The question is not whether we would like to keep the Colts. Most of us would. I?m an example: I don?t care for sports. I would rather visit my dentist than go to a Colts game (and I really don?t like visiting the dentist!). I?m well aware that the measurable economic impact of major league football is somewhere between miniscule and nonexistent. But I would still like to keep the Colts in Indianapolis. I think there is probably a public relations benefit to being a ?major league? city, and I like the civic pride that is generated when the team is winning. All things being equal, I?d build the Colts a stadium. But all things aren?t equal.
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Category Archives: Local Government
A Really Bad Idea
As government teachers routinely remind students, the United States is a representative democracy. The Founders were worried about excessive ?majoritarianism??which they equated to government by mob rule. Representative government was their solution: we elect people to make decisions, because most of those decisions require deliberation, study and expertise. Citizens retain control by reserving the right to vote those same people out of office if we decide they aren?t making good decisions.
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Prognostications
Since Unigov was first created back in 1971, there has never been a transition of leadership in the City-County Council, which has remained reliably Republican for the entire thirty-two years. This November, for the first time, that changed. As we usher in a New Year, and new leadership, a reasonable question is: How will this change affect our city? What can citizens expect from a Democrat-led Council?
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Labels
Periodically, someone will respond to a column I have written with a statement beginning "well, you liberals always…" Being dismissed as a liberal always amuses me, because I hold precisely the same political values I held in 1980, when I was the Republican nominee running for Congress against Andy Jacobs, and a fair number of voters found me "too conservative." The only thing that has changed is the label.
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Do You See What I See?
Michael Kinsley recently defined “spin” as a “description of reality that suits your purposes. Whether it resembles the reality we all share is an issue that doesn’t even arise.”
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