[Vision2020] Toleration

[Donovan Arnold]

"Because Moscow is small it is relatively easy to
identify the deliberate liars, manipulators, stingy,
intolerant, law-breakers among us.  In our currently
"divided" community both factions claim to have that
knowledge and experience of the other.   

This is the most negative, awful, vindictive, full of
hate and spite description of Moscow I have ever heard
that can only serve to tear at the unity and
compassion of our community. People should be upset
being told they are associated with this kind of
community. This certainly does not describe most the
people I know. Most people in Moscow are helpful,
kind, accepting, educated, and out to get along with
others.

Politics to me is like ice cream. I do not care what
flavor you like. But it is how you treat your
neighbors I think that we will all one day be judged
by. 

I have always prided myself as being fairly liberal. I
believe in gay marriage, started the Gay Straight
Alliance at North Idaho College, I am for expansion of
the government to provide more needed services, I am
pro-choice, I am anti-Bush, and marched against this
war back in March of 2003 when 75% of the people were
for it. I have served the Democratic Party, MCA, and
other liberal local candidates for their campaigns and
fundraisers. I was a delegate for Al Gore in 2000 and
an alternative delegate for Dennis Kucinich in 2004. I
was even backed by the UI student Socialist Party when
I was in student government.

But I do have to say that while I lean left I am also
leaning over and puking because I am associated
politically with the type of hostility and hatred that
spews from other liberals in our community toward
their neighbors.

Some liberals in our community have no life and must
spend it degrading others and pursuing personal and
character flaws of those that they oppose in the
political arena. They insist their enemies follow
every law no matter how flawed the law and at the same
time ignore the laws that they and their friends
violate.

They pursue even the most frivolous of claims and
stretch and twist any word they can find in the law to
make it fit their warped interpretation of law, which
always the cruelest and most destructive, and
endlessly wipe people into submission and acceptance
of it with sharp forked tongues.

Then they pretend, and lie even amongst themselves
that what they do they do for justice. But they know
in their hearts it is not for justice, but for their
own personal vengeance. 


Donovan J Arnold


--- DonaldH675 at aol.com wrote:

> Visionaries and Mr.  Nisbet:
>  
> Rather than smirk about "how totally 'cosmopolitan'
> and so free from petty  
> parochialism this town is" much less to sustain Mr.
> Nisbet's claim that  
> farmers and ranchers tend to be more tolerant of
> diversity, one need only  examine 
> the well documented history of North America.  The
> sad and sorry  story of the 
> development of rural American is the saga  of
> Euro-American land grabs, 
> genocide of indigenous  people, and environmental
> disasters created by extractive  
> industries which took place across this continent
> from 16th  century conquest 
> and settlement down to the present.  
>  
> The notion that loggers and farmers are somehow
> uniquely tolerant  is absurd. 
>  I argue, instead, that people living in areas of
> low  population density 
> often have direct experience and first-hand 
> knowledge of the character of their 
> neighbors and judge them  accordingly.  Their
> "tolerance" is predicated on the 
> same standards that  people around the world (even
> in urban areas) apply, 
> i.e. is the neighbor  truthful, kind, generous,
> observant of cultural and 
> community standards  etc.   
>  
> Because Moscow is small it is relatively easy to
> identify the  deliberate 
> liars, manipulators, stingy, intolerant,
> law-breakers among  us.  In our 
> currently "divided" community both factions claim to
> have that  knowledge and 
> experience of the other.   For those interested in 
> sorting out the claims a great 
> deal of factual evidence is available.
>  
> If one limits the argument to only zoning code
> violations significant data  
> has been placed on-line and on the city record to
> demonstrate a  continual and 
> on-going  attitude of defiance toward community 
> regulations.  New St. Andrews 
> College administrators, the very same folks  who are
> leading the college 
> today, and Christ Church leaders, (who are one and 
> the same) have, for the past 
> five years ignored zoning requirements.   Clearly,
> they act on the premise that 
> their personal desires take precedence  over
> community ordinances.  This 
> behavior is modeled and passed along  to Logos
> School students, NSA graduates, and 
> church members.  How  else can the 4 year presence
> of Atlas Academy in the 
> NuArt  Theater be explained?   How else can large
> boarding houses (owned by  
> members of Doug Wilson's church) operate without the
> required conditional use  
> permits?  How else can St. Monica's (a private
> girl's school)  operate without a 
> conditional use permit?    
>  
> The thickest numbskull should recognize a pattern of
> behavior in the  
> examples provided above.  Given the tightly knit
> character of the Christ  
> Church/Trinity Reformed community, most, if not all
> members knew of these  illegal 
> activities, and not only tolerated them they
> supported or emulated  them.  
>  
> How is it that apparently not a single church member
> thought to inquire  
> about city ordinances related to their activities? 
> This is particularly  
> breathtaking when one considers that a church
> member, Todd Flack, sits on the  City of 
> Moscow Planning and Zoning Commission.  If he were
> shy about  bringing the 
> "bad news" that zoning laws in Moscow regulate these
>  activities, perhaps his 
> father-in-law, an elder of Christ Church, might have
>  been willing to alert 
> other church leaders.  Instead, Todd Flack followed 
> the example of his pastor and 
> other church leaders and instituted his own 
> boarding house.
>  
> I don't appreciate this peculiar "tolerance" and
> encouragement for  breaking 
> the law. Neither do community members who are
> impacted  by the illegal 
> activities.  If that makes me guilty of   "petty
> parochialism" I claim the label 
> cheerfully.
> 
> Rose  Huskey
> "And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him 
> five smooth stones out of 
> the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he
>  had, even in a scrip; 
> and his sling [was] in his hand: and he drew near to
> the  Philistine. "
> 1 Samuel 17:40
> 
> >
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> 

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