LPM OnlineMay 8, 2001 |
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5/7/00
Petitions Filed to Overturn Eastpointe "Living Wage"
Ordinance
WEST OLIVE -- Newly elected Ottawa County Libertarian Party chair has filed petitions to run for a seat on the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District. Though this position is technicaly elected, the only people eligable to vote in the June 4 election are representatives from each constituent local district. ISD elections are usually uncontested and are generaly a joke. However, one of the incumbants has declined to seek re-election. Roger has filed while hoping that he will face no opposition. This could be an interesting little election.
With the petition drive to recall the new CCW law that
Governor Engler signed into law, I felt that I should share
the following story to add a little humor to the issue. It
makes the point that guns by themselves are not dangerous Utahns Guns Are Dangerous! by Larry RipplingerFor Utah gun owners, ittle has changed since the days when Brigham Young cautioned Mormon pioneers to stock food and rifles. More than 30,000 Utahns have applied for and been granted concealed - carry permits, and virtually every able-bodied, law abiding citizen able to vote can strap on a holster with a loaded pistol in Utah as long as the weapon remains in plain view. Is this really a good idea? It seems gun violence is rampant all across the United States. Especially terrifying are the guns that are killing children in schools.All I can say is I’m glad I don't own a gun that kills children. In fact I'm not sure this gun I have will kill anything. A friend of mine gave me a 357 Police special a while back and told me at the time, "it's a really dangerous gun". I told him I would keep an eye on it, and put it in a case by my easy chair. A few weeks later one evening while watching an especially violent show on TV, I thought I saw it move, out of the periphery of my eye. Boy, I stared at that thing the rest of the night. I wasn’t taking any chances. The next day I went out to my tool shed, got a hammer and placed it along side my easy chair. I wanted to have it handy to beat the h....out of that gun if it tried something funny again. Guess I should have known it wouldn't shoot the TV. This was a Police special that was trained to shoot mostly people or once in a while a mad dog or some violent critter. Maybe it just got excited. I didn’t have to wait long before it showed it’s true colors. It was on Super bowl Sunday. My son, Randy, walked down from his house to watch the game with my wife Kay and me. It was a wonderful Sunday. Good football and we are having a nice visit and then it happened. True story. When I look out my front door, across the porch I see a good share of landscape. I can look across the Burr Trail into the Grand Staircase of The Escalante, Clinton’s first declared National Monument by executive order. Suddenly, we all hear the yapping of Cappy, a very small white 10 month old puppy we have at our home because we are puppy sitting while a daughter, husband and family are away in Germany for a year, Mitch doing his Elton John impersonation. The shrill yapping of the puppy was like nothing I've heard before or since. My eyes caught the movement of animal action outside. Looked like a big dog or possibly a coyote about to munch our little Cappy. So I yelled "Coyote" and Kay hollers, "big dog". Randy can’t see the action from his seat but "hears" the action outside and our hollering inside. Boy, he’s up in a flash and out that door like a gun shot and on to the rescue. Well, me, I'm stuck there in my seat with my prosthesis off, leaving me pretty helpless. So I am putting on my artificial leg with one eye on the door and the other on my gun. By now that dangerous, violent gun ought to be springing into action. What does it think it was made for anyway? Doesn’t it remember? By the time I get to the door and open it to go out to give Randy a helping hand, Cappy is a white streak, shooting between my legs, headed for the back bedroom and under the bed. Whoa!!! There is Randy at the end of porch. He has a snowball in his hand. I’m sure it’s one of those hard, dangerous snowballs. You know, the ones that hit you in the face and black your eye, The one kids use all the time to subdue the enemy! Ouch. I asked Randy what happened? My jaw fell open as he explained to us what took place. As he rounded the porch, he could see the action had come to a standstill. Looking for a dog holding Cappy down, it took a moment to register what was really holding him down, (still yipping). It’s not a dog at all, or a coyote. It’s a snarling, staring him right in the eye, cougar! He only stood there for a moment, hoping that dangerous, violent gun would come to his aid and get rid of this menace once and for all. But that coward gun was still laying there, trying to hide behind anything it could see. Well, with no choice left, Randy does the unthinkable. He reaches down and picks up one of those dangerous, bloody your nose, unlicensed, unregulated, hard as ice snowballs and smacks that bad fellow cougar right in the chops. That was it. Coug dropped that yipping puppy dog like a hot potato or should I say "hot dog"?. I think it figured if it got hit by another ice ball, it would be his demise. At any rate he lit out of there like there was no tomorrow. Randy ain’t afraid of no stinking cougar, not as long as he had a snowball. That’s a pretty scary weapon you know, and I just may have changed my mind about guns. Maybe they aren’t the violent killing machine we have been led to believe. The fact is, arrows have killed more heads of state in this world than bullets. Of course cars kill the most now. We license them, put in seat belts, give drivers training, make it against the law to drink and drive and cars are killers. Right? Lets put the blame for these senseless school shootings in proper perspective. It isn’t the bows and arrows or the guns and cars, it’s the snowballs. They’re unregulated, unlicensed and free. Yep! They're uncontrolled and just too many of ‘em.
School Board candidate Jason Miller: "I have seen the system from the inside, so I know what it's like."
by Jonathan Trager Jason Miller isn't old enough to buy beer, but that isn't stopping him from trying to help some Hudsonville, Michigan parents buy a better education for their children. The 18-year-old Libertarian activist is running for a seat on the local school board. And while some people might view his youth as an election obstacle, Miller believes his recent experience as a high school student might actually work to his advantage. "I have seen the system from the inside so I know what it's like," he said. "Other board members don't. They are insulated by a group of administrators with an institutional bias who just don't get the real world." Miller also has something few other 18-year-olds can claim: Real political experience. He co-founded and currently chairs the Ottawa County Libertarian Party, and, while still in high school, was appointed to the Hudsonville Parks & Grounds Advisory Board by the county commissioner. In addition, he served as a student representative to the Hudsonville school board prior to graduating six months early in January. "Attending meetings and working with the school board has taught me about the issues and encouraged me to get more involved," he said. Miller said he decided to run for office because the Hudsonville public school system has been plagued with fiscal problems -- and because no child should suffer because his or her parents can't afford a private school education. "Although Hudsonville is a pretty conservative district, the schools are constantly running spending deficits," he said. "Half of parents with children in the district either teach their kids at home or send them to private school. "The Hudsonville Board of Education needs a voice for lower spending instead of deficit spending, for school choice instead of paranoia, and for common sense instead of institutionalized bias." As a school board member, Miller said he would have a higher profile with which he could lobby the state legislature for school choice. Specifically, he would work to expand charter school opportunities and lobby for education tax credits. "Whenever the state considers anything that allows more school choice, there is a constant parade of teachers, union leaders, and school board members talking about how we have to 'save public education.' They say choice will hurt our public schools," he said. "We need somebody to explain how competition will benefit students, as opposed to the public school establishment." Michigan LP State Chair Stacy Van Oast said she was excited about Miller's candidacy. "Jason is definitely one of the party's rising stars," she said. "If anyone can handle a position at 18, it's him. He's helped organize and solicit funding for other campaigns, so he has a lot of experience even though he's young." Miller, who is currently a freshman at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, said he is optimistic about his chances in the race. Because only a fraction of Hudsonville citizens actually vote in school board elections, Miller said he has a wide pool of potential voters from which to garner support. His campaign strategy will be to target registered voters who didn't vote in the last local election and give them a reason to show up and vote for him, Miller said. To achieve that, he said, he will go door-to-door, use direct mail, and post signs at popular locations in town to promote his candidacy -- and to remind people that their vote can make the difference. "I really think this is one of the LP's most winnable races this year," he said. "I believe that I will be the youngest Libertarian elected to public office in the country." The Hudsonville election will take place on June 11. For information, or to make a contribution, write: Miller for School Board, 6450 28th Avenue, Hudsonville MI 49426. Or-mail: jcmiller@egl.net. |
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