The Editor's Desk

The 76 just across from Barstow Station has been holding at $4.99 per gallon for premium since last week. Gas prices went up over the weekend as oil prices went up, but they’ve managed to hold the line on premium. As a result, their mid-range gas is only four cents cheaper per gallon and I think their regular unleaded is about a dime less.

Keep an eye on them to see when we break that next threshold. I’ve asked reporter Abby Sewell to try to put together a story this week about the possibility of breaking $5 a gallon here in Barstow.

We tend to try not to use too many state wire stories about gas prices in California because quite frequently their declaration of the most expensive gas prices tend to be off in a way that’s very visible here. Their “most expensive” gas price tends to actually be cheaper than prices in Barstow.

So while everybody is ranting now about $4-per-gallon gas prices, I’m noticing that premium gas in Barstow is now well into $4.80 per gallon. Will we hit $5 soon?

A press release that arrived yesterday:

SAN BERNARDINO - San Bernardino County Supervisors Dennis Hansberger and Josie Gonzales are hosting a free workshop this week to help local non-profit organizations secure dollars from major foundations.

The “Meet the Funders” forum, featuring a panel of grant-making foundations, will be held Friday, June 6, from 8:15 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Board of Supervisor’s Chambers located in the County Government Center, 385 North Arrowhead Avenue, San Bernardino.

Representatives from major funding institutions, such as the Bank of America Foundation, the California Endowment, James Irvine Foundation, Verizon Foundation, and the Washington Mutual Foundation will meet face to face with local non-profits primarily serving the County’s third and fifth district residents.

Daniel Foster, Chief Executive Officer of the Riverside Arts Museum, will lead a panel discussion to educate local organizations on how to effectively approach these foundations for funding focused in the areas of health and human services, homeless, education, youth, and the arts.

That’s right, folks in county government are going to help non-profits learn how to turn to private foundations to try to get money for programs instead of begging for public money. Kudos! Brad Mitzelfelt should join them, but then he wouldn’t have press releases to send out crowing about his involvement in getting funding for High Desert organizations.

I was the only person at Cora Harper Community Center voting this morning when I stopped by before work. Back in February I actually had to stand in line and wait.

Whether this bodes good or ill for local Assembly candidate Bob Smith I have no idea. His chances depended on getting his name out in the other parts of the district anyway — Barstow is just a tiny part.

I’d say it definitely bodes poorly for Prop 98. I can only hope Prop 99 is defeated as well and somebody crafts a more robust eminent domain protection bill that doesn’t have any other elements that can be used to campaign against it.

“ASSEMBLYMAN COOK’S CAPITOL PUNISHMENT BILL PASSES FULL ASSEMBLY”

It’s about time we got some capitol punishment up there in Sacramento.

I received a press release from the No on 98 folks crowing about the latest polls that show the proposition losing and losing pretty badly next Tuesday.

Given that the entire campaign against the proposition is based on the rent control provision, I do have to wonder if it was a mistake to include it. We ran a guest commentary from Timothy Sandefur explaining in detail why the rent control issue isn’t a big deal, but sadly in some situations it is tough to fight emotional arguments with rationality.

Somebody needs to just suck it up and write a ballot initiative that restricts eminent domain and does nothing else, period. There’s too much mission creep going on. I understand the arguments for getting rid of rent control and keeping local government from abusing the zoning process to get what they want, and I agree, but this is a battle fought in increments. Let’s re-establish the proper use of eminent domain first and then wage the other battles.

I’m also disappointed in the number of newspapers who have fallen for the horrible arguments that have been presented to kill 98 and approve 99. You’d think an industry that requires government respect for the Bill of Rights in order to function would have a little more appreciation for property rights. But, sadly, for many newspaper editorial writers, the strength of your rights seems to weaken based on the amount of money you have. If you own a mobile home, you have all sorts of rights. If you own a mobile home park, well then, forget it.

This week marks one year since we started blogging at the Desert Dispatch. This blog in particular has 83 posts (not counting this one), and I’m looking to increase that frequency of posting over the next year.

Unfortunately, Barstow doesn’t seem to be much of a blogging town as yet. There are a few out there, but not many. I’ll attribute the loss to the fact that we tend to lose population of folks between the ages of 20 to 40, which apparently are prime blogging years. As much as a new medium can have a formal demographic as yet.

But anyway, as a reminder, if you want to join the blogging party, we host reader blogs through the “Publish Your Stuff” feature on the home page.

Yesterday, editors of Freedom Communications newspapers had several seminars regarding the future of our Web sites and newspapers (more are happening today).

One of the major focuses yesterday was on information databases for our sites, something we’ve wanted to do here at the Desert Dispatch, but lacked the tools and staff. For example, we held off posting our police logs in the way we posted typical stories, because we wanted to figure out a way to present them in a map format, the way a lot of larger newspaper sites do. Lacking the tools to do so, we decided to just go ahead and post them online anyway to fulfill readers’ needs.

Fortunately, our friends at our larger Freedom publications are working on tools to help us more easily build and develop our own databases to help Barstow residents find local information. In the future, expect to see more resources on our site to help you track down important local information.

I’m in San Antonio this week for our annual “Freedom School,” where publishers and editors of Freedom Communications newspapers gather and hear from libertarian luminaries about the issues of the day and have questions answered about local issues.

I bring this up because there have been comments relevant to our gay marriage issue in California. I received an e-mail from a reader, who wrote in part in response to my Monday editorial: “I know lots of people, to include me, who have a big problem with four judges over turning 61% of the voting population to make 3% of the state’s population happy. Scott those four judges just ‘beat it’s citizens into submission’ and how can you NOT think that?”

It concerns me that somebody believes he has been beaten into submission because the government refused to allow him to beat others into submission. As I, and all libertarians, argue, the will of the people cannot be used as an excuse to violate the rights of individuals. As Tibor Machan said yesterday in our conference, “The people cannot confer upon the government powers that they don’t have.” He was elaborating on something Freedom Communications founder R.C. Hoiles believed, which was that groups don’t have the moral authority to do things that individuals aren’t allowed to do. You can’t go around deciding who can get married. Therefore, neither do 61 percent of Californians.

These days, most speeches from gay activist organization leaders tend to inspire eye rolls from me. I’m not that interested in identity-based politics, and it frequently feels impossible to connect with gay political movements unless you’ve purchased the entire liberal identity package and think the government can make everybody get along. You also have to be willing to act like a victim, and I can’t stand doing that.

However, as a libertarian, my belief in the bedrock foundation of civil liberties is no different from theirs (the difference is where the foundation ends). I believe, and I have said before, that marriage is a right. We treat marriage as a right. As such I believe the U.S. Constitution already endorses gay marriage in the Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Essentially, just because a right isn’t laid out specifically in the Constitution does not mean said right doesn’t exist. But that’s considered a radical argument in today’s era of nanny government. The government gives you rights now, when it once existed to make sure your rights weren’t taken away.

I’m getting a little too far ahead, actually, as yesterday’s gay marriage decision was based on California’s Constitution, not the United States’. The judges determined denying marriage to same-sex couples violated the state’s constitution.

The responses from gay marriage opponents have been predictable, but no less frustrating. Apparently the definition of an activist judge is one that makes decisions you don’t like. Consider the response from our own county supervisor, Brad Mitzelfelt: “In 2000, the people of this state overwhelmingly supported Proposition 22, defining marriage in state law as a union between a man and a woman. With this decision, the Court has chosen to overrule the will of millions of California voters.”

Well, yes, Mr. Mitzelfelt, when millions of California voters approve a proposition that violates the state’s constitution, the court is supposed to strike it down. Determining the constitutionality of legislation is what the state Supreme Court is for.

Our congressional representative, Howard “Buck” McKeon, is also either dense or cynically manipulating the matter to get votes: “[U]nder no circumstance should the courts be allowed to show such utter disregard for the democratic process. In this case, it appears partisan politics and personal opinions are taking precedence over the rule of law; and that’s an alarming turn of events.”

Yes, actually, the court is supposed to overrule the democratic process if the democratic process produces an outcome that violates the state constitution. That’s how the “rule of law” works. Now, if you want to debate whether the judges have misinterpreted the wording of the constitution, that’s one thing, but a legislator who doesn’t understand the role of the court is a legislator who isn’t fit for office.

Let’s try changing the parties involved here to see if I can’t get my point across. According to a 2007 report from the California Secretary of State, registered Democrats make up 42.5 percent of all voters and Republicans account for 34.2 percent in this state.

So let’s say a group of Democrats got together a petition that said the State of California would not recognize marriages between registered Republicans. In theory, such a petition could pass, given the Democrats have the Republicans outnumbered. Would Mitzelfelt and McKeon accept the will of the people under such circumstances?

No, of course not, because, and I’m sure they’d agree, the state doesn’t have the right to deny the marriages of Republicans. So what makes this case different?

The state has no business deciding the legitimacy of a family, nor does it have any business validating relationships between consenting adults. I will not vote for candidates who believe that the government is the hammer to help them beat people into submission so that they may build their fantasy utopia. If private individuals choose to believe my marriage wouldn’t be valid with another man, or if churches decline to perform them, then that’s certainly their right. But I won’t have the government making that decision for me — or them.

Don’t expect my vote in June, Mitzelfelt. I don’t vote for those with no respect for basic civil liberties.