Letters

Go home big brother, we don’t want you here

Posted 12/11/14

To the Editor:

The little known Rhode Island Division of Planning has embraced an economic plan that in reality is a thinly veiled attempt at the socialist paradigm of equalizing wealth in …

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Letters

Go home big brother, we don’t want you here

Posted

To the Editor:

The little known Rhode Island Division of Planning has embraced an economic plan that in reality is a thinly veiled attempt at the socialist paradigm of equalizing wealth in society. The marketing friendly named Rhode Map Rhode Island is a much more dangerous plan than its optimistic title suggests. Initiated with a Housing and Urban Development Grant, this proposal sacrifices free enterprise and individual freedom in favor of the utopian aspiration of an overseeing benevolent government that controls the manner in which a society lives.

The Ocean State is in dire need of a coordinated economic effort that lowers taxes, controls spiraling utility costs, lessens costly and overly stringent regulations, and strives for efficiencies in government operations. Rhode Map Rhode Island seeks to supersede individual entrepreneurship and single home ownership in favor of an equalized standard of affordable housing and planned centralized communities. Despite its presentation as a long term economic plan, the initiative is more accurately an extensive low income housing program.

George Bernard Shaw famously said, “Property is organized robbery.” Those who reside at the liberal left side of the political spectrum believe Shaw’s maxim. Rhode Map Rhode Island attempts to support the socialist notion that property should belong to everyone. These leftists have a similar mindset to that of Native Americans who could not understand the British Colonialists concept of land ownership. So, they favor using the cudgel of imminent domain to eclipse current small businesses and single-family residences. They are absent of understanding of those who wish to live a self-determined life of business and property ownership. Plan proponents would rather make way for their ill-conceived “fairer” societal structure.

The stated objectives of the plan are coded with ulterior meanings. The first objective “Economic Competitiveness and Revitalization” truly means staking those without wherewithal and propelling them into commerce. This is not dissimilar to the issuance of subprime mortgages to homebuyers who could not possibly sustain payment in order to equalize home ownership. As we all know, this almost resulted in the collapse of our entire financial system in 2008. The second objective “Social Equity, Inclusion, and Access to Opportunity” is in actuality replacing the organic manner in which businesses and founded and grown with a programmed selection of winners and losers based on ethnicity.

Also, this objective seeks to again raise the minimum wage even though the General Assembly recently authorized a raise. This goal is counterproductive in that there is statistically a positive correlation between upping the minimum wage and stifling job growth.

Since Rhode Island has consistently one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, this will not benefit our state’s overall business climate.

The third objective is “Energy Use and Climate Change”. In other words, with our energy costs already comparatively high this plan wants consumers to explore alternative or renewable energy, which is even more expensive. In regard to climate change, it is beyond ridiculous the plan’s suggestion that Rhode Islanders should act to reduce our carbon footprint by ourselves. In the smallest State in the Union whatever we might attempt will have little effect on the world’s theoretical problem. As a result of this particular misguided idea, Rhode Islanders would endure increased energy costs to achieve this questionable goal.

Furthermore, the Rhode Map Rhode Island process involves the following stated facets: Social Equity and Community Engagement, Economic Development, a Statewide Housing Plan, Growth Centers, and Technical Assistance as a predicate to implementation. Thus, this plan usurps the power of individual municipalities to determine their structural and topographic future in favor of centralized state planning. The ulterior goal here is to tear down existing small businesses and single-family homeowners and replace what stood with a new matrix. The new design serves to equalize wealth by accommodating lower echelon citizens with massive low income housing builds while destroying neighborhoods of taxpaying businesses and homeowners. The nomenclature of “Growth Centers” is euphemistically an attempt at achieving a utopian vision of communities where all, regardless of education, skill sets, assets, or drive will enjoy the same standard of living. Housing and Urban Development calls this idea their “Livability Principles.”

Members of the Rhode Map Rhode Island Consortium, a 35-member Politburo charged with bringing this brave new world to fruition, have accused those who question their socialist wisdom with racism. This sentiment is part and parcel of the HUD paradigm.

The Rhode Island Planning Board will likely adopt this nefarious plan as the Ocean State’s economic plan for the future. In doing so, they will introduce the cancer of socialism into our beloved Rhode Island while missing the conspicuous answers to our economic woes. The solution is not a programmed dream like egalitarian society and increased government control. The answer is less government and reducing the current over stratification of our state government. The answer is less regulation and reduced taxation. The answer is valuing the communities already built and striving to renew and enrich them.

We citizens of the Ocean State do not want our will circumvented. We do not want our liberties taken away. We do not want government telling us where to live or how to live. The primary purpose of government is to preserve our individual freedom to choose for ourselves. So, pack your bags Big Brother we don’t want you here in Little Rhody!

Christopher M. Curran

West Warwick

Comments

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  • Straightnnarrow

    Thank you, Mr Curran, for your excellent review of the Rhode Map plan. it is time to pack our bags because the progressive elite will not and cannot listen to us common folk.

    Friday, December 12, 2014 Report this

  • Justanidiot

    Eminent domain is imminent.

    Friday, December 12, 2014 Report this

  • Thecaptain

    Extremely well articulated. pay attention Rhode Island, White Plains is on the way.

    Friday, December 12, 2014 Report this

  • Straightnnarrow

    Here is the list of Planning Council members who voted for Rhode Map and note that almost all of them receive a check from the public treasury in one form or other. Obviously "the stupid Americans" need this planning because they otherwise would be free, but just imagine if we could run them out of town.

    Voting for the plan were: Daniel Beardsley, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns; Jeanne Boyle, designee to the council for the president of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns; Anna Cano Morales, public council member; Janet Coit, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management; Jeanne Cola, chairwoman of the Rhode Island Housing Resources Commission; Sharon Conard-Wells, housing organization representative, from Nonprofit Community Development; Michael Fine, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health; Flores-Marzán; Kevin M. Flynn, council’s secretary and the associate director of the Rhode Island Division of Planning; Jeffrey Willis, designee for the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council; Amy Rainone, designee for the executive director of Rhode Island Housing; Nicholas Ucci, designee for the executive director of the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources; Hartford; Lewis; Marcus Mitchell, small business representative; Thomas Mullaney, from the budget office in the Rhode Island Department of Administration; L. Vincent Murray, local government representative, Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns; Jan Reitsma, governor’s policy office; M. James Riordan, public member; Samuel J. Shamoon, Governor Chafee’s designee; Amy Pettine, designee for the director of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority; Michael Walker, designee for the executive director of the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation; Janet White Raymond, public member; and Scott Wolf, environmental advocate.

    Saturday, December 13, 2014 Report this

  • bendover

    Well done...even the House Speaker thinks its a bad idea so let's see what he does about it.

    Sunday, December 14, 2014 Report this

  • JohnStark

    In a state that is economically paralyzed by over-regulation and confiscatory taxes, the Very Last Thing we need is a collection of central planning navel-gazers who have never worked in the dreaded private sector making any decisions about anything. "...designee to the council for the president of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns"? "...housing organization representative from Nonprofit Community Development"? Since when were Communities Developed through Nonprofits? What the Hell do any of these people actually DO in exchange for feeding at the public trough?? "...associate director of the Rhode Island Division of Planning." Really? Thank you, Igor, for this menagerie of beaurocratic insanity.

    Monday, December 15, 2014 Report this

  • falina

    Don't forget, Speaker Mattiello is new on the job. He will change his tune about this being a "bad idea" real quick once he is up for re-election. These slime balls pander to votes and nothing less. If the low-income votes will get him re-elected, that is where he will go. These "planners" are obviously forgetting a few things: 1) People WANT to own their own properties and work hard for them; it is the American dream. 2) No matter how much Planners try to "equalize" communities and resources, there will always be two factions involved: The motivated and the lazy. A lazy person will ALWAYS offend a person who is willing to work hard for what they have. It is more about ethical differences, not color or culture. 3) Distributing resources and equity by a person's skin color is perhaps the most racist act of all! 4) Not everyone WANTS to live in densely packed communities filled with "social interaction", which is the reason for "urban sprawl" in the first place. Besides freedoms, many many people also value their quiet and above all, PRIVACY!

    Tuesday, December 16, 2014 Report this

  • falina

    Thankfully the Mass and Connecticut borders are relatively close by. Time to vote with (y)our feet into saner waters.

    Tuesday, December 16, 2014 Report this

  • Straightnnarrow

    What is most disturbing, disgusting and insulting is that these Planners make a living off our dime as "public servants" and they have the chutzpah to tell us how and where to live. As Khrushchev said about American Liberals, "you spit in their face and they call it dew" and that is what these Planners have done- spit in our faces but it is not dew; it's manure of the foulest sort!

    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 Report this

  • JohnStark

    igor, understand that contemporary liberalism is the highest form of elitism. They know better than you where your kids should go to school, whether you should be required to participate in social security, what your appropriate tax levy should be, and the relative "fairness" of your living arrangements. And they, and only they will determine the proper definition of "fair", just as they have determined in recent years to #*&%@ize the very use of the word. Hint: It no longer related to equality of opportunity but rather equalized outcomes. And when outcomes remain stubbornly "unfair", as they always do in a merit based system, these elitists must step in with their latest, hippest version of central planning. After all, they 'care' so much more than the rest of us.

    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 Report this