Fixing Arizona

Jon Talton, the way-too-smart-to-be-a-blogger blogger a.k.a. The Rogue Columnist, has written a manifesto of sorts for fixing Arizona.

A future state senator from Mesa?

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Arizona isn't broken. Sure, everything is fine if you prefer:

• A public education that gives a student just enough information to make it to one of our overgrown community colleges. I'd love to call someone on this and check the validity of it, but I was once told the most common class taken by the 250,000 students at Maricopa community colleges is remedial math (sub-100 series). Having spent several years at MCC, it rings true. I was one of those students.
• An economy based on consuming finite desert that was never designed be inhabited by so many people at once. In terms of violating ecological science, Phoenix is the poster city for reengineering nature in unnatural ways.
• Politicians that are more likely to view global climate change as a socialist conspiracy than legitimate science.
• A leadership void so vast that someone like Joe Arpaio is allowed to achieve cult-hero status.
• Bragging rights is valued in population numbers rather than quality of life issues such as per capita income, as Jon so eloquently describes.

What's irritating is ideas like Jon's set are written off in this state as intrusive government or just plain liberal, as if the Republicans who run this place don't love Big G any less. Those "limited government" voices tend to disappear when their own expenditures are on the line. Not that I'm for bigger government, but pragmatic, logical populism always makes more sense to me on a local level than grand philosophies that ignore fundmental issues.

Perhaps the most inspired idea in his post was the idea of creating a new county consisting of Mesa, Gilbert, and Chandler -- against their will, I think -- that would likely win some award for it's lack of gov't spending and regulation oversight. At some point Zion County would face the same problems Mesa is facing -- trying to keep together public services like garbage collection that even good Republicans expect their government to take care of -- just on a much more massive scale. But until then they could run their county any way they wish while I move to reconfigured Maricopa County, where the absence of certain East Valley influences might just open up a conversation beyond stale neo-con hyperbole.

Comments

[AALEYAH]

Good points. such a nice post...keep up the good work..