[Vision2020] Revitalizing Downtown: Alternate Suggestions

[Art Deco]

Re: [Vision2020] Revitalizing Downtown: Alternate SuggestSean,

Apparently you have not followed the entire thread which began under a different name yesterday.

If you choose to patronize and thus subsidize entities which promulgate/finance racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-democratic, anti-secular, anti-public education, pro-theocratic, tax cheating, "covenantally" dishonest, etc., that is your privilege.  In choosing to subsidize such entities, you are subsiding their beliefs and actions.  I do not choose to do so.  If you think that downtown Moscow would benefit from the presence of the Aryan Nations and/or is cognitive relative, the CCC, that is your privilege also.  Again we disagree.

Aside from its repugnant beliefs, NSA is currently using space that retail goods/and service entities might better use to make the downtown area more economically vital.  NSAers also buy monthly parking permits in the city lot whose main purpose according to the City of Moscow Comprehensive Plan is to provide convenient, free parking for the customers of downtown commercial entities.  The NSA related vehicles stay in the lot for many hours at a time and take parking opportunities away from customers needed by downtown retail and service organizations to stay viable.

At the beginning of the thread it was asserted clearly that no one questions, but in fact, defends the legal right of such entities as the Aryan Nations and the CCC to exist and to promulgate their views.  It is the foulness of those views that many of us object to. I seek to discourage those views by where I spend my dollars and by expressing my opinion under the same constitution that allows the Aryan Nations and the CCC to do the same.  

I also believe that no entity, cult, etc., secular or religious, should be allowed without sanction to violate laws, be they zoning, tax, or criminal.  If you do, that again is your privilege.

As has been said on this forum many times:  Tolerance begins with allowing all to express and to argue, to persuade, etc. for their opinions.  It does not mean that we are to accept all views as equally wonderful or true, particularly when certain views have adverse behavioral/social consequences such as racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-democratic, anti-secular, anti-public education, pro-theocratic, tax cheating, "covenantally" dishonest, etc. behaviors.

I do not agree with such philosophies and see them as demeaning of and an egregiously real threat to individual liberty, aspiration, and freedom to think.  In the big picture, I see these threats to individual freedom and aspiration as harmful to, castrating, and eviscerating of society in general and of our country in particular.  If you choose to label this intolerance, that also is your privilege.  If this really is intolerance, then I wear that label proudly.

We now know we be both stand.

Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com





  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: sean 
  To: Art Deco 
  Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 8:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Revitalizing Downtown: Alternate Suggestions


  Art, this reminds me of the phrase, "tolerance is a one-way street that we name and set regulations for".  I wonder if this manner of exclusion really encourages urban renewal.  The diversity of offerings and mixed-use advocated by New Urbanism and so much of American planning philosophy would seem to say we all benefit from not having a culturally, visually or physically homogeneous urban core.  Electing to not patronize an organization is different from advocating its failure (e.g., the slashing of political van tires this past Nov. was seen as not just illegal but 'not right').  I wonder if tolerance really does mean anything, as commonly used, but to accept just those views that lie within our personal parameters?
-- 
Thanks,
  s


          * * * * * * * *
          Sean Michael
          .dwg


  "the climbs are life"
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