So I was a little bit shocked and disappointed to see Robert Frommer, a staff lawyer for the organization, write a commentary for Freedom Politics promoting the idea that campaign donations should not be subjected to automatic disclosure.

I penned a response to his commentary that has been posted today. You can read my rationalizations here.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

The inspiration for the editorial was comments and quotes I’ve read from folks who actually seem to think it’s the mayor’s or City Council’s fault that crime happens — that they are somehow able to control who comes to Barstow and where they live and how people behave in their homes. People blame the city for Section 8 housing, which: one, is only used by 150 families in all of Barstow, so folks are confusing “Section 8” with “everybody in Barstow who is really poor”; and two, is a federal program between the government and landlords that the city has little control over. The city tried to introduce the rental inspection program in part to deal with the fact actually Barstow’s worst housing has nothing to do with Section 8, but they ran afoul of the Constitution and dropped it.

Also, there’s the element of the discussion that is actually the result of public safety unions going after public officials who have tried to hold the line against increasing expenses, trying to use fear of crime as a hammer to beat them out of office.

Furthermore, while the city can pass ordinances and arrest folks for crimes, the county runs the courts, not the city. The city is not responsible for sentencing.

I do think, though. that by trying to discourage folks from expecting too much from city leaders, who play much more of an advisory role than enforcement role, I might have gone too far and gave the impression I think city leaders have no responsibility at all. The City Council and mayor do play an important role — by setting the public safety budget, they set the tone for the police department to set priorities. A tighter budget means a less proactive police department. A looser budget gives them more flexibility and better able to innovate new ways to fight crime. So, they are very important. Their decisions will be even more important should Measure D fail.

I will admit that I probably don’t see local crime the same way people who have lived in Barstow for most of their lives see crime. This was highlighted in a discussion I had with a local leader last month over our editorial position against Measure D. He argued with me about how “unsafe” Barstow was and tried to get me on the pro-D side by asking me if I would feel comfortable if my family were to visit and spend time downtown Barstow at night.

There was a problem with his argument that became clear (and defused the conflict a little bit) after I answered: My family lives in St. Louis. My dad actually knew a couple of the victims of that horrifying City Hall shooting in Kirkwood earlier this year. Barstow’s crime problems don’t seem as significant to us. Personal experience can cloud perceptions of crime. I’ve been all over the place, some places safer than others. I’ve lived large chunks of my life in the Orlando area, where tourism can cause a significant amount of opportunistic crime, and St. Louis, where violent crime is a daily concern.

As I’ve said before, I grew up in the middle of the drug war. The idea some people have that you should be able to just go around not worrying about your personal safety is alien to me — a fantasy. The idea that any place called “downtown” would be a safe place to wander at night is not something I think will ever happen again. I hold myself responsible for my own and my family’s own protection first. If police are able to arrive on time in a crisis to contribute to our safety, they have my appreciation and financial support. But it’s never been part of my mindset that this is how the public safety works. I’ve always treated them as the folks you deal with after the crime happens.

So I think there may be an element to my editorial writing that comes from this experience. I don’t think violent crime is as big a problem in Barstow as some folks do, statistics notwithstanding. My observations from our reporting of violent crime are that most commonly the victim knows the criminal responsible. This certainly doesn’t make it any better (especially not for the victim), but I don’t think the average Barstow resident is more likely to be a victim of violence here than elsewhere. Because the nature of violent crime here in Barstow is often related to tumultuous relationships between the participants, often as a result of domestic abuse or drugs, it’s the area where the mayor and City Council has the least control and influence. Domestic abuse is a chronic social issue that involves a number of other agencies. The drug problem … we’ll I’ve gone over that one quite a few times. If we didn’t create the black market for drugs with our very laws, we would reduce the amount of drug-related violence significantly.

Property-related crime, however, is a big deal, and I agree with Chief Burns making property crime-fighting and prevention a priority. These are the crimes that are likely to have a direct impact on an average Barstow residents’ lives. So I’d be more interested in how leaders perceive that particular issue than violent crimes or “code enforcement” issues, which has become a tool to harass people who don’t treat their private property the way other people want them to.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

I do try to do my own editorials on propositions when there’s only a couple on the ballot or if they have a particular tie to Barstow, but given there’s so many of them this year, there’s no way I can spend the time going over each one to give individual recommendations.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

“Economic development does not happen in a vacuum. It is a partnership with everyone living here, including the city, schools, and media. It is the job of all entities to promote their cities in a positive light.”

I’d just like to make it very clear to Ms. Randall and to anybody out there who might think that this is case, that it is absolutely not the job of the Desert Dispatch to promote Barstow in a positive light.

Our job is to provide information to Barstow residents to help them make decisions about their own lives. Our job is to help Barstow residents understand what is going on in their community. We absolutely cannot do our job if we take on the role of city cheerleaders.

We’re a business, too, and what makes our information valuable is the trust readers have that we are fundamentally honest. If readers perceive that our newspaper serves the interest of city leaders and not the readers, they will not trust us, our newspaper will not be seen as valuable to this community, it will not provide certain information that readers need to know, and they will probably stop reading.

I always find it a little saddening when anybody in the business community suggests that we should turn a blind eye to our problems. First of all, they’re asking for us to hurt ourselves as a business in order to make the “community look good” in the belief that this will benefit them (it won’t — people aren’t blind). Second, bringing problems to light is a pretty darn good way to start fixing them. The public discussion surrounding Measure D and our safety needs has no doubt been fostered in part by our willingness to put all the information out there that we’ve got, pro and con.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

An additional comment I didn’t have room for in the editorial: When we put city leaders on the hook for economic development, that encourages them to stretch and abuse their authority in order to bring in projects. It’s not just more revenue for the city, it’s also votes to stay in office.

This means that when municipal governments misuse eminent domain in order to provide land to private developers or take money away from fire and school districts with redevelopment agencies, part of the reason is that these leaders are on the spot to bring economic projects to town or else face problems at the polls.

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They’re probably relying on the operators to not have the money to sue over this, but good lord. Due process? Anybody heard of it? Anybody?

Maybe next they’ll replace the impound lot with a used car dealership and not even wait for the verdicts.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

I thought to myself, “Pain? Isn’t that one of the arguments of allowing medical marijuana? That it helps deal with chronic pain?”

Sure enough, I did an online check and discovered that marijuana is a possible medical treatment for scoliosis pain.

Now this is interesting because San Bernardino is one of only two counties in the state that has resisted following California law and allowing prescriptions of medical marijuana within our county, arguing a conflict between the state law and federal drug laws. They keep losing their suits, but they keep trying.

So the county’s own resistance to medical marijuana use helped drive Postmus into the arms of meth. I wonder if anybody notes the irony.

Although to be fair to the county, a man operating a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay that is perfectly legal under our state law was just convicted in a federal trial and could face years in prison. But now that I think about it, I find it highly unlikely the county is concerned that individual practitioners would face federal sanctions. They’re probably more concerned about federal subsidies county agencies and organizations receive to help fight this stupid drug war.

Oh, and by the way, here’s a great Huffington Post piece about the drug war. Postmus might feel better to note that the current Democratic presidential candidate and the wife of the Republican candidate have used drugs in the past. And of course, both our current Republican president and previous Democratic president are widely believed to have also done drugs in their youth.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

Reason’s blog has another example worth exploring. Janet Riviera, in Fresno, has been in a coma for years and is being kept alive with the financial assistance of Medi-Cal.

It raises the rather horrifying ethical issue of how much of other people’s money should be used to keep somebody alive. With private insurance, this is a matter for her family. But because tax money is involved suddenly everybody gets a say.

It’s an unpleasant problem with no easy solution when we’re talking about people who can’t afford private insurance, but again it’s an example of putting decisions about health care in the hands of the government and not thinking through the consequences.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

I developed this “back to basics” concept a few months ago for a different and perhaps surprising reason: I was considering running for City Council myself. A couple of local friends also encouraged me to consider the idea. I do a lot of analysis and discussion, of course, of City Council decisions and provide a different point of view.

Unfortunately, I can’t be the editor of the newspaper and serve on City Council. Well, in a purely technical sense I could, but my boss certainly wouldn’t keep employing me, and if I were a reader I wouldn’t trust any news stories about City Council if the main editor were a member.

So if I were to run for City Council, I would have to find another job. The problem, here, though, is that there really isn’t a whole lot in Barstow I’m qualified to do besides work at the newspaper. We journalists aren’t good for a whole lot once you get us out of our element.

The only other logical fit would be education, which would have been a problem. I have issues with the union-dominated, money-wasting operations of our public school systems. It would be hypocritical for me to promote smaller government and then turn around and live off the public dime as a school teacher. (This is assuming they’d have anything to do with me anyway)

So, being the market-loving libertarian I am, I realized that I’m pretty much where Barstow needs me to be. If I don’t have value as an employee in Barstow’s business market outside the newspaper, then obviously I should stay here. Whether the City Council would have been better or worse with me on board (assuming the idea I could have won) is a question that will remain unknown.

Though feel free to speculate in the comments.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

Seriously though, I do want to add a little more insight to my attitude about the drug war. Libertarians are known for their attitude in favor of drug legalization. Also, and not entirely unrelated, many libertarians are perceived to be casual drug users.

I don’t touch drugs, at all. I rarely even drink alcohol. I want to make it clear that my attitude toward drug use is not based on some naive idea that drugs are not dangerous or a problem. My attitude is based on the belief that families and friends are better resources in helping deal with these problems than the government, and there’s a lot of information out there that backs up my view.

On a personal level, I’m a child of the drug war. I turn 37 on Monday, so it was interesting to me to notice that I’ve essentially lived my entire life in this fight. Drug use tore my family apart when I was a child. I don’t care to get into the details of it, but it was devastating. I know what drug abuse can do to people. Subconsciously, I’ve made many decisions about my life to make sure I never become one of those people.

But I also know what families can do. We put ourselves back together (well, really, it was my father’s hard work that did it). Government intervention did not play a role. If the government had gotten involved in this situation when it was at its worst, who knows what would have happened? I and my sister might have become wards of the state, and as difficult as things were, I can’t imagine such a turn of events working out better for me.

Post from: The Editor's Desk