Eagle Mountain: #1 In Forced Recycling

On the front page of its "Our Towns" section in today's Daily Herald (DH) Utah County's Eagle Mountain is heralded as "#1 In Recycling."  The article heaps praise on the issue of opt-out curbside recycling as it lauds the 84% participation rate as "the most successful voluntary recycling program in the county."  The DH hardly presents a balanced side of the issue.

While personally I am a conservationist and believe it recycling materials, I reject government mandates to force me to do so.  Having a program where you must do an action (opt out) to prevent from incurring a tax in the form of a $48 annual fee for curbside recycling (Eagle Mtn city website) seems mean-spirited at best.  How the Founding Fathers would have envisioned its constituency to be burdened with an opt-out to avoid taxation seems to me to be one of a severe infringement of liberty.  Furthermore, nowhere in the DH article does it mention the burden of this onerous $48 fee--let alone calling it by its true name:  taxation.

But Eagle Mountain's opt out is even worse:  you can only opt out once per year and the DH article comes just a week after the close of this year's opt-out option.  While promoting so-called "voluntary" recycling (try telling any EM resident who wants out now that they are part of a "voluntary" program!), the DH did not do equal justice in putting a front-section-page reminder to residents that their small window of opportunity would soon be upon them.

Defenders of liberty would do well to change all forms of government opt-out taxation to opt-in.

The Treasured Story of My Candidacy

Thursday a friend inquired of me about my running for a GOP leadership position for our convention at month's end here in Utah County.  The thought rather caught me off guard.  I think if you had asked me my personal political priorities prior to the inquiry I might have responded to try and keep up with my blog, finish reading Altas Shrugged before the movie release, help get HB116 repealed, and get to know better the candidates to be running for GOP leadership.

But my friend's inquiry changed that paradigm:  for I consider myself a passionate patriot committed to principle and one of my principles says you can't sit around on your behind and hope that others will carry the torch of liberty when you can.  Being on my first go-around as a county delegate, I felt I was pretty much doing my duty (and enjoying it!) and had no desire to carry another torch.  Yet when I began to seriously examine the race, I began to feel compelled to do so.

You see, I think I overdid it a bit for a typical county delegate.  In my pursuit of knowledge for party workings, I attended a few Central Committee meetings--not required of a "ordinary" delegate that I am--as an observer and watched, listened, and took notes about how people acted, how people treated others, and who stood for principle and who stood for power.  I began to become concerned about the operations of the party.  It seemed like their were people in power who were trying to use their power to manipulating things as to extinguish the flame of liberty. 

Knowing that the organizing convention was quickly approaching in April, I attended the March CC meeting and saw still the politics of power in my party trump the politics of principle.  To make matters worse, there was this "9 for 5" bundling together of candidates campaigning for the convention around a platform so broad as to make the platform meaningless (IE:  "elect good Republicans").  Rather than focus on the strengths of their individual candidates with strong, unique personalities and passions they collectivized their platform-within-a-platform.  The more I reflected on this the more it turned me off and I felt like I would be unable to vote for someone that stood on a fluff platform of honestly, nonsensical incontrovertible (like a delegate would want to elect a bad Republican?)

In examining the candidates for Treasurer on the day before filing deadline, I saw a sole candidate and that this candidate had signed on to the "9 for 5" agenda.  This was unacceptable to me and precluded me from voting for this person.  In deeper introspection of my own life I realized it has been a life full of managing people and money both professionally and in voluntary organizations.  There was no doubt that I had more than adequate skills with which to properly serve my party as Treasurer.  What an awesome combination:  someone who is principled yet who has a professional track record of managing power and money?  Being blessed with a wife who is fully supportive of my political endeavors there remained but one thing to do as with all important decisions:  clear it with the Almighty Maker.  My friend's simple inquiry had morphed into an action that I knew I must do, a torch I must seek to bear.

This may all seem a bit strange to the reader:  I have generally tried to separate my political bloggings from what I considered more my quiet, behind-the-scenes observations and comments within the party.  And while I think it appropriate still to have some sort of separation, I deem I shall have to be much more vocal about my concerns and ideas for my party.  Thus the announcement of a separate blog regarding my campaign for Utah County Treasurer:  SteveReid4Treasurer.blogspot.com which I intend to be my primary source of communication to the 1300 delegates whose vote I'll be seeking over the next few weeks.
To this exciting adventure, I'll need help and lots of it.  Specifically, I'll need help from any Utah County Republican willing to assist me with the practical matters of campaigning.  Secondly, I'll need lots of input:  my listening, note taking, and observing haven't stopped; they're just coupled now with the responsibility to communicate.  Please contact me (nacilbupera@gmail.com) if you can lend a hand or a voice.