Subcommittee Talks Data, Minus Francisco

I thought everyone by now knows that Dale Francisco only wants to hold city council meetings in private so the public cannot know what he and his incumbent allies are scheming.

We can be sure that his dog ate his homework, or his appointment book. Or maybe he was busy brushing up on the Brown Act.

Too bad there are no true conservatives on City Council, because somebody needs to put an end to this business of creating a surveillance database on homeless people, many of who are simply passing through. Is all this not a step towards totalitarianism?

If there are homeless who commit anti-social acts then the state has a right to compile a record. But if they are not bothering anybody, don't go all "Orwell" on them just because they are homeless. The reason we have private non-profit faith based social services agencies is to keep Big Brother out of citizen's lives.

If there is no true conservative voice on Santa Barbara city council , we will have to remind the liberals of their better virtue of the longstanding affinity of liberalism to human dignity. That includes not operating intrusive "databases".

Barring criminal conviction, the state has no business collecting databases of non-criminal citizen activity. The nerve of these people. Too bad the Nick and Paul Show is off the air because if they were still around I'd be calling them and ranting...

The management of these databases will eventually be outsourced to India or Pakistan...and be used to develop Michael Self's proposed "Turn Around Centers" which are just sugar coated internment camps. (Think: Boycott)

The 20th century corporative state resembles fascism in some respects Some conservatives get that, some liberals get that. Most, don't. The "Database" is a step on a steep slope...

One can't trust liberals much more than the Republican and "independent" Right. But our so called conservatives are neither libertarian conservatives nor are they religious conservatives.

Religion, in this fight, is on the side of the poor, the homeless, notwithstanding theological hairsplitting. Trust in God.

Maybe the time has come for some kind of revised, left wing version of Tea Party 2.0 which will revive strains of the Democratic Party which still believe in keeping Intrusive Bureacracy at bay...people like ...Tom Hartmann, who was for Barry Goldwater in '64...Gov.Brian Schweitzer of Montana..Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, who points out that the US has 25% of the world's prison inmates with only 5% of the world's population or great Democrats from the past like...Senator Frank Church of Idaho......it is shameful that Helene lets herself be silenced by the Nimby-Robots and that she caves to their agenda so readily. We need some Democrats with some real chutzpuh to stand up to Randy and Dale ...

.Recommended reading:

The Gulag Archipelago ....A. Solzenhitsen

Darkness at Noon.....A. Koestler

Origins of Totalitarianism .....H. Arendt

Common Sense.....T.Paine

Man knows no master save creating Heaven,
Or those whom choice and common good ordain.
—James Thomson, "Liberty"

I think the City should create a "Big Buddy" program and team up salaried city employees (or hire new ones) with each urban camper to make sure they feel welcome and loved. We can take money from the school budget to pay for it. Then make our loved scruffy sojourners promise to stay off State Street during our tourist seasons so no outsiders will see that our homeless problem is out of control (like feeding pigeons.) Why does Dale need to be there to come up with that idea? The two sitting at the table should have been able to come up with it.

Sam11, your ideas are great that Dale Francisco should no longer participate in any meetings for which he was elected to participate, and for which he collects a decent salary and benefits paid by the city taxpayers. Come next January, the voters of Santa Barbara will have given Francisco plenty of time to not to participate.