 |
The first colony to enshrine religious toleration, to break
away from the British Crown, the last to ratify the US Constitution, the original
site of the Industrial Revolution, Rhode
Island has become a basketcase of endemic corruption, bureaucratic malfeasance,
and electoral despair. A one-party Democratic state whose moderate Republican
opposition has wasted away since the mid-1990s, progressives have lately targeted
Little Rhody for a greater foothold into the rest of the country.
And the political scene? Abysmal. The one Republican dynasty
in the state, represented by Lincoln (son of John) Chafee, has
dilapidated under its own marginalized desperation. Senator Chafee ran to
the left of his Democratic challenger in 2006, yet still lost. Switching to Independent,
he won the 2010 governor’s race by the slimmest of margin, then switched again
to the Democratic Party. Providence, Rhode Island, needs a good dose of its
namesake, where pension liabilities threaten bankruptcy (another
RI city already went belly-up). The latest mayor election involved one
Republican, psychiatrist Dan Harrop, who lost the RI GOP chairmanship by one
vote, then in his third bid for mayor betrayed
his party to endorse a pantheist Democrat housing judge. The capper? Both
were running against a twice-elected former mayor (and twice-convicted felon)
Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. Dysfunctional does not begin to describe Rhode
Island politics.
As in other deep blue states, public sector unions rule. They
even threatened critical, conservative radio hosts,
trying to shut them down with the false “War on Women” meme. Local leaders
of the same Republican Party have done nothing to amend unconstitutional municipal
legislation, which
barred Raymond McKay, a Warwick tech administrator and Rhode Island
Republican Assembly President, from running for US Senate in 2014. Freedom of
speech and redress of one’s government took heavy hits in this state, and no
one was paying attention.
As for the current federal leaders, one
Congressman is an acolyte apologist for anti-constiutional elitist Woodrow
Wilson, the other an openly gay gun-grabber who as mayor
played Providence like a video game from hell (and whose father was a mob
lawyer). The US Senate delegation, equally distasteful, includes West Point
graduate Jack Reed, who spends more time in Afghanistan than Rhode Island (and
was a potential Sec. of Defense replacement); and former federal prosecutor Sheldon
Whitehouse, who has delivered countless speeches on climate change, but nothing
on economic development.
Is there hope for the land whose motto is “Hope”?
A supermajority Democratic legislature passed
pension overhauls and a
voter ID law. While Rhode Islanders acknowledge that corruption is par for
the course in “Rogue’s Island”, the latest spate of scandals have unnerved them.
In a last-ditch effort to harness investment, legislators approved a $75
million loan to Curt Shilling and his dream video game company “38 Studios”.
The company went “Game
Over”, with the state on the hook to
pay. The
FBI raided the statehouse late last year, forcing the resignation of House
Speaker Gordon Fox. In 2014, Republicans
doubled their numbers in the General Assembly (from 6 to 11 with a
freedom-leaning independent).
Still, Aside from serving as a detour between Connecticut
and Massachusetts, or a byword in the mouths of pundits, political strategists
have overlooked Rhode Island as reprobate or inconsequential.
They should look again.
Because of Rhode Island’s diminutive size and influence,
federal instigators have tried to turn this state into a blueprint for
micromanaging the entire country by executive, bureaucratic fiat. Entitled RhodeMap RI, an initiative from the Department
of Housing and Urban Development, in conjunction with Department of
Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, this plan has been
touted as a revitalization effort for harnessing businesses, government, and
the environment, but in reality the federalized imposition focuses on breaking
residents away from single-family homes into collectivized government housing,
all through HUD funding and string-pulling.
Westchester
County, New York discovered HUD’s illicit intentions huddling in the fine
print, and are pushing back. The HUD money comes with conditions, including the
right of unelected and unaccountable boards and executives to take away land
use and zoning authority from town leaders and their tax-paying constituents. County Executive (and Republican) Rob
Astorino is leading the fight, which has
motivated conservatives and property owners in general throughout Rhode Island.
More than a latent abuse of eminent domain RhodeMap RI is
Big Government domination writ small and inconspicuous. If RI’s state
legislature passes this proposal, the fight not just for freedom of speech and
association, but private property, individual determination, and integrity of
the family will face new assaults, from which they may not recover. An entire
state becoming HUD compliant (and thus rendering the US Constitution
irrelevant) would only embolden a reckless government intent on wrecking state sovereignty
in the name of promoting the greater good.
As goes Rhode Island, so goes the rest of the USA? Not if
concerned citizens fight back. Just as the new birth of freedom broke out in
Rhode Island, liberty can break forth there (and everywhere else) once again.
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment