There’s a recent movie, “the Ides of March,” about how politicians manipulate us for their personal advantage. We are reminded by this cinematic exercise that Brutus and Cassius have modern day equivalents who wave American flags while they assassinate good government. If only there were no such sociopathic political compulsives!
But the intense factional rivalry that has become our national political culture means campaigners are relentlessly misdirecting us to some sensational irrelevancy, rather than having the public dialogue we need for good governance.
Too many hollow men and women shift their policies from one loss-leading polled belief to another.
If we have a candidate in Loudoun County who hopes to mimic such political manipulation, it will be one who wants residential development but who won’t admit it publicly.
We live in a County that can hardly afford the public services required by the residential development in place and in the pipe-line (40,000 units). We have discomforting traffic congestion from east to west and back again. We struggle to teach children new to our community at the rate of three newly built schools every year. Our housing values decline or remain stagnant.
The measure of who is worth our vote in the electoral pairings is the candidate most likely to oppose residential development.
I’m suspicious of first time candidates who’ve never done anything in the community that I can verify.
Each of us should look therefore at what each candidate has done and judge whether they were found worthy or wanting by our friends and neighbors; that’s how I reject outright some folk and support others.
I look askance at any candidate who has accepted developer contributions – particularly from non-resident developers.
I don’t buy the “hard love” of those candidates who tell me not to expect anything from the government. Really? Then why are you running if that’s your point of view? I expect and demand that government restrain those no-good outliers among us, who serve their selfish interests alone, and are entirely unconcerned whether they plunder and despoil our land, the air we breathe or the water we drink. They won’t go on the record for equal rights for all our citizens. They won’t lift a finger to lighten the load of those citizens suffering hard times.
My Irish nature almost reflexively resists any law or rule that restrains freedom but my life experience and intelligence teach that not all men and women are angels for, as Madison observed in Federalist No. 51 in 1788, if we were angels, we would not need government at all.
It’s also indisputable that we need law enforcement, fire and rescue, prosecutors, public defenders, social services, teachers, road crews, court personnel, elected officials, an array of support staff and more to assure us of peace, safety, and an historic legacy worthy of our children.
We also need men and women in government who understand business but not those that fail to appreciate that the bottom line in business is not the same measure we apply in the same way to the public services that citizens expect.
While the national debate is not entirely irrelevant, it has little to do with the public policy decisions that concern us when electing a local district supervisor, school board member, state delegate, state senator, sheriff or commonwealth attorney?
If we have to squint and take the measure of any candidate, especially for supervisor, the overriding question is can we trust this person to resist more residential development or will he or she fold like a house of cards before those hidden selfish interests, leaving us to brace ourselves for the end of what’s rural and a regretful shift to ever increasing density in what has been suburban.
I think if we choose carefully, we won’t have any regrets on the Ides of November.
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