Rick Badie / My Opinion

By Jim

January 9, 2008 7:57 PM | Link to this

Crime tries to hide from view. Few criminals would commit a crime if they were certain that they would get caught and be punished.

I hope Gwinnett Parks install cameras in all public areas so that criminals cannot hide. Where they cannot hide, they are much less likely to commit crime.

Cameras are less expensive than repairing the damage from vandals and no one wants another attack like the one on Meredith Emerson who was hiking on a trail.

Spend the money now, before it is too late.

By Bonedaddy

January 9, 2008 8:33 PM | Link to this

Why are taxpayers funding parks? Why do not ALL parks operate like Stone Mountain, user pays? I pay for movies, Disney, Stone Mountain, Six Flags, etc, etc. My family has never used a county park. If you choose to use a park, you as a user should have to pay, not those who don’t. This is a huge waste of government money that was collected from me with the threat if I do not pay my property taxes I lose my home. The county should pay for necessary services, police, fire, roads, etc., not ballfields and swimming pools. Isn’t it great that governments can use police powers to force you to pay up for the feel good programs? Before I hear that line about giving the children a place to play and go, you should have thought of that before you had children. Their entertainment is your responsibility, not the taxpayers.

By Bruce Wicox

January 10, 2008 12:17 AM | Link to this

Bonedaddy I don’t use the parks but I gladly pay my share in taxes. It provides much needed green space, a safe place for children to play, not on these insane highways. And not everything is free, you pay for most of the additional services like swimming, renting a ballfield, classes offered by the parks department.

My only complaint is in the older sections of the county they didn’t plan for parks, now the areas that need them the most don’t have them.

By Bonedaddy

January 10, 2008 10:45 AM | Link to this

Bruce, again, respectfully, we will agree to disagree. It is your responsibly when you have children to figure out where they will play, be educated, etc., and how YOU will pay for it. It is not governments responsibility. I again stress taxes should be used only for NECESSARY services, not feel good programs. As far as using taxes for “green spaces”, fine. Leave them GREEN. Do not build ballfields and swimming pools on the taxpayers dime. User pays for all they use.

By Michael H. Smith

January 10, 2008 10:50 AM | Link to this

A user fee for parks sounds reasonable enough. Like user fees for roads, cops, fire, EMT, libraries and school services, right? Oh but wait a minute, taxes are user fees. But what happens when I don’t use? Hmm… Parks are green space? Guess so, but then again, so are private golf courses. However, private golf courses, for the most part are green space too, that are forced to pay taxes without receiving taxpayer subsidies. Do private country clubs receive any public mercy for providing a greater good to the community in which they serve by providing green space free of charge to those who will never use them? Nah, shut’em down, build another subdivision or two and another a strip mall would nice. Besides, they use water that could go into my swimming pool!

Everybody gotta pet-peeve that needs a user fee, Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

By Bruce Wicox

January 10, 2008 11:21 AM | Link to this

Bonedaddy when you find a place where you decide where and what your taxes will be used for let us all know. And no one stopping you from building your children their very own private ballpark right in the backyard. Same goes for education, there is no reason you cannot send your children to a private school or build your own by the ballfield.

Lets see private country clubs should receive tax subsidies for making a profit from their private green space golf courses? That would be like giving tax subsidies to oil companies to shaft us at the pump, oh wait we already do that don’t we?

By Bonedaddy

January 10, 2008 1:34 PM | Link to this

As a matter of fact I did build my child her own playground, and she does go to private school, even though I pay 12K a year in school taxes. This is my responsibility. Government should only provide the necessary services as mentioned before, not fluff. Parks and libraries cost millions and millions that could be better used to give police and fire officials pay raises, as they deserve, and property owners a tax break, which they deserve. By the way, I am not evil rich, I have made tough choices in my life to be responsible for me and mine. Oh, one more thing sure to pis* you off, they can keep all of the money I paid into Social Security, just let me out of the program to invest my own money as I can do a heck of a lot better ROI. Relax fellas, I agree with some of the crap I see you blog here sometimes.

By Bruce Wicox

January 10, 2008 2:37 PM | Link to this

You don’t tick me off at all Bonedaddy just let me know when you find this Eden. Look, in Gwinnett the commissioners want to tell you what trash service you can use, we’re wasting billions in a war I don’t agree with, we give government subsidies to corporations making profits, you think I’m arguing with you? Just remember we get what we elect, that is the reality of it all.

By Bonedaddy

January 10, 2008 5:35 PM | Link to this

At least we agree on this point. End ALL subsidies to all companies. Let the free market dictate price. I am sick of government regulating private enterprise and wasting my money, and to your point dictating who picks up my damn garbage!

By Michael H. Smith

January 11, 2008 4:05 AM | Link to this

Everybody gotta a subsidy too, are so it seems.

Lets see, employers hire illegal aliens. U.S. taxpayers educate the illegal alien children of the illegal alien parents from Mexico that the employer hires to make a profit. Yep, we already subsidize that for profit making scheme too, good old corporate welfare. Not to mention the “undocumented foreign aid” sent back home that becomes a foreign debt accruing interest for services illegally rendered. Few decry shut them down.

Gee, lucky us, if only a “free market” actually did exist without governments manipulating the labor market in forcing wage controls on the jobs that couldn’t be exported and subsidized in a foreign country.

Perhaps then the “agents of change” wouldn’t do earmarks as usual? Oops, almost forgot, they did earmarks better than usual. They took back money appropriated to secure the borders. From bridges to nowhere to a corporate air field to a bike trial for $400k. Ah, public transportation at it best, to serve the least possible number of us.

Think we could change agents?

End all subsidies is a wonderful thought. In reality, though, outside of a Libertarian’s envisioned world, it will never happen. And “shared responsibility” is about like “shared consequences”. A private for profit country club is subsidizing the government when it uses treated waste water on it’s privately held green space that the member users pay exclusive fees to enjoy, over and above the taxes the organizations pays. So the public decries “a responsible corporate citizen” and demands they be shut down or denied waste water as a consequence. As usual, the responsible bear more than their share of consequences.

Enjoy the pork-rinds: The bike trails , the sidewalks, the parks, the libraries and such. These things are usually the first to fall victim to the budget ax. ‘Cause counties have to balance budgets and set priorities, unlike the federal government that doesn’t share the same responsibility or consequences.

By Jim

January 11, 2008 7:53 AM | Link to this

This may be the first time I’ve posted twice on the same topic but the comments about not paying taxes except for those government services that we actually use hit a nerve.

As much as I dislike paying taxes, I fully support government stepping in and providing services that the private sector would not support, or would do a poor job of doing. Good examples in Gwinnett County would be the public library and public parks system.

There isn’t any way a private corporation would provide the level of service that is available to Gwinnett citizens.

Someone who does not use these services might say that the level of service should be where the market place supports it but I believe that libraries and parks provide benefits to the whole of society.

Libraries help foster literacy and the higher the literacy rate, the more productive a society usually is. Parks help maintain fitness and society benefits again because a healthy society is more productive and has lower medical expenses.

I do not use public health clinics but I do agree with government providing them. Just offering inoculations to those who cannot afford them helps prevent communicable disease. Once again, this benefits all of us.

I could go on-and-on but I hope I’ve made my point. Government could provide only what is necessary but if it did, we would all suffer.

Last but not least, if each of us decided what government could charge us, nothing would get done.

By Michael H. Smith

January 11, 2008 10:22 AM | Link to this

The sad thing Jim, is individually we never decide what taxes we pay and STILL so very little honest good is getting done.

By Bruce Wicox

January 11, 2008 1:12 PM | Link to this

On those “Earmarks” Mr. Smith I have never heard of any district demanding that their Representative send the money back?

Free market and free trade, every agreement we have made is suppose to include wage agreements and pollution controls, we never bother to enforce them. That is why companies like NIKE under our free trade system can get sneakers, excuse me, running shoes made for ten cents a day by child labor. The whole idea was sold as raising the worlds standard of living to ours, like torture, the reality is we’re just lowering ours to theirs.

As I said, we get and we deserve, who and what we elect.

By Bruce Wicox

January 11, 2008 1:12 PM | Link to this

On those “Earmarks” Mr. Smith I have never heard of any district demanding that their Representative send the money back?

Free market and free trade, every agreement we have made is suppose to include wage agreements and pollution controls, we never bother to enforce them. That is why companies like NIKE under our free trade system can get sneakers, excuse me, running shoes made for ten cents a day by child labor. The whole idea was sold as raising the worlds standard of living to ours, like torture, the reality is we’re just lowering ours to theirs.

As I said, we get and we deserve, who and what we elect.

By Bruce Wicox

January 11, 2008 1:40 PM | Link to this

“We the People” have created this system of government over the years, we allowed it to happen. We enjoy and never complain about the pork we receive, matter of fact we make sure we elect those who bring home the biggest piece of the pie.

Most have stopped paying attention, most whine about corruption in government and there is nothing we can do. Our voter turn out is an embarrassment, President Reagan took Election Day off the list of federal holidays, think that was done to get ‘The People” to the polls or keep them away. Now we have some backwater states going back to the Poll Tax days requiring, not just an ID, but a photo ID? The same states do nothing about Absentee ballots where the biggest fraud occurs, yes they should bring out the voters.

The great line from the old Pogo comic strip, “We have met the enemy and he is us”, sums it all up.

By Michael H. Smith

January 11, 2008 4:15 PM | Link to this

Well, Mr. Wilcox or Wicox, I just complained about those earmarks ( brining them out of the shadows - Again, Again and uh… Again!) as I have in the past many times; including BOTH sides of globalization i.e. shipping good paying jobs out the front-door offshore, while importing cheap labor through the wide open unsecured back-door of the borders and broken visa system by any means legal or illegally possible, from “Slick Willy” Clinton to “Baby Oil” Bush.

And by the way, that Photo ID ( which the Supreme Court is likely to uphold, making it the settled law of this land) compliant is about as lamo as the people who say they don’t vote because the politicians do what they want to anyway, so it really doesn’t matter if they vote or not.

Fess up now, the only POLL TAX that exists, is down right laziness from people that really don’t give a dang.

But tell you what, call your good buddies over at the ACLU and have them enter a lawsuit on your behalf to go after that suspect absentee ballot fraud. I’ll gladly sign on the amicus curiae brief as a friend of the friend of the court.

Only every legal vote should count.

By Bruce Wicox

January 11, 2008 4:46 PM | Link to this

Well Mr. Smith it’s not as simple as a conservative like you would believe. My buds over at the ACLU, like Bob Barr and the defenders of one of your leaders Rush actually need an example of wrong doing. Not so with the party now in power down at the state capitol, they pass laws, yes your small government conservatives, to stop outrages that do not exsist. Tell me Mr. Smith, when has there been an example of any massive voter fraud in the State of Georgia? To save you the embarrassment, there hasn’t been, tell me, if there wasn’t a problem with fraud, what other reason could there be?

By Tahuaya

January 11, 2008 9:26 PM | Link to this

Michael H. Smith, are you a “conservative” or a racist?

By Bonedaddy

January 11, 2008 9:42 PM | Link to this

Sorry I started all of this. I’m going to bed.

By Michael H. Smith

January 12, 2008 5:20 AM | Link to this

Lovely, now an inquisition from a weak minded enigma hobbling on the social crutch of race, something that can only be contrived in the imaginations of bigots who refuse to accept the empirical evidence presented by biology - race is a meaningless category. Go pimp Tahuaya, ignorance is bliss, you’re sure to find plenty of happy like weak-minded customers willing to buy the social infirmity you’re pandering.

Well, Mr. Wicox or Wilcox or whatever else, it is very simple. You, Libertarian Bob Barr (how about that Oklahoma court decision), Cynthia Tucker, Jay Bookman, and Mike King are getting close to losing on another liberal cause to dilute this Republic. It must be embarrassing and as well oh so painful to think it possible after losing on that other preclusive social crutch of affirmative action, that another blow to liberalism may well be at hand from the Supreme Court.

No you tell me there, Mr. Wicox and spare me no chagrin, since the Primadonna and Mr. Bookman could never find it in their beings to explain or respond to the lambasting published by the Washington Post of them and their photo id diatribe/OP EDs, over an article published previously by the AJC citing about 5,000 cases of the dead rising up and voting in Georgia during a period of about a decade, what example would possibly ever suffice? I would have to say none in my humble opinion, considering Ms. Tucker’s tirades on denying felons the right to vote and the preclusion of illegal aliens.

Needless to say(and contrary to the above point made)enactment of laws unlike the committing of crimes need not wait upon an untoward event to occur before action is taken. The ballot box is in this Republic the holy of hollies, that needs preemptive protections put in place to preclude any possibility of unwarranted intrusions from the unlawfully entitled. The sanctity of the ballot box must be preserved and secured by all means, even to the thought extremes. For the ballot is the most extreme (non-violent) legal authority a citizen will ever hold over any state and this nation.

So go to work liberals, you are that “old party in power” that promised change as the “agents of change” when you took over Congress. Enact laws to purge the voter roles of the unlawfully entitled and enact stricter controls over possible absentee ballot fraud. ‘Cause, as it appears, you can no longer depend on the Supreme Court legislating at your behest via judicial activism.

With all that said Bonedaddy, I think I’ll take a ride through Rhodes Jordan, maybe take in the sites at Treble Mill and enjoy some of our tax money while contemplating the water issue, over a couple of county owned reservoirs.

By Bruce Wicox

January 12, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this

Mickey is now officially a Dobber, a Lou Dobber that is, who attempts to baffle the masses with massive amounts of babble.

Now Mickey if these cases of massive voter fraud took place in Georgia they should be placed squarely on the backs of the conservative Republican party, are you suggesting it was the only way they could gain power?

As far as Washington, a majority based on one vote, which the party in power now holds, cannot change what the other incompetents did over the last eleven years. Oh and that guy that cannot speak English is still in the Whitewashed House, funny how he found his veto pen only when the other party came to town.

Unlike you Mickey I do not kneel at the altar of Cynthia Tucker, Jay Bookman, and Mike King, nor anyone else. Next time you’re kissing Lou’s ring tell him I said ‘Hey’.

By Michael H. Smith

January 12, 2008 4:56 PM | Link to this

BS Brucie, you lose again.