-a-cops. Not only does that make for uneven coverage, but we have ample evidence that rental police are not renowned for their devotion to civil liberties.
Indeed, I think they only thing this article got right is that Tony Newell has some strong libertarian tendencies. But that’s the heart of what is wrong with him as a candidate for Coral Gables.
The fundamental problem with the entire the ‘less we have a government in Coral-Gables the better’, or the suggestion that voters should always go for the most anti-tax candidates because they are the ‘only choices to be made if one cares about freedom and free markets’ (starve the beast!) is that we are not talking about a national (or world) government here. We’re talking about a locality that people chose to live in. We all voted with our feet. Houses on my side of Red Road cost more than similar houses in unincorporated Miami-Dade on the other side of Red Road because we get valuable services. We not only get Coral Gables Police and Fire/Rescue, but the benefit of a code enforcement group that, as far as I know, is one of the few in the county that can’t be bribed. We get the confidence that builders really did use all the nails they were supposed to when they built our homes. We chose this for a reason. Libertarians want to take that option away from us and force us into their cookie-cutter and impoverished vision of what localities should be like, even though they are already spoiled for choice of low-government zones throughout this County.
The people trying to import Tea Party or libertarian ideology into Coral Gables — one of the original and model planned communities in the USA — are doing us, and themselves, no favors, as they seek to enlist us in their race to the bottom. Yes, Coral Gables has a lot of government compared to some places, although actually our taxes are not that high compered to some; what the blinkered ideology of people like examiner.com fails to grasp is that as winners in a struggle to the top, that very government is enhancing quality of life — as well as the very property values they claim to care about so much.
