by John DiMascio
Well it’s 2017 and sadly most voters believe this is a year when you aren’t required to fulfill your civic responsibility to vote. It’s an off year – right? Save for a small handful of special elections to fill vacancies in the Legislature, no one is running for anything until next year.
Wrong! Nothing could be further from the truth. On odd-numbered years in Massachusetts, cities and towns hold municipal elections. The elections in communities governed by town meeting and selectmen already held their elections sometime last spring. City elections will take place this fall. As is the case with state and federal elections, these campaigns culminate on the first Tuesday in November. This year it’s November 7th.
The purest and most beautiful manifestation of republican self-rule or our representative democracy is expressed in municipal government.
Think this through. The decisions made in city and town halls affect our daily lives at least as much, if not more, than the pronouncements handed down from Beacon Hill or the D.C. beltway. The roads we drive on, the traffic we deal with, our trash collection, most immediate public safety issues, and our schools are all administered for the most part at the local level.
Participation in these local processes is a right, a duty, and indeed a privilege. A privilege because this local control, which we take for granted, is unique to our American republic. The founders in their wisdom understood that for a people to be free, they must govern themselves. To do that effectively, authority and power need to be localized. They gave the states more authority than the federal government, and by extension counties and municipalities retain the responsibility of administrating matters that pertain most intimately to our daily lives. Thus, the power of the federal government was limited to only those things that involve matters that cross state lines and matters of foreign policy, national security, immigration, and foreign trade. States were granted plenary policing powers, the right to primarily establish social policy, the ability to legislate on matters that cross municipal lines and to regulate commerce within state lines. Finally, the supervision, organization, direction, and management of those public services that so directly impact our quality of life on a daily basis were left to the people themselves, to administer through the people they know best: their fellow townspeople, their friends and their neighbors whom they entrust with elected office to serve the needs of the community.
Tragically, too many citizens can’t name one of their city councilors, perhaps not even their mayor. Possibly the only time they bother to find out who their councilors are, is when there is problem. Even more tragically, the turnout for these local elections is abysmal.
Therefore, far too often decisions are made by agenda-driven, radical leftwing activists. This is exactly the case in far too many communities. Conversely, many if not most mainstream commonsense voters who better reflect the will of the electorate sit out municipal elections. As a result, the radical left has taken over many if not most mayorships, city councils, boards of selectmen, school committees and various municipal boards.
Under the banner of “Think Global – Act Local,” cacophonous minorities of hardcore agitators have taken over what should be non-partisan local governments.
They abuse municipal government’s purpose to promote a diabolical docket of diehard dictates, which have virtually nothing to do with delivering quality public services efficiently without breaking the taxpayers’ bank account. Rather than addressing parking and potholes, this “enlightened” political gentry wastes taxpayers’ time and money, re-litigating Supreme Court Cases, re-writing foreign policy and federal immigration policy, passing resolutions about impeachment, debating nuclear disarmament, and just about anything but fixing the damn potholes!
They love to use the guise of a superfluity of issues to hide their true agenda. The most common veneer these days is the environment or so-called Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. There are not enough column inches available to get into the details on this particular. If you have not read up on Agenda 21 and the truly nefarious intent behind it, I can’t urge you enough to do so.
Of course, the latest fad amongst these Ivory Tower elitists is to use city and town governments as part of the “resistance” or the elected political wing of the so-called “Antifa.”
These magistrates of multi-culturalism feign humanitarian motives to pass Sanctuary City ordinances. They don’t care that such ordinances endanger the public, burden the taxpayer, and violate federal law. But let there be no mistake. They aren’t motivated by their twisted notion of social justice. These ordinances, resolutions, or proclamations are purely meant to make a partisan statement against President Donald Trump.
They can’t cope with the fact that they lost an election and that the states, charged by the Constitution with electing the president through the Electoral College, rejected their radical and failed socialist agenda. Were this not the case, these same lawless local legislators would have been scrambling to pass such sanctuary ordinances during the Obama administration, which according to government data deported more illegal immigrants than any prior president. Garnering him the title of “Deporter in Chief” by several pro-illegal immigration/open borders advocacy groups.
So what is our recourse? It is as simple as performing our civic duty. Between now and November 7th, find out who is running for municipal office in your community. There may well be Republicans running, but you won’t know it by looking at the ballot. Virtually all these elections are non-partisan. That means party affiliation is not disclosed on the ballot. Of course, being a Republican in Massachusetts is not a guarantee that the candidate has common sense. Ergo Charlie Baker, who voices lip service against sanctuary status for the state, but then criticizes President Trump for declaring that the unconstitutional “DACA” executive order will be terminated in six months. But if there is a Republican running (and you’ll have to do some research), that might be an indication that said candidate understands that the city council is not Congress, not the Supreme Court, and not the United Nations Security Council. It’s the bloody city council; they get elected to fix the damn potholes!
It’s going to take some work on our part. We need to ask tough questions of the politicos to see if they are running to be partisan prelates of pluralism, or are they running to be city councilors and mayors. We may not find Republicans or conservatives running for office in our community. But surely we will find some candidates that display some commonsense.
If by chance there are no such candidates running in our particular city, then find one running in a neighboring community and help that person get elected. You will be helping to end this devilish reign of the Demi-gods of Diversity. And if you’re able to find a worthy Republican, then you’ll be helping to build a farm team of possible future candidates for higher office. We certainly can’t rely on the current feckless leadership of MA-GOP to actually engage in Party building. Their only concern is retaining the corner office on Beacon Hill and the political patronage it affords the current corrupt establishment.
On November 7th… Elect municipal governments that fix the damn potholes. ♦
John, they’re “fixing our potholes” by covering them with bike paths. I’d rather have the holes.