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"Take the Survey" TRACKSIDE © by John D’Aloia Jr. August 24, 2004 It is an unusual mail call that does not contain one or more letters from this or that special interest or political group pointing with fear and foreboding at a disaster about to descend on our nation. Please take the time, they ask, to complete and return the enclosed survey so your voice can be heard - and oh, yes, include your most generous contribution. If they provide the postage, we oblige them with the survey, spiced up with added verbiage expanding on the issues they raised - heck - it is a way of venting - but dollars? Hardly ever. (I wonder if the survey returned ever are read.) It occurred to me that perhaps it is time for TRACKSIDE to conduct a survey, really a self- graded and evaluated test and you are not even being asked to make a contribution - though such generosity would not be rejected and would be put to good use. The survey is simple. Just respond "Agree" or "Disagree" to each statement. When you are done, add up the number of "Agree" responses. They are the only ones that count. Here we go. It is perfectly reasonable for: 1. a city government to require that hedges be trimmed to a height that enables neighbors to see over them, and to fine citizens $2,500 per day for non-compliance with the trimming law. 2. the federal government to take $7 million out of the highway fund, created by gasoline taxes, and give it to the "Renaissance Square" Performing Arts Center in New York. 3. a city to use eminent domain to take one citizen’s property and give it to another citizen who states he will put it to better use and generate more tax revenue for the city. 4. the federal government to require citizens to personally bear the cost of protecting endangered species found on their property. 5. a county to prevent citizens from developing in any way 90 percent of the property they own. 6. a state to require hair braiders to undergo 1,500 hours of cosmetology training before being allowed to earn a living practicing their trade. 7. a city to demand that people working in their homes obtain a license to ensure that they are in compliance with zoning ordinances. 8. a city to prevent a business owner from walking around with a sign on his back advertizing his business. 9. the federal government to prohibit any development of private land when such development can be seen from a federal park. 10. judges to establish law from the bench. 11. the federal government to control and prohibit political speech in election campaigns. 12. the state to condone snuffing out a human life an instant before birth. 13. the state to give non-profit trail organizations abandoned railroad rights-of-ways covered by reversionary deeds without compensating the reversionary owner. How many "Agree" responses do you have? The 13 statements were not contrived. All represent life in 21st Century America. If you have five or more, you are a full-fledged Guardian, ready and willing to impose your whims and Utopian visions on your fellow citizens. You have rejected our nation’s Founding Principles and the governance wisdom embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. You are in fact a proto-tyrant, cloaking your lust for power over your fellow citizens with soothing words of benevolence, compassion, security, and the common good - a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If you have one to four "Agree" responses, you are striking to be a Guardian. You should carefully consider the definition of tyranny, for you are of a mind-set that provides the environment in which an "-ism" can flourish. Today, in our country, the beliefs with which you agree are greasing the downward spiral to socialism, the subordination of freedom to an elite who will decide every critical aspect of your life - if you make it past being murdered in the womb. If you have no "Agree" responses, congratulations. You understand what is necessary to create a shining city on a hill. You understand freedom.
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