When I’m confused about an issue I tend to use the New York Times Editorial Board as my litmus test – if they’re for it, I’m not.  But as I watch the on-going public meltdown of the Republican Party’s old guard I have to admit that today’s NYT op-ed “Mitt Romney aims at Donald Trump, Hits GOP” makes a valid point – “It took the Trump-dominated Super Tuesday contests to awaken Republican leaders to the fact that the darkest elements of the party’s base, which many of them have embraced or exploited, are now threatening their party.”

However, I disagree with their assumption that the party’s problems are embodied in the rise of Donald Trump’s candidacy.

The fact is, the Republican Party’s identity crisis began years ago, and in my view, hit its nadir that cold October night in 2013 when Texas tea party freshman Ted Cruz forced a government shutdown crisis in some “all or nothing” attempt to defund Obamacare with absolutely no strategy to end it.  In doing so, he did our country a major disservice – and lit the tinder of the building conflagration that threatens to consume the Republican Party.

Three years ago I watched several hours of Mr. Cruz’s 21-hour rambling floor speech during which he goaded his Republican colleagues as cowards who lacked the strength of character to stand up to Obama’s healthcare plan.  In my view, Cruz’s argument then was just as disingenuous as his current transition from tea party firebrand to the voice of reason.

Like my father and grandfather before him, for many years I was a faithful Republican.  Let’s face it – I’m a male over fifty, retired law enforcement officer who served in the military – if I don’t fit the archetypal demographic of the Grand Old Party, who does?

I may have been loyal to a fault, but I’m not suicidal, and when it became increasingly apparent that the good ship GOP was speeding toward the rocks while the self-described “Children of the Reagan Revolution” argued the course – I jumped.  And apparently not a minute too soon.

The fact is Mr. Trump has hit a note that resonates with today’s disenfranchised moderate voter – those of us who have seen first-hand how “political correctness” and the rise of the professional victim in every segment of our society has eroded our national unity and weakened those institutions that once made the United States a beacon of freedom around the world.

Donald Trump speaks to those who form the weary backbone of a nation that have watched a once proud and reasonably unified people fragment into a mosaic of “self-identified” hyphenated American’s.  He embodies our frustration over out-of-control entitlements and government hand-outs, undecipherable tax policies, attacks on our Second Amendment and the complete lack of a strong national defense strategy in an increasingly dangerous world.  Perhaps most important – he talks like we do.  In open, unabashed and unashamed terms Trump describes our collective goal of restoring the United States to prominence in a world that desperately needs our leadership and stability.

I hope Mr. Romney and the other completely detached remnants of the Republican establishment understand that when they embraced the fringe element – the “all or nothing conservatives” who place partisanship and fabricated “ideas and principles” above diversity of opinion and the need for honest debate – they damned a once great political party, or at least its founding principles, to the ash heap of history. Continue reading “The Last Gasp of the Republican Party?” →

Anyone else get to attend the weekend confab between Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry and County Chairman Jason Davis? Me neither. So much for open, transparent, participatory government in the sunshine, huh?

One might think that a matter which has generated this level of community concern, discussion, newsprint and interest might warrant – I dunno – a public meeting? But no – Henry and Davis know what’s best for you. They don’t need your goddamn input, and more important – they don’t want it. In fact, the public’s participation in local/county government is anathema to these assholes – you are a hindrance to their self-serving “plan”, a turd in their punch bowl, and they certainly don’t need the opinions of a bunch of rubes. Know your place, dammit. Conform to your role, John Q. All they want or need you to do is pay for it! Open your wallet, you working stiff – give it up, or else!

And hey, City Commissioner Rob Gilliland – while you’re patting yourself on the back over your cowardly capitulation to the County Council – here’s a piece of advise: I PAY COUNTY TAXES! YOU CANNOT EXCLUDE ME FROM COUNTY SERVICES – LIKE BARRING ENTRY TO THE PROPOSED HOMELESS SHELTER FOR MUNICIPALITIES WHO DON’T KNEEL BEFORE THE COUNTY AND PONY UP MORE MONEY! You scumbag. You elitist, exclusionary asshole. IT’S MY FRIGGING MONEY THAT’S HELPING TO PAY FOR IT – GET IT!? Even more bizarre is City Attorney Marie Hartman’s stellar advise that Gilliland’s suggestion is somehow “plausible”?

MARIE – DO YOU THINK VOLUSIA COUNTY IS SIFTING OUT DAYTONA BEACH TAX DOLLARS TO PAY FOR THE SHELTER? DO YOU THINK TAXPAYERS FROM OTHER CITIES MIGHT HAVE SOME FINANCIAL INTEREST IN THE PUBLIC FUNDS AND LANDS ALLOCATED FOR THIS SHELTER? YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT EXCLUDING OTHER MUNICIPALITIES FROM YOUR PUBLICLY FUNDED SANDBOX IS “PLAUSIBLE”?

Where in the hell did Marie Hartman get her law degree? Where was she the day they taught law in law school? You have an obligation to speak the truth – to let self-serving, stupid politicians know when they have crossed the line. You sniveling sycophant.

In my view, the likes of Henry, Davis, Gilliland and the rest of these zeros wouldn’t know real leadership if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. We are royally screwed – and we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves. We keep electing these incompetent shitheels to important offices, then act surprised when they ignore us, line their pockets at our expense, direct tax dollars to influential insiders, mismanage important issues until true crisis results, and generally ignore the core needs of their constituents.

If politics is the art of controlling your environment – we, the people, lost. . .

As time moves on, it’s becoming patently clear to everyone that this “homeless” debacle was orchestrated and directed by a common resort town grifter, “Pastor Mike”, and that equally greedy bastard Josh Wagner, Esquire. Mark my words, kids – this entire sordid mess will become clear as spring water the minute our elected officials and their puppet masters decide who is going to get hip deep in the $4+ million that’s being set aside to warehouse and service the “homeless.”

If Wagner’s in-laws can get $600K to renovate the County Council Chambers – do you think he’s not going to get his filthy snout in this multi-million dollar trough? Unlikely. Josh Wagner represents the lowest of the low – he is a shameless scumbag who has no more concern for the progress and welfare of the citizens of Volusia County than a broke-back snake. I hate everything he stands for.

Folks, this is our wake-up call. Take a look around you, Daytona Beach. Look hard at the Beachside, Ridgewood Avenue, Downtown, East ISB, your tax bill, your children’s school, the crime rate, YOUR BEACH, etc., etc. – and ask yourself: I’m I better off? Has there been one single, solitary improvement to my life and community under the “leadership” of Derrick Henry and Jason Davis and their respective administrations?

Clowns masquerading. Sickening.

Is anyone sick and tired of giving away tax dollars to private business for dubious returns that only seem to benefit the uber-wealthy owners in the end? I know I am. If you can’t make it on the returns of your own hard work, why should government subsidize you with mine?

Locally, Daytona’s Forbes-listed France Family is getting increasingly close to their slice of the millions in state sales tax rebates professional sports complexes in Florida are eligible to receive.  This week the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) determined that professional sports stadiums, to include the newly renovated Daytona International Speedway, now qualify for even more tax funded corporate welfare.

In 2014, in response to unprecedented lobbying efforts by billionaire owners of various sports franchises around the state, legislators changed the manner in which public funds for stadium improvements are allocated by creating a pseudo-competitive process.  Under the change, owners are ostensibly required to demonstrate job creation and economic growth that wouldn’t happen without the infusion of tax dollars.  In effect, this would allow state funding only for projects with the greatest return on investment.

But who judges the competition?   The Scott administration?  The DEO, a governmental “economic development” bureaucracy lead by a Scott appointee who has so far refused to even rank applications for funding as required?

Didn’t Jacksonville Jaguars owner and billionaire tycoon Shahid Kahn “donate” $250,000 to Rick Scott’s political action committee “Let’s Get to Work” during his re-election campaign?   Now, the Jaguars EverBank Field receives $2 million annually in state tax dollars under the same funding scheme sought by the France family.  Now that’s a return on investment!

Wait, didn’t the City of Jacksonville just borrow $45 million to underwrite upgrades to that very same EverBank Field?

Sound familiar?  You bet it does.

Let’s face it, Rick Scott never threw an incentive dollar that didn’t in some way benefit him or his wealthy cabal of influential insiders, and this latest smoke-and-mirrors scam is no different.

In the interest of full disclosure – I’m not a race fan.  Never have been.  I just have a fundamental problem when my hard-earned tax dollars are used to fund billionaires.  Call me loopy – but it just rubs me wrong – I’m the kind of guy who needs to see actual, physical benefits for money spent.  Theoretical pies in the sky don’t do it for me anymore.

(Listen, if you’re a race fan, that’s cool. Please don’t try to change my mind. I’ve lived here most of my life, been around it, etc. I just don’t get it.) But what I do understand is the sport seems to have a diminishing fan base by any measure (mine is seeing an enormous number of empty seats whenever I’ve seen television coverage from tracks around the nation).

In her excellent piece on the topic in the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Eileen Zaffiro-Kean found at least one voice of reason in Chris Hudson, state director of Americans for Prosperity – Florida:

“In 2015, lawmakers stood strong against handing out public money to privately owned sports teams, and we implore them to continue to put their constituents ahead of special interests,” Hudson said, “DEO is making some fatally risky assumptions that these activities would not have taken place without the incentive money, especially considering that all three applicants have already started undertaking their renovations, and some are almost completed. Government is not a bank and should not be at the disposal of wealthy sports franchises to enrich themselves on the backs of taxpayers.”

Indeed.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but explain the rationale in committing $90 million in state tax dollars over the next 30-years to prop up what we already support with millions of dollars in City/County subsidies? (Remember that measly $40 million we handed over for Daytona One just last year?)

I mean, when is enough, enough? Where does it end? For the life of me, I’m just not seeing the return on our investment in the communities, on the street – at the grassroots – you know, where the funds originated in the first place.  Can our elected officials really continue to tax the working people of the State of Florida for the benefit of the most wealthy privately-owned enterprises in the world?

In my view, perhaps the most telling aspect of the Volusia County Council’s action on the $20 million “Grant” to the Daytona One project is the fact they had to take a vote on the award twice. Yep.

Seems they forgot to hear public comments before the first vote.

I don’t make this up, folks. . .

I enjoyed my friend Pat Rice’s very thoughtful piece written in the aftermath of the City of Daytona Beach’s showdown with Volusia County over the “homeless” debacle.

Unfortunately, I disagree with Pat’s key assumption.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the very thin line a local newspaper walks in a tourist economy – between exposing a community’s slimy underside and promoting the positive attributes that draw a crowd.

I get it.

However, I do not believe, as Mr. Rice suggests, that we have “City and county leaders, members of the business community, health officials, religious leaders, activists, and interested citizens are working hard on solutions to homelessness”.

Some of what Pat wrote is spot on (I was especially intrigued by the temerity of a local “business leader” who asked that coverage of the crisis be moved off the front page during the Rolex 24) but what is overlooked is the fact that this debacle exposed a harsh realities that many didn’t know existed in local government until now, such as:

The ineffectiveness of our “leadership”.

The lack of trust and basic cooperation between the mosaic of municipalities and the Volusia County Council.

The fact that our County Manager has little, if any, effective communication with senior constitutional officers, such as Property Appraiser Morgan Glireath, on important issues.

The level to which our elected officials will sink when the pressure is on, and the power a few uber-weathy and deeply self-serving insiders have to influence political will and move tax dollars.

In my view, this is a very important facet of the “homeless” story that deserves to be told. They say that the best disinfectant is sunshine, and if we hope to see significant and lasting change on the issues that face our area we need to expose these ugly elements for what they are.

The fact is, real change will not come unless and until we elect people who will fundamentally change the manner and means of governance in Volusia County – who will put the will and needs of the people first and let the influential few know that while they have a place at the table, their “my way or the highway” mentality is contrary to participatory problem solving.

Another equally disturbing segment of the problem begins and ends at the door of the County Manager’s office. If you want effective change – Jim Dinneen must go as well.

Read Pat Rice’s thoughtful piece here:

http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/20160131/COLUMNS/160139954/101040

Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen has played the trump card.

On Saturday, in the wake of Property Appraiser Morgan Gilreath’s closing of his offices in the County Administration Building, Dinneen announced to the Daytona Beach News-Journal that he would close all operations at what has become the epicenter of the homeless debacle, perhaps permanently.

“We didn’t do this frivolously and we didn’t do it for effect,” Dinneen said. He added that the public bickering “wasn’t behind this decision. I wouldn’t do it that way. It looks like you’re retaliating, playing a game.”

Folks, this represents a direct slap in the face to every citizen of east Volusia County.

Of course Jim Dinneen closed the building for retaliation and effect – it’s the “nuclear option” – the “We’ll take our football and go home” strategy: Inconvenience thousands of east-side taxpayers to the point they heap so much hate on the City of Daytona Beach that they are forced to capitulate to the County’s demands.

It’s complete bullshit and the nadir of Jim Dinneen’s completely ineffectual reign as the worst executive in the history of Volusia County.  The only positive to this move is that Dinneen has now effectively set himself up as the sacrificial lamb when the political heat gets too much for our elected officials – and that will come sooner rather than later.  Trust me.

Perhaps more disturbing is that Councilman Josh Wagner has the temerity to accuse Morgan Gilreath of playing to the media!? That frigging blowhard has become the face and voice of that dysfunctional group of Shitheel’s in Deland – and if Wagner doesn’t realize that everyone identifies him as a massive part of the problem – then perhaps that tells us all we need to know about the Councilman’s political acumen. (And I thought his tactic of sleeping on the street for a few hours was the cheapest political stunt I’ve seen in a while – Wow. How low can these people sink?)

I also noted with interest that as Dinneen closes the administration building, he still plans to keep the affected public employees on the payroll by moving them to other offices around the County.

How is this possible?

If you’re no longer providing governmental services to the residents of east Volusia County in a manner and means that is convenient to the customer (look that word up, Mr. Dinneen – “Customer”) then the positions should be eliminated and taken out of the budget.  How typical of Dinneen’s arrogance to inconvenience the taxpayer while doing everything possible to accommodate the bureaucracy. . .

Another thought – where are our benevolent dictators when we need them? Not a word from Mori, Hyatt or Lesa! Maybe they’re busy erecting another monument to their own self-importance?

Why is it when the Big Three need something, the planet Earth stops revolving on its axis until the County Council publicly kisses the Triumvirates ass and ponies up tax dollars, incentives and giveaways like the good hired hands they are.

These three people hold in their hands the power to move political will with a mere phone call – or a nuanced suggestion in a public meeting – when it benefits their personal bottom line or that of an influential friend.  Yet when we need real leadership to get us out of a true quagmire that’s becoming increasingly embarrassing – a situation that is beginning to actually hurt “the brand” – we don’t hear a fucking peep.  Disgusting.

As viable, tax generating businesses continue to close, the response from Councilman Wagner speaks volumes to the mindset of our elected officials.  In a January 23, 2015, op-ed in the Daytona Beach News-Journal Mark Lane writes, “Replying to anger from the Downtown business community over his tent city proposal, Wagner was pretty dismissive. “Some of the arguments are flat-out silly. They just have a bad business model. It is not the homeless killing their business. The world has changed.”

I suggest that any potential investor in Downtown Daytona – or anywhere in Volusia County – chew on that statement long and hard before committing yourself to this sinking ship of fools.  I hate to sound hysterical, but if this growing debacle doesn’t speak directly to a disenfranchised electorate at the polls what will?

news-journalonline.com/…/160129761/101040

 

 

The Episcopal Church of America was suspended this week from full participation in the Anglican Communion.  The move comes amid long-simmering tensions over the American church’s acceptance of same-sex marriage and the consecration of openly gay bishops.

During its three-year suspension the Episcopal Church will be stripped of voting rights and barred from the decision-making process “on issues of doctrine or polity.” The Anglican Church of Canada narrowly avoided a similar fate by buying time – it seems the Canadian’s “discussions” on the issues are on-going, and the church’s position has yet to be settled as a matter of doctrine.  Interesting tactic – but prolonging the inevitable is what it amounts to.

During the discussion conservative factions in the Anglican Communion, such as the Primate of the Anglican Church of Uganda, Archbishop Stanley Ntagali, reaffirmed their entrenched belief that the Episcopal Church’s views are contrary to the teachings of Scripture and established policy.

In a statement to the Primates before walking out of the meeting, Archbishop Ntagali called for sanctions against the Americans “until they have repented of their decisions that have torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level.”

I was baptized, raised, and educated in the Episcopal Church.  While I have fallen out of practice, I consider myself an Episcopalian and always will. The church I know taught acceptance and inclusion for all the faithful – gay, straight, whatever.

Through the years I have watched the Episcopal Church’s increasingly liberal sway (especially on deeply divisive issues common to both Episcopal doctrine and Roman Catholicism) ultimately culminating in the 1988 consecration of our first female bishop, Barbara Harris, an African-American divorcee; and later, Bishop Gene Robinson, the first Episcopal bishop to live openly with a same-sex partner.

Generally speaking I am rather conservative in most aspects of my life – but I have long held a deep belief that the church should be open and welcoming of all people who believe, demonstrate their faith, and live in peace.

If not now, when?  If not the church, where?

Have we not reached a point in the human experience where we can accept the basic humanity of permitting people to love openly, live peacefully, and worship their god with a shared sense of basic fairness?  A shared sense of basic dignity and mutual understanding?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand how difficult it must be for the Anglican leadership in places like Uganda and Nigeria – where incurable disease, abject poverty, political corruption and anti-Christian factions are perpetual threats and homosexuality is punishable by death.  Places where the last bastions of the strength of the old British Empire is projected by the Church of England, and the sense of protection and stability that must provide in some very difficult and dark places of the African continent.

I also understand Archbishop Ntagali’s need to hold firmly to the church’s policies that provide him a chip in the game.  The political clout that comes from controlling a large portion of the population and helps reinforce strict obedience to the archaic laws of the State.

As I sorted through my feelings I was drawn to re-read an essay by the renowned Welsh artist Ralph Steadman on the enduring relevance of the 1948 United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights:

“We are all guilty of gross negligence or convenient choice.  We have chosen to turn a blind eye to the constant injustice of our own species against our own kind.  We no longer deserve to belong to the animal kingdom.  We have betrayed an innate sense of survival, the one instinctive law which protects all creatures from extinction.  Compassion has been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.”

As much as I despise the United Nations and the open corruption and legitimization of tinpot dictators, murderers and thieves that it has bestowed through the years – I think they may have been on to something in 1948.  Interestingly, several Arab nations abstained from the ratification vote on the Declaration, claiming that it was incompatible with Sharia Law – but that’s for another day. . .

In my view, we find ourselves in a world rife with religious bigotry and extremism, ideologies bent on global domination through the murder of innocents in the name of God – a place where open greed is worshiped and the ruthless and cruel admired for their accumulations of wealth.  We have simply come to accept this.

What I, perhaps, am not ready to accept is the fact that the very church which formed my basic understanding of what it means to live and act as a morally conscious being is mired in such an immoral and ugly argument.

As an Episcopalian, if suspension from the Anglican Communion is my punishment for standing firm to the fundamental principal that denying basic human rights to the LGBT community – or any community –  is patently and forever wrong – then I will accept it.  Willingly, and with all the grace and faith I can muster.

Step right up folks and witness ineffectual governance at its worst.

The increasingly visible issue of long-term homelessness is nothing new in Daytona Beach – those of us who have staked our claim to the American Dream in east Volusia have lived with it for years.  Let’s face it, the stereotypical street person is as ubiquitous to the Halifax Area as “Going Out of Business” signs in a burned-out beachside strip center.

Over time, we’ve simply come to “accept it”, like high taxes, substandard chain restaurants and political corruption.  They’re just part of our landscape here on the Fun Coast.

Hell, our universal experience isn’t beach driving – it’s that slightly uneasy feeling we get whenever driving south on Ridgewood Avenue near North Street. . .

Just north of the J Food Store you instinctively shift uncomfortably in your seat, hit the door lock, issue your best Clark Griswold “Roll ‘em up!” and stare straight ahead knowing if you can just make it to the South Daytona border the human carnage to your right and left will miraculously disappear.

In the past, if you had an out-of-town guest in the car, Beach Street was your only viable option for getting south without hearing an audible gasp, followed by the natural but embarrassing questions (“Are those prostitutes!?  “Is that man urinating?”  “No!  What?  Just urban outdoorsmen enjoying our Sun Country weather, Aunt Alice. But isn’t the new Dollar Store a nice addition?” ).

Now, Beach Street is no longer the scenic route. . .

As a continuation of local government’s long-term public policy that institutional humiliation is the best means of “controlling” the homeless population; last week the City of Daytona Beach closed access to restrooms, benches, and the relative concealment of soggy cardboard boxes and dirty blankets tucked into the scrub palmettos and oyster middens of Manatee Island.

The equal and opposite back-fire to the City’s misguided action was a mass migration of homeless from the shadows to their current very visible perch outside the County Administration building at 250 North Beach Street.

And it appears the great unwashed aren’t going anywhere soon.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an intractable problem for government – I dealt with it to various effect for years.  The issues are infinite – available funding is not.  When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  I get it.  But don’t act like this issue just popped out of the bushes last Tuesday.

By coming into public view, the homeless population have perhaps done more to break the City-County impasse that has hampered progress and plagued taxpayers in Volusia County for decades than they have to help themselves.

Unfortunately, we are seeing the typical response we’ve come to expect whenever any municipality is forced to deal with Volusia County government on a matter of mutual concern.

The discourse begins with a very public proclamation from the County Manager’s office that “the problem” (whatever the issue du jour may be) is the City’s responsibility, followed by open threats from tough guy Josh Wagner to change his allegiance/support on the matter, culminating in strong-arm tactics escalating to open thuggery from the County Attorney.  Just wait and see.

Add to this the abject dysfunction that permeates the bureaucratic nightmare that is Daytona Beach City Hall and you have quite a cocktail.  Once again our “leadership” have been caught flatfooted, and it shows.

City spokeswoman Susan Cerbone wrote in an email to the Daytona Beach News-Journal on Thursday that City Manager Jim Chisholm would not be making any public comments on the matter until after he had spoken with county officials about their plans.  “Other City Commission members did not immediately return messages seeking comment. . .”  Indeed.

Then, in his patented “throw money at it” reaction, our own one-trick-pony County Manager Jim Dinneen suggests erecting a fence around the administration building – at a cost of $200,000, naturally.  (This is the strategic thinking and creative problem-solving you expect from an administrator commanding over $300,000 in salary and benefits annually, right? RIGHT?)

In the end – once our benevolent dictators decide which political insider will be allowed to get snout-deep in the $4 million set aside for construction of a homeless camp – we may well see movement (however temporary) on the collective City-County public relations nightmare on Beach Street.

I mean, our bread-and-butter “Special Events” period is just over the horizon, eh?  Hordes of drunken vagrants fronting Beach Street is poor for the image – whatever our “image” is – and we can’t have that, now, can we?  Seize the Daytona, y’all.

Make no mistake, at the end of the day it’s about who gets the money – and that rabble squatting on the steps of the Tag Office is the least of Dinneen, Chisholm or Henry’s concern.

 

 

 

 

The Volusia County Council’s inability to sell the half-cent sales tax initiative this summer is indicative of a larger problem. In my view, our elected officials are missing the key element of any successful marketing strategy – or tax proposal: Trust.

 Oblivious to the fact that they have lost basic credibility, County officials are once again staging their tired Kabuki, dramatically performed with equal parts apocalyptic prophecy, name calling, and threats against the municipalities, all designed to wring additional dollars from a tax-weary constituency.

Councilman Doug Daniels surmised that the cities hesitation was the result of a “failure to communicate.”  Mr. Daniels and his fellow council members should understand – we read you loud and clear – we simply don’t trust you anymore.

 Given the number of grassroots efforts seeking accountability, it is increasingly clear to everyone but County officials that they no longer have the consent of the governed.

 I believe the seeds of this institutional distrust germinate in the County Managers office.

In my view, Jim Dinneen’s mismanagement of this and other important public policy issues best exemplify all that’s wrong with County government.  Team Dinneen wants higher taxes because they need higher taxes; and spending cuts, the reduction of exorbitant executive salaries or curbing insider handouts are inconceivable.

A bureaucracy – especially one as bloated as this – requires tax dollars like a parasitic insect needs the blood of its host.  Its very life depends upon it.

 Public confidence in County government has been slowly eroded by the steady flow of missteps, bullying and legislative slight-of-hand that invariably benefits a privileged few while laying the financial burden squarely on the back of Volusia County residents.

As a result, we no longer assume Council decisions serve the common good.  Now, we instinctively ask ourselves the darker question, “Who benefits?”

“Justice Stevens wrote that legislative bodies, not the courts, are best suited to determine appropriate firearms regulations. But does he truly believe in that doctrine?”  Washington Post, April 16, 2014

This is probably the canned response you expected from me, and I’m certainly not equipped to argue with Justice Stevens’ legal mind, but I could not disagree more with him – or those under the misguided perception that disarming United States citizens will somehow make us a more civil and safe society.

From the founding of our country, millions of law abiding citizens have owned weapons and firearms for sport, hunting, collection interests and self-protection.

That firearms are misused as a tool of mass destruction around the globe – specifically in areas with the most stringent gun control laws in the world – tells me that legislating weapons out of the hands of responsible Americans is not going to solve the serious and present threats facing our society.  

I served in the military. I was a law enforcement officer for 31-years. I have seen up close and personal how the criminal element and those who seek the destruction of our way of life operate, and I understand the psychology and ideology of the domestic and international threats we face.

Based upon my training and experience, I can assure you that prohibiting the personal possession of weapons by citizens of the United States will not alter the methods, mindset or operational strategies of these individuals and factions.

They are apex predators – and they will not be dissuaded by well-intentioned laws, civil debate, or your outrage and overriding need to “do something” to ban the tools they use to commit these horrific acts. They don’t care about your sensibilities – they want to kill you and those you care about. They want to take your insecurities and use them against you. They want to rape, rob and take the possessions you care about and have worked hard to achieve.

Weakening our individual liberties, and our ability to protect ourselves from those who seek to kill us and destroy our free society (and make no mistake – that is their goal) as a personal/national security strategy is both naive and contrary to a way of life that values personal freedoms, self-expression and the right to self-protection from crime, victimization and tyranny.

Frankly, it’s akin to a herd of sheep that must rely on the vigilance, sharp claws and teeth of the sheepdog for their very survival because they have no other means of protection – other than huddling close and hoping the wolves are satisfied with taking a few weak members.

I’m not prepared to do that.

For me and mine, we will support the police, the military and our government but we will not rely on those institutions for our self-protection.

We will use our lawfully owned weapons, training and proficiency to do that. We will defend ourselves. By our strength of will and vigilance, we will prove more dangerous to the lives and welfare of those who seek to victimize us than they are to ours – and that alone will keep them at bay. We are not looking for a fight – but if it comes to our door, we are prepared.

If you choose to rely on the protection afforded by law enforcement and our government that is your right. I pray that when you need them most their response is swift and their aim is true.

But in the end, I suppose that’s what this is all about – my right to live my life in the lawful manner I choose, just as it is your right to live your life. I remain ready to defend that basic principle.

August 2015

Mark Lane has a good op-ed in today’s News-Journal exposing our half-bright County Council Chairman and his latest cockamamie scheme to line the pockets of his cheap suit at our expense.

Here’s a guy that can’t plumb a toilet – yet he’s come up with a $37-40 million dollar plan to restore Mosquito Lagoon by burying pipes under the barrier island and placing “reef balls” under private docks, ostensibly to foster marine growth.

So, Davis forms a not-for-profit with a friend and somehow gets a resolution supporting their completely unvetted idea before the County Council. No science. No engineering. No shit?