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This Just In...
Kevin Fischer is an award-winning veteran broadcaster who has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for nearly three decades.
Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, “InterCHANGE,” on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.
Embracing sprawl
By Kevin Fischer
Wednesday, Sep 24 2008, 02:00 PM
By guest blogger J. Gravelle
FRANKLIN, WI [ LINK : JSOnline ] A good test of one's character is to see if we can adhere to our stated principles even if that sort of inflexibility would prove costly to us.
I, for example, am against redistributionism, e.g. - robbing from Peter to pay Paul. But I am also, you may be aware, outrageously handsome. So even though it would be in my best interest for Wisconsin to adopt a tax on the ugly to subsidize the more beautiful among us, I would have to stick to my 17-inch, chiseled, sinewy, muscular guns and oppose that initiative. Otherwise, I'd be unprincipled. I'd be a hypocrite.
I'd be... well, a liberal.
One particularly vociferous left-wing congregation in the Church of the Latter Day Sanctimonious routinely opposes something they call "sprawl". From what I've been able to ascertain, "sprawl" is loosely interpreted to mean "anything that benefits human beings". There are certain exceptions, but you apparently need a Liberal Arts degree to comprehend them. For example, tearing down a church to build a Costco isn't "sprawl", but tearing down a Kmart to build a Walmart IS.
Sprawl is progress. People who oppose progress call themselves "Progressive". Don't re-read that last sentence, or a vein in your head will pop.
It's also not considered "sprawl" if the thing you develop is "green". In Waukesha County they're tearing down a golf course to build a swamp-- I mean, a "wetland", with winding pathways that will allow us to walk through and admire how very wet the land truly is. I'm assured this isn't sprawl either, probably because it doesn't benefit human beings. Just environmentalists.
(As an aside, I'm not certain how one "tears down" a golf course, nor how one "builds" a wildlife sanctuary, nor why it costs bazillions of taxpayer dollars to accomplish either. Anybody who has managed to trim a decent putting green into their backyard knows it'll go away on its own overnight. And wildlife sanctuaries build themselves. We used to have a cabin up north that would start turning itself back into a natural habitat the second we pulled out of the driveway.)
Anyway, to re-cap, "sprawl" is usually the byproduct of evil capitalist developers developing their capitalistic evilness. But one such entrepreneur has managed to win the Nader-esque naysaying non-sprawlers over to HIS side with his proposed "Fountains of Franklin" development at 56th and Rawson.
Proponents cite the "green space" in his plan, but we shouldn't discount the psychological leverage the word "fountains" can garner either. That's the sort of wordplay that gave us "office parks", a label that brings to mind men in three piece suits on a teeter-totter, and women in business skirts riding the swingset. (I picture that last thing a lot, actually.)
The Fountains of Franklin developer has amassed further gravitas among the left thanks to a stubborn old couple (aptly named the 'Fox'-es) who are daring to use their adjacent property to earn a living. That's right: they're private land-owning capitalists, making them handy diversions for the corporate, land-developing capitalists.
Ordinarily, I might find it hard to pick a dog in this fight. I support any private landowner's right to do whatever the heck they want with their own land. But I oppose coercive redistributionism in all its forms, and that principle, specifically, lands me on the Fox's sideline.
They've made no demands upon their neighbors. Conversely, the neighborhood (and the neighborhood hoods) are doing everything in their power to run these folks off their land under the guise of [*shudder*] "the greater common good". The principled way for one person to have a say in the property usage of another is to simply buy the land in question. The Fox family doesn't want to sell. That should be the end of the discussion, but it isn't. This sort of symbolic purchase offer is the perfect subterfuge, allowing the redistributionists to move in and make a land-grab.
Enter the politicians and the lawyers, who will try every trick in the book (and a few that aren't IN the book, but are "implied" by precedent case law) to threaten, coerce, and cajole this elderly couple off their property.
Perhaps Franklin should worry less about the Foxes on their land, and more about the sharks in their Fountains...
- J. Gravelle
DailyScoff.com
( Gravelle isn't supposed to write for this blog, or even contact Kev any more. The restraining order was very specific. We don't know how this piece got published, but we suspect he had help from the Democrats who hacked Sarah Palin's email account. )
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