Archive for October 28th, 2006
The game was exciting, a nail biter for sure. The Sabres had their chances and the Thrashers also played a tough game. In the end it came down to the shootout and the Sabres lost this one. Below are my shots of Kozlov (13) beating Ryan Miller for the win. More photos might be online tomorrow, I have a Halloween Party to attend. Check BfloBlog for a more detailed analysis, I’m sure they will have a good one, as always.
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The answer: They shouldn’t! The urban design experts on Buffalo Rising are currently arguing about how your money, and mine, should or should not be spent. At issue is the proposed Burchfield Penney Art Center located on the Richardson Complex grounds. The original post author experiences monumental shock and dismay because there are actually people opposing the project. The bickering that ensues is comical. The problem is the project is being opposed for the wrong reasons.
The highly charged, humorous discussion is a result of people not spending their own money. They, and everyone else, have lost control over the spending of much of their hard earned money. The press release put out by Kathleen Heyworth, Director of News Services for the BPAC, is deceptive at best. It states that almost $28 million has been raised for the project. It doesn’t state that $17.75 million of that total was taken from us by force in the form of federal and state taxes. That number is identified in Governor Pataki’s press release.
The decision, on how to spend that money taken from us, is made by a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in an office, far removed from the results of their decisions. They will probably never see the building up close, let alone the art inside. Yet, they sit in judgment over spending your money, and mine, to determine which art or cultural projects are worthy of public funding. The nexus of the matter is that public funds do not grow on trees and a country based on liberty should allow people the choice to spend their money as they see fit.
Ironically, a vast percentage of the population can not even afford the admission to many of these government supported cultural projects, yet their money is taken by force to support them. Projects worthy of support would gladly be funded 100% by choice through private means if the money was not taxed out of the private economy first. People willingly pay for the things they want . . .if they have the money to do so!
You can read a more detailed analysis of what is wrong with government funding of culturals here.
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A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Today I’m going to break tradition and include a second quote, also from Barry Goldwater.
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
