Of course the plan was doomed from the start. Everyone knows that the only proper way to build a libertarian utopia is to start with an artificial floating island in international waters.
No need for sewers then either. You can just slop out of the portholes.
People who do yoga are so smug about being flexible.
"This ain't going well at all," he said. "We've got a bunch of empty buildings, a lot of [federal] grant money spent, and for what? We have a fire station that nobody wants to operate and a police station with no police. Where did all that money go?"
Libertarians, ladies and gentlemen.
I guess with a bucket it wouldn't be too hard.
Wasn't Liberty City where Grand Theft Auto was set?
A true libertarian would just go ahead and name the place "Raccoon City".
Wasn't there another story very much like this for some larger city in the Rockies?
Also, it's pretty amazing from a CA perspective to read about a city council taking a vote on property tax levels. TX is more anti-tax in politics, but less so in constitutional structure.
9: that was on the tip of my tongue as I was writing this. I remember a detail about the streetlights being defunded.
6: yes! When I was hunting for the second link, I got lots of grand theft auto google results.
I'm wondering if stealing cars from my Russian neighbor who parks like an asshole would make me feel better about the last election? Also, to avoid racism, from the locally-born couple that put up a Trump sign.
Technically, Liberty City is only where part of GTA 1, all of 3 and all of 4 is set (well, there's a small ersatz New Jersey in 4 as well).
Of course, not parking like shit makes it harder for me to know which car is theirs.
I thought Colorado Springs was full of hippies.
I thought it was full of evangelicals and air force types.
I may have been thinking of Boulder.
13: oh, please please please put a "Stop a Douchebag" sign on his windshield. I'll pay your legal and/or medical bills.
I have health insurance. Thanks Obama.
Nah, I can be on the hook for a $20 copay, no sweat. Just do it! (That whole video series is probably the most braindead thing I have found entertaining in recent memory.)
On the OP, I laughed and even felt sympathy over the people running afoul of the Open Meetings law. Also, somehow the reporter didn't find anyone willing to give a defensive litany of worse places to live? That surprises me. I thought "look over there!" was a basic psychological survival strategy in these situations.
My uncle used to work in rural Colorado in county government. There was some super libertarian guy who refused to follow code when he built his house. Then there was a decent-sized snow storm, and the roof fell in. He died.
I'm recalling the Parks & Rec episode where the b-plot was Ron Swanson being persuaded to bring his workshop up to code. Part of the observations of the spokesman for regulations, paraphrased: "this place is going to fucking burn to the ground if you have a stray spark". Ron Swanson: not a Heinleinian superdoer!
I always feel bad for the mothers of libertarians. I'm sorry your stupid kid won't wear their stupid helmet when they ride their bike.
I like the picture of the nice libertarian standing next to his city's "No Thru Trucks" sign. Shouldn't market forces be keeping the trucks out of town?
I love stories like this. My grandfather was a city manager for most of his career, so it's interesting to me how people fuck up even the most straightforward parts or city management. (He oversaw a city's incorporation, even!)
Unfortunately, failures like this never become the "learning experience" they were meant to be, because the target audience is incapable of adjusting to new data.
You can't fail conservatism because if you fail, you weren't doing it right.
Or I guess, you can fail conservatism, but conservatism can't fail you. Or whatever.
Vaguely related: a Vox article mentioned in passing the five federal government agencies which have the highest favourability ratings with the American public. I'd be very interested to see what people guess they are. (To be clear, this is agencies, so not government departments and not the armed services.) Thoughts?
The Office of the Comptroller of Puppies
The Office of Thrift Supervision (now sadly defunct) always sounded like a fun place to work. I imagine a workforce of 18,000 soberly uniformed inspectors walking round behind people in shops and tut-tutting whenever they picked up something frivolous and expensive.
In all seriousness, the FHA should probably be up there, given that it's responsible for making extremely consumer friendly mortgages affordable for large parts of the population, but in the way of these things it's probably unpopular because it's not generous enough.
I'm guessing NASA is near the top. Are we counting the armed services?
Yes, NASA's on the list (civilian agencies only, not the armed services).
Didn't think of NASA. FBI, CIA? I'd say VA, Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers, but I don't think they qualify.
FBI is on the list; CIA isn't, VA isn't, and I think that USCG and ACE would be armed services.
So FBI and NASA - three more?
The Post Office?
NOAA? The Park Service?
Post Office and the Park Service are two of the others, well done. Fifth one is CDC.
I'm actually surprised about the FBI. Between the legacy of Hoover and the Church Comittee, fucking up 9/11, gun-nuttery around Waco/Ruby Ridge etc, and the constant portrayal in media of "the Feds" as interfering with the investigations of hardworking local cops, I'd have thought it wouldn't be particularly popular. But I guess America loves its cops.
My impression is that the FBI is basically good at investigating criminal conspiracies and basically mediocre at espionage.
Robert Hanssen was pretty good at it.
The exception that proves the rule.
42: I think stories where the FBI is meddling uselessly aren't much more common than stories where they're the protagonist. Bones, The X-Files... IIRC Castle was fairly positive about the FBI and CIA. They were allies with better resources than the NYPD more often than they were stealing cases. In iZombie, the FBI agent was kind of an antagonist, but had a very good reason for it. Other police procedurals... NCIS is about a federal agency; I assume they don't conflict with the FBI much. In anything about a serial killer, if the killer isn't the good guy, the FBI is.
The only thing I can think of where the FBI is completely useless is Die Hard. That's pretty old by now.
That reminds me, did anyone watch the X-Files miniseries a year or two ago? (I watched like 3/5ths of it. Didn't stop in protest, but lost track of it and didn't feel motivated to finish it. But that's not the point.) Was it my imagination, or was it a lot more topical and political than the original series? Or maybe it's just that the same subject matter - paranoid conspiracy theories - seemed safely outlandish back then, but now it's depressingly relevant.
There's an extensive and interesting storyline on The Americans about the FBI's counterintelligence office. FBI is depicted as a basically competent organization there.
I guess in a lot of cases "the Feds" are US Marshals, rather than the FBI.
Here's the TV Tropes entry, FWIW.