PLATTEVILLE, April 29 — I attended (and have a story and photos to prove it last week) the UW–Platteville College Democrats 17th Senate District candidate forum featuring two of the three announced candidates to run against Sen. Howard Marklein (R–Spring Green).
During that forum a student speaking at about 100 words per minute said that “capitalism is fundamentally anti-democracy,” and proceeded to expound on the flaws of the American economic system. This country is not a purely capitalist society, and neither is it a pure democracy. Technically capitalism is an economic system and democracy is a political system.
The American understanding is that “democracy” means we have rights spelled out in a Constitution that says in the Bill of Rights what government cannot do to us, particularly to political minorities. The world experience is that countries that called themselves democracies often weren’t (East Germany, for instance), and that while socialism is a matter of degree, individual freedom and standard of living is better in capitalist countries such as this one than non-capitalist countries. (Unless you think the former Soviet Union was and Cuba and North Korea is really worker’s paradises.)
How did the candidates respond? Corrine Hendrickson said she would be fine with a 90-percent tax on anyone’s income past $10 million. Lisa White said “We have been living in a hypercapitalist society,” an interesting observation about a society that has public schools, government health insurance for poor and elderly people, various forms of welfare and other government programs that in a really “hypercapitalist” society would be left to the private sector. And given our progressive income tax system, the more income you have, the more taxes you pay for those government programs.
Perhaps Hendrickson and White were playing to the crowd, which happens in candidate forums run by political parties or affiliated groups. That would be a good reason to not attend partisan candidate events with any expectation of getting insight into the problems of today.
For instance: The disinterest in criticizing your own side for its outrageous behavior. This edition of your favorite weekly newspaper contains all the Letters I got this week from Democrat-leaning voters condemning the third assassination attempt in less than two years against President Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday. (You don’t see any? Very perceptive of you.) The sentence “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” came from an era in which words didn’t usually trigger people to attempt to murder others, and before social media gave people the opportunity to show off their (lack of) character to a worldwide audience. (I am reminded of a certain Northwoods brewery owner.)
The things local governments deal with don’t get the attention of the national news media, but they are more pertinent to your life than people in Washington (or Madison) who don’t know who you are and are not likely to have their minds changed by your opinions. There is, for instance, Grant County’s apparently inevitable takeover of Platteville emergency dispatch (see page 1) because the city apparently is reluctant to spend money on upgrading its dispatch center. The city does have other things to spend money on — for instance, road projects (including the street in front of our soon-to-be-former office) and a new well.
The extent to which moving dispatch to Lancaster is a good idea is unclear given that the county would be more than doubling its 911 and nonemergency call volume since Platteville has much more activity requiring law enforcement and other public safety personnel than the rest of the county. If there is no dispatch in Platteville, there is no backup in case something knocks out county dispatch. (Grant County does have natural disasters, and some of them come with no warning at all.)
Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, whom I mentioned here a few issues ago, had a deep interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” about how unserious Congress is with seeking to score cheap political points and of course get reelected instead of addressing what he sees as actual problems of the country today and in the future. (Unlike most partisans, Sasse sees flaws within his own Republican Party.) Sasse may have a unique perspective because he has already outlived his prognosis of a few months after he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Sasse is using what time he has left similar to Carnegie Mellon University Prof. Randy Pautsch, who gave a famed “Last Lecture” that can be found on YouTube. Sasse’s interview can be found in various online places, and is worth watching for such observations as “There are no maverick molecules in the universe.” Medical problems have a way of demonstrating what’s actually important in your life and what isn’t.
