Category Archives: Information

Rightful Liberty Versus Both Police Abuses and BLM Violence

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All lives matter, including black lives, and it’s great to attempt to remedy inequities in how our society values people. Such noble ends have been proclaimed by Black Lives Matter, but BLM protestors have engaged in terribly-counterproductive means, such as pillaging-and-burning while attempting to foment a violent Marxist revolution. Their violence even touched Provo yesterday, as some rioters committed attempted murder and property damage. Such destruction does not build both unity and mutual respect, but it can help victims (whether real or fancied) to become oppressors.

Both tyrants and criminals feel emboldened whenever public officers do nothing. And some have readily accused Provo police of “standing down” under orders from Mayor Kaufusi; however, this author has not yet seen any credible evidence to support these claims. Although we have definitely criticized the mayor (and her predecessor) for many statist policies, we desire to comment ONLY about things that she has actually done, and not about imaginary grievances. And we also like to applaud her when we notice her getting things right. So, at this time, we express our gratitude that (unlike some other mayors) she has NOT treated such crimes with astounding permissiveness. Or proposed bad policies (yet) in response, as far as we’ve noticed.

Unfortunately, responding with bad policy is something that we will need to counteract in the near future. Marxists have repeatedly employed a “pincers” movement of applying pressure from both above and below—for example, they will use street groups to foment riots and then use politicians to propose bills that allegedly address rioters’ concerns but that actually further the Marxist agenda. Which is arguably why some federal politicians are now considering legislation that would begin to nationalize our local police officers. Police nationalization, along dumbing-down and militarization, is part of the long-term Marxist agenda for our nation. Such dangerous trends would render our local peace officers more like a federal standing army that some aspiring Caesar could potentially wield to subjugate our nation from within.

National police are normal in totalitarian regimes, but are antithetical to free societies. Ideally, with respect to our fellow mortals, we should each be kings or queens of our own figurative castles, and nobody else’s, free to love/serve God and our neighbors according to the dictates of our own respective consciences. Whether or not we choose Him as our Master, the state should NOT be our master but our servant, with the specialized duty of expertly helping us to defend our equal God-given rights from others’ aggression so that we may remain free. The state’s larger jurisdictions exist NOT to rule but only to serve the smaller jurisdictions within themselves, of which the smallest units are individual households.

So, to preserve a free society, we need to actively oppose efforts to nationalize and dumb-down and militarize our local peace officers, including by electing like-minded municipal officers. Politicians who incentivize our police to wantonly behave like brutal thugs will only give increased legitimacy to anarchic BLM rioters, which will only provide further excuses to corrupt politicians to enact counterproductive reforms, thereby perpetuating a vicious cycle toward tyranny. As in the movie “WarGames” (1983), the only way to win such a power struggle is to NOT participate in it. Let’s keep this cycle broken by actively promoting liberty, instead, along with peace, respect, and the value of EVERY human life, whether black or blue or both or neither.

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Provo’s Budget for FY 2021

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Provo’s city council recently adopted a budget for fiscal year 2021, which was reduced somewhat due to the COVID19 pandemic of 2020.

During this budgeting process, some citizens advocated defunding Provo’s police force in response to recent incidents of local police abusing their power to violate citizens’ rights. These calls derive from valid concerns because police, like other public officers, should act within the limits of their delegated authority (including due process) to expertly help people to defend their equal God-given rights from others’ aggression. And it’s sad when police become aggressors themselves. Such trends toward police aggression are arguably facilitated by ongoing nationwide efforts to nationalize and dumb-down and militarize our local peace officers. Such a national police force could be used as a standing army to conquer our nation from within, and is a normal part of totalitarian regimes. We should resist such trends, including abuse of our local SWAT team, but we should definitely NOT eliminate our police force. So, I applaud our city officers for rejecting such calls.

What they should actually defund—or, better yet, privatize—is most everything else in Provo’s municipal budget. As we’ve noted before, Provo’s city-owned businesses include a redevelopment agency, a power company, an airport, a television channel, a library, a performing arts center, a recreation center, a fitness center, a golf course, an ice rink, a water park, a beach, a park service, a gun range, a garbage-collection service, a recycling service, and a cemetery, none of which are involved in defending our rights. It would be better for Provo’s municipal officers to spin off all of these divisions fully into the private sector, and then sever all lingering ties with them. As competitive private enterprises, these former agencies would become far more innovative and efficient and effective, serving customers better—and simultaneously allowing public officers to focus better on defending rights, and perhaps also on a few other tasks like maintaining local roads. It’s always easier for public officers to focus on performing their core duties well whenever they aren’t needlessly overwhelming themselves with excessive responsibility over other parts of our local economy. And our economy always works best whenever politicians stop trying to subjugate it to their will and, instead, simply help defend everyone’s equal God-given rights from others’ aggression.

But such structural change won’t happen without electoral change. For at least 20 years, Provo’s public officers have remained rather enamored with big government. And this is partly because Provo’s municipal elections have remained dominated year-after-year by big-government voters. And they prevail NOT because they constitute a large percentage of Provo’s population, but because most voters don’t bother to participate. So, we who value our rightful liberty need to change this sad status quo. We won’t reverse these statist trends unless we grow our ranks in both numbers and effectiveness. And there’s no time like the present to begin—so, please make a plan and implement it.

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Provo’s City Council Starts 2020

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Provo’s city council recently met (with 4 of 7 members replaced) for its first time in 2020 to consider its current projects. This partly involved considering input from Envision Utah about county-level central economic planning (as detailed in our previous two blog entries), which we shouldn’t be surprised if they cooperate in implementing.

Councilman Handley seemingly learned (as should the rest of us) that, although Utahns remain relatively unconcerned about climate change, which environmentalists are using to excuse collectivistic policies, politicians’ appeals to local concerns about “water” and “air quality” may be used to achieve similar outcomes. So, please remember such tactics when considering proposed changes to city code.

Councilman Handley’s interest in radical environmentalism, along with councilwoman Ellsworth’s interest in identity politics, suggest that they harbor rather collectivistic political views. Which is interesting, considering that they represent one of America’s most conservative cities. But it shouldn’t be surprising, considering Provo’s municipal policies for the last two decades or more.

If we want more city policies that actually favor rightful liberty under Constitutional law, then we need to elect better municipal officers. Thankfully, we have two years until our next city elections to alert our neighbors and build our ranks. Please make good use of that time and, if our website helps, then please use it. Thank you.

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Envision Utah Subjugating Utah County

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People aren’t meant to live in figurative cages, even if those cages are gilded for fleeting times in scarce places. People fare best when they’re both virtuous and free, as freedom allows them to achieve their greatest potential for good.

And this is true not only of individuals but also of entire economies. Whenever markets are kept free, they allow innovation toward greater efficiency and effectiveness, yielding both prosperity and abundance, as rising standards-of-living bless everyone. This is one reason why these United States thrived from 13 colonies to become one of our world’s greatest civilizations.

But nobody’s perfekt. And, sadly, some people seize on the imperfections of free societies, whether real or imagined, as false excuses to enslave their neighbors, allegedly for their own good, which always does less good (if any) than harm.

And such people include Envision Utah.

Envision Utah believes that free-market-driven growth is too “chaotic” and “accidental” (as reported in the Provo Daily Herald) and, as such, it seeks to reorient Utahns away from property rights, free markets, and localized control toward regional governance, central economic planning, and “sustainable development” (as promoted by globalistic socialists). And, sadly, it’s enjoyed a long series of successes across Utah for decades by selling its plans to locals as ways that they can foster their values, which Envision Utah ascertains through careful research.

Envision Utah is currently focusing its attention upon Utah County (including Provo), using the excuse of countywide growth to develop a countywide plan that would force our county’s current relatively-free market to conform to a strict political vision. As part of its current visioning process, Envision Utah has been actively researching Utah County residents’ values and/or ideas through various means that include both workshops and surveys. Its recent Valley Visioning Survey allows respondents to decide communally where everyone will be allowed to live, what sort of homes everyone will have, how those homes will be landscaped, et cetera.

Such plans will almost certainly necessitate a larger costlier Utah County commission that will usurp our equal God-given (or natural) rights more than defend them. Like all misuses of political/coercive power, this can be expected to yield mixed or ineffective or even counterproductive results, meaning that it won’t ultimately foster the values that its proponents are promising. Economic plans are always best when they’re made NOT by a few politicians but by zillions of free people in a free society.

Envision Utah is far from alone in trying to subjugate free Utahns to its statist vision. Provo already implemented a visioning process in 2010-2011 to create Vision 2030 to guide it in further centralizing its control over municipal development, demographics, transportation, businesses, homes, landscaping, diet, exercise, et cetera. Neighboring Orem is currently conducting its own similar visioning process, instigated by a city council that (in 2015 by majority vote) rejected Orem’s “curious mix of laissez-faire capitalism, pioneer frugality, and conservative / limited government expectations” in favor of a new statist approach to city planning.

So, these are all great developments for Utahns who welcome Soviet-style commissars to reign over them, or who aspire to play demigod-king with their neighbors’ lives and/or property. But they’re terrible developments for the rest of us who still value our rightful liberty under Constitutional law. Or who love the fruits of a virtuous free society, such as peace, prosperity, progress, civilization, and happiness.

So, what can we do now?

Our political system will never respect our rights fully until enough of our fellowcitizens are doing likewise. “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” so we need to increase the demand for freedom. We need to persistently awaken our slumbering neighbors to the figurative fetters that are being forged around them. We need to cure their apathy by reviving the spirit of liberty within their hearts-and-minds. We need to alleviate their ignorance by both educating and informing them clearly about the principles of rightful liberty under Constitutional law.

Along with engaging our neighbors’ hearts-and-minds, we also need to both mobilize and organize those who share our views for lasting political victory, building our ranks until we become at least as numerous and/or effective as our political adversaries, and then maintaining our advantage long-term. We also need to start with those closest to us and work outward—this conflict is both timeless and universal, and similar statist visioning processes are occurring both across our nation and around our world.

This struggle for freedom requires more than summer soldiers or sunshine patriots. It requires passion and wisdom and long-term commitment. It may not require leaving bloody footprints on the snows of Valley Forge, but it might require a few sore feet “pounding the pavement” in your neighborhood. And, since yesterday is gone, there’s no time like today to start.

If our website helps, then please feel free to use it. If you’ve got something that will help the rest of us, then please feel free to share it. We’re all in this mess together. And may heaven help us, because we sorely need it. So, if you’re religious, then please get down on your knees and pray—and, in any case, please get up and go do something effective to restore freedom while it’s still possible.

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Subjugating Landlords via Occupancy Laws

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Provo’s city council is continuing to increase its control over Provo residents, including landlords, who sometimes dare to use their property as they please rather than as the city council pleases.

Our most basic rights include rights to both property and contract, which are the basis of free markets—and our politicians are morally obligated to both respect and defend such rights, rather than to wantonly violate those rights as a criminal would do.

Whenever a politician ceases to defend rights and instead dictates how those rights will be exercised, this is essentially tyranny, regardless of how petty it may be—and, in cases like this, it invites the question of who truly owns the property in question.

Policies like occupancy restrictions not only violate rights, but they are also impractical, as they render rental housing both scarcer and costlier than it would otherwise be. This needlessly hurts poorer Provoans by rendering housing less affordable to them.

Rather than dictate how landlords are to rent their property, it would be better for Provo politicians to both respect and defend landlords’ rights to rent their property to others as they please, as long as they don’t violate anyone else’s rights in the process of doing so.

Such changes in policy won’t occur without changes in politicians, though, which won’t occur without changes in voting habits. So, please educate and inform and activate your neighbors to vote better in our local elections.

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