Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:22 pm
(no subject)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineFor the first time in about nine years, I have written to a newspaper in strictly my own words (as opposed to prewritten emails pushed by activist organizations). And for the first time ever, I have written in response to another person's letter to a newspaper. Here's what he wrote:
What were folks thinking when they heard Mayor Adrian Fenty's rallying cry for granting D.C. a full-fledged U.S. House vote? Look at what the limited democracy D.C. has enjoyed for the past three decades has wrought: failing schools, high taxes, persistent crime, dicey public services and corruption. When will folks realize that Washington was better off when the federal government ran things rather than local officials?
Chances are that somebody replied sooner than me, but there's a slight chance that my reply will be featured in the paper by virtue of politeness, conciseness, and well-chosen words -- or simply at random from the stack. Unfortunately, I didn't think to copy and paste before sending the email, so I'll have to give you guys just the gist.
I won't deny that D.C.'s problems are as bad as the writer says or even that the federal government could do a better job of handling them. But to answer his first question: it's the principle of the thing. When you deny people a representative democracy because you don't trust them to choose well for themselves, you're setting a dangerous precedent that flies in the face of this nation's most time-honored, most redeeming principle. At the District's level, I'll take an awful council elected by locals over a great council appointed by federally elected leaders.
What do you think?
What were folks thinking when they heard Mayor Adrian Fenty's rallying cry for granting D.C. a full-fledged U.S. House vote? Look at what the limited democracy D.C. has enjoyed for the past three decades has wrought: failing schools, high taxes, persistent crime, dicey public services and corruption. When will folks realize that Washington was better off when the federal government ran things rather than local officials?
Chances are that somebody replied sooner than me, but there's a slight chance that my reply will be featured in the paper by virtue of politeness, conciseness, and well-chosen words -- or simply at random from the stack. Unfortunately, I didn't think to copy and paste before sending the email, so I'll have to give you guys just the gist.
I won't deny that D.C.'s problems are as bad as the writer says or even that the federal government could do a better job of handling them. But to answer his first question: it's the principle of the thing. When you deny people a representative democracy because you don't trust them to choose well for themselves, you're setting a dangerous precedent that flies in the face of this nation's most time-honored, most redeeming principle. At the District's level, I'll take an awful council elected by locals over a great council appointed by federally elected leaders.
What do you think?