Continuing what I started Yesterday

It is government's job to protect us: Protect us from military threats from abroad, from criminal acts from within (and, in the case of terrorism, from within and without, e.g. 9/11), and from those who would threaten our rights as Americans, such as the Bush Administration.

Among the rights we have as Americans is the peaceful enjoyment of our homes and our public lands. Such a threat is materializing now on Wilson Creek in my county here. A developer wants to put up a gated community which will destroy the view for the rest of us. We have the right to enjoy our wilderness areas without our view being spoiled by a bunch of ticky-tacky houses or McMansions, either one. Yet our County Commissioners are likely to be in sympathy with the developer, and once the opportunity comes to vote them out of office the damage will have been done. And once the election comes, who will run against them but more thralls to the moneyed interests?

Ever since the Reagan Administration, those who control the terms of our national debate have painted *ALL* politicians as corrupt, sub-human, etc. so that no decent person is willing to run for office lest he have his every mistake plastered all over the media.

How long will it take to change a country's mind-set?