Remarks delivered to Wichita City Council, May 6, 2008. Listen here.

Smoking ban supporters claim that they have the right to go to bowling alleys, bars, and other such places without having to breath secondhand smoke. That's false. No one has the right to be on someone else's property on their own terms. The property owner controls those terms. If the bar owner lets the band play too loud (or maybe not loud enough), or the restaurant is too dimly lit, or the floor of the steakhouse covered with discarded peanut shells, do we want to regulate these things too?

Some have compared a smoking section in a restaurant to a urinating section in a swimming pool. This comparison is ridiculous. You can't tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone peed in it. You can tell, however, upon entering a bar or restaurant if there is smoking going on.

Some make the argument that since we regulate businesses for health reasons already, why not regulate smoking? Without agreeing with the need for these regulations, the answer is this: First, these government regulations don't necessarily accomplish their goal. People still become ill from food, for example. But there is some merit here. Just by entering a restaurant and inspecting the dining room and the menu, you can't tell if the food is being stored at the proper temperature in the restaurant's refrigerators. But you can easily tell if there's smoking going on.

A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property. Markets -– that is, people freely making decision for themselves -– will let property owners know whether they want smoking or clean air.

The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm. That's why we have laws against theft and murder. But it's different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

This is not a middle-ground position, as there really isn't a middle ground here. Instead, this is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority -- no matter how lop-sided -- make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as someone said, will "tick off everybody." Who benefits from a law that does that?

Wichita Area Chapter Americans for Prosperity Dinner Meeting

Monday, April 28, 2008
6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Program:

Does trade create wealth and prosperity?

How a private citizen can get involved in local grassroots politics?

Location: Spangles Restaurant, 612 S. Broadway, Wichita, Kansas
(On the northeast corner of Kellogg and Broadway in downtown Wichita)

There is no cost for this program. Dinner and refreshments are optional from the Spangles menu on an individual ticket basis in Spangles private meeting room. (No food or drinks brought in please.)

Guests are welcome and encouraged!

RSVP optional but appreciated to John Todd, Wichita AFPF coordinator
john@johntodd.net, (316) 312-7335 cell

In a column in the February 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle ("Smoking ban issue not one to negotiate"), columnist Mark McCormick quotes Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of Tobacco Free Wichita, as equating a smoking section in a restaurant with "a urinating section in a swimming pool."

This is a ridiculous comparison. A person can't tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone has urinated in it. But people can easily tell upon entering a restaurant or bar if people are smoking.

Besides this, Mr. McCormick's article seeks to explain how markets aren't able to solve the smoking problem, and that there is no negotiating room, no middle ground. There must be a smoking ban, he concludes.

As way of argument, McCormick claims, I think, that restaurants prepare food in sanitary kitchens only because of government regulation, not because of markets. We see, however, that food is still being prepared in unsanitary kitchens, and food recalls, even in meat processing plants where government inspectors are present every day, still manage to happen. So government regulation itself is not a failsafe measure.

Markets -- that is, consumers -- do exert powerful forces on businesses. If a restaurant like McDonald's serves food that makes people ill, which do you think the restaurant management fears most: a government fine, or the negative publicity? Even small local restaurants live and die by word of mouth. Those that serve poor quality food or food that makes people ill will suffer losses, not as much from government regulation as from the workings of markets.

But I will grant that Mr. McCormick does have a small point here. Just by looking at food, you probably can't tell if it's going to make you ill to eat it. Someone's probably going to need to get sick before the word gets out. But you easily can tell if someone's smoking in the bar or restaurant you just entered. Or, if people are smoking but you can't detect it, I would image that the danger to health from breathing secondhand smoke is either nonexistent or very small.

The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets, is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm, as is the case with laws against theft and murder. But it's different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

This is not a middle-ground position. It is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority -- no matter how lop-sided -- make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as Mr. Claycomb stated in another Wichita Eagle article, will "tick off everybody." Who benefits from a law that does that?

Other articles on this topic:

Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions
http://wichitaliberty.org/node/619

Testimony Opposing Kansas Smoking Ban
http://wichitaliberty.org/node/618

A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Some ask why is there no right to clean air when there is the right to smoke. The answer is that both breathing clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

It's not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else's property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If people are smoking, and patrons decide to stay, we can only conclude that they made the choice to stay. The owners of bars and restaurants do not have the power to force people to stay and breathe smoke.

Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don't want to be around smoke.

Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their "right" to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else's private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they -- instead of the property owner -- dictate.

Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects freedom and liberty. Under property rights, bar and restaurant owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decision are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as "I'm a non-smoker and I think that …" or "I'm a smoker and …" These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters, but as we have seen, they have little respect for private property.

By respecting property rights, we can have both smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers' interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate or majority rule, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

Submitted by John Todd.

February 13, 2008

Senate Judiciary Committee
Kansas Legislature
State Capitol
Topeka, Kansas 66612

Subject: My testimony presented in OPPOSITION to Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you in Opposition to passage of Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking, aka the Kansas smoking prohibition act.

My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker and land developer from Wichita. I currently serve on the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Board of Directors of Wichita Independent Business Association. I am the Wichita Area Volunteer Coordinator for Americans For Prosperity—Kansas. I have been working with the Wichita Business and Consumer Rights Coalition in an effort to stop a smoking ban ordinance currently being debated by the Wichita City Council. I appear before you today as a private citizen, speaking only for myself and not for any other group.

I do not smoke, but does that give me, or even the majority of non-smokers in our state the right to use state law to restrict the rights and freedoms of those people who choose to smoke? A Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding where to go for lunch. The lone sheep would have to agree with De Toquiville who described that situation as the "tyranny of the majority." The pledge of allegiance describes our country as a "republic." Our founders established a republican form of government in order to protect the individual’s rights from the tyranny of the majority.

A common theme of the various candidates for the Republican Party nomination for the Presidency of the United States is Ronald Reagan. Candidates compete with each other to be the true heir of Reagan and his legacy.

Ron Paul, however, looks back to an even earlier time in American politics when the word "conservative" had a different meaning.

Most Republican candidates favor a muscular American foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives who advise our current president. This is a far cry from the foreign policy our nation once had.

What do World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and our presence in Kosovo have in common? These wars or police actions were all started by big-government Democrats and opposed by conservatives. I don't think that any of the current crop of Republican candidates would agree that these wars -- by any stretch of the imagination -- might have been unnecessary. Instead, these men argue at debates about who supported the surge in Iraq first and strongest.

Ron Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy is simply the policy that our party once had. Non-interventionist does not mean isolationist. It does not mean that we cower at home and hope that no one notices us and attacks us. Instead, it means that we honestly assess threats against us, and respond to those that are real. This is why Ron Paul was in favor of the efforts in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban, but against the war in Iraq. And we now know that the case for war in Iraq was fabricated largely from falsehoods.

With regard to economic policy, most of the current Republican candidates admire Ronald Reagan because he cut taxes. That was the easy part. The more difficult thing to do, what Reagan couldn't accomplish, is to drastically cut spending by government. This is something Ron Paul believes in and will do.

As in foreign affairs, Ron Paul believes in an economic policy that is non-interventionist. You may be asking "Doesn't someone need to manage the economy?" Well, there is someone managing -- or at least attempting to manage -- a large part of the economy: the Federal Reserve System. It is that system, though its policy of low interest rates, that is most directly responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crises we are now facing. Hundreds of billions have been lost in market value of securities and homes, and tens of thousands of families have lost their very homes. It is now believed that this crisis is leading our country into recession, and cries for even more intervention into and management of the economy are heard across the land, even from Republican presidential candidates.

It is economic interventionism itself that harms the economy. The Federal Reserve System, which creates money from nothing with its printing presses and open market operations, creates the inflation -- with its accompanying uncertainty -- that harms our economy and prosperity.

Further, the Federal Reserve System and its policy of inflationary money and credit creation provides extra income for government to spend without having to tax. That is quite lucrative, as printing hundred dollar bills is inexpensive, and creating money in computerized ledger entries costs even less. Even worse, he who prints the money gets to spend it first, before its value is diluted by inflation.

Among Republican candidates, only Ron Paul recognizes this. Only Ron Paul calls for an end to the Federal Reserve System and its monopoly on the creation of money out of thin air.

Non-interventionism in foreign affairs, non-interventionism in domestic economic policy -- non-interventionism is a theme with Ron Paul.

How so? In other ways:

Stop government intervention in private property, through the taking of property from one party and giving it to another, more politically favored party through the process of eminent domain.

Stop government intervention into the environment. Today, it seems as if environmental policy is written by those who are enemies to capitalism -- the "watermelons" -- green on the outside but red in the center. Instead, Ron Paul promotes reliance on property rights and markets to solve environmental problems.

Stop ever-increasing government interventionism into education. Ron Paul supports freedom for parents to choose where and how to educate their children. That freedom should be backed up by tax credits, so that the freedom is a real choice that parents can exercise.

Stop government intervention in the types of drugs people may use. The unwise war on drugs has created criminal gang empires that affect us all, as we have witnessed here in Wichita recently. The government response is more law enforcement, which only makes the drug trade more profitable and increases the violence on our streets.

These policies of non-intervention that Ron Paul believes in may seem strange and incredible to some of you. That they may, however, is only an indication of how far we have strayed from the vision of freedom and liberty that this country was founded upon.

If you believe in freedom, if you believe in liberty, if you believe that "we the people" can solve problems without the heavy-hand of government interventionism, you should cast your ballot for Ron Paul.

A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking, as it is with all issues. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of the Tobacco Free Wichita coalition, asks in The Wichita Eagle why clean air is not a right when smoking is a right. The answer is that both clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

It's not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else's property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If you do not want to be around cigarette smoke, all you have to do is leave. That's what I do. It is that simple. No government regulation is needed: just leave. If you wish, tell the manager or owner why you are leaving. That may persuade the owner of the property to make a decision in your favor.

Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don't want to be around smoke.

Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their "right" to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else's private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they -- not the property owner -- dictate.

Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects individual freedom and liberty. Under property rights, owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decisions are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as "I'm a non-smoker and I think that …" or "I'm a smoker and …" These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Wichita City Council member Jim Skelton, evidently once a smoker and opposed to smoking bans, is now receptive to bans since he quit smoking. Mr. Skelton, I ask you for this courtesy: would you please publish a list of the things you now take pleasure in, so that if you decide to quit them in the future, I shall have time to prepare myself for their banning?

Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters like Wichita Vice Mayor Sharon Fearey. But we should not be surprised, as her record indicates she has little respect for private property.

By respecting property rights, we can have smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers' interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

A few excerpts from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius's inaugural address from January 2007:

Yet our opportunities will be limited only if we fail to come together around a shared vision for our state. Only a failure to act as "One Kansas" can compromise our future and dash our hopes.

We all recognize, in our hearts, that we are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us. It's not enough to allow a few to reach the stars while others live a life of limited horizons. The promise of our state is best realized when all our citizens are able to achieve their highest potential.

Therefore, we must embrace a new politics of true empowerment, understanding that diversity of thought, of belief, of opinion creates a vibrant, prosperous state. We must recognize that our differences make us stronger, yet those differences are never greater than our similarities.

We can form a more perfect union, we can achieve greatness, and we can honor our birthright as a state only if we join hands and meet the future as one.

Together, we're humble enough … Together, we are a mighty chorus …

In her speech the governor is telling us -- although she does not say this explicitly -- that the State of Kansas is more important than the people who live in Kansas. She tells me that if I do not subscribe to her shared vision for Kansas, it is I who will be responsible for its failure. Well, Madame Governor, there are very few areas where I agree with you and your vision for the future of our state.

In case you don't recognize it, the name for what the governor espouses is collectivism. Collectivism places the interests of the state above the interests of individuals. It says that man exists not for his own end, but instead exists to serve the state, and the state's needs outweigh all others. If your goals are in harmony with the state's goals, and if you are willing to condone a coercive state pursuing those goals through force, that's good for you. The next election, however, may bring a different governor who has a vision that you don't share, this time backed by an even-stronger state apparatus to enforce it.

Collectivism is the enemy of freedom and liberty. When the Ludwig von Mises Institute commemorated F.A. Hayek, it summed up his main contribution to political economy as "Collectivism is Slavery." His important book "The Road to Serfdom" illustrates how central planning for the common good -- that would be the "shared vision" of the Sebelius-led "One Kansas" -- leads to the loss of all individual economic and personal freedom.

Collectivism is the opposite of individualism. Individualism does not mean that a person lives in isolation from others, although people certainly may do that if they wish. Instead, individualism means that people live their own lives as they best see fit. And I hope that most people don't see themselves as a tool the state uses to serve the ends of others under the direction of Governor Sebelius. Instead, they live for themselves, seeking to improve their own situation and that of others around them, on a voluntary basis.

That is the difference between liberty and what Governor Sebelius wants for Kansas. We can rely on voluntary arrangements made freely by consenting people. Or, we can have state mandates backed by electoral majorities or bureaucratic action, enforced by law. Done in the spirit of "One Kansas," of course.

In her speech, the governor promoted diversity of thought, but she opposes any move towards helping the citizens of Kansas escape the most conformist bureaucracy our state has: its public schools. Allowing parents to choose the school they send their children to, thereby releasing the forces of entrepreneurial creativity in schools, would dramatically increase the diversity of education in our state. As it is, most Kansas parents have no real choice but to send their children to the government schools, which, by their very nature, induce conformity and allegiance to the state. "One Kansas" is, thus, perpetuated.

Craig Bolton writes with these additional recommendations:

Bob's recommendations are great. But here are several more [with my evaluation of the "level" you should be at before you tackle them and how centrally or tangentially important they are in developing an accurate understanding of libertarianism].

At some point, if you haven't done so long ago, you should read some of the principal "classics," such as:

John Locke, Second Treatise On Government [elementary and essential]

Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise and Political Treatise [intermediate and recommended]

Thomas Paine, Common Sense and The Rights of Man [elementary and essential]

Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth of Nations [advanced and requires a prior knowledge of Smith's terminology; absolutely essential at some point]

Herbert Spencer, The Man Vs. The State [elementary and recommended]

Then you might try:

(1) Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. [Intermediate and recommended]

(2) Jim Powell, The Triumph of Liberty [Elementary and essential]

(3) Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisisms and Selected Essays On Political Economy [two different books] [Elementary and essential]

(4) William O. Reichert, Partisans of Freedom [advanced but marginal]

(5) Pierre J. Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In the 19th Century [Proudhon was certifiable, but a very interesting writer] [intermediate and marginal]

(7) Jeffrey R. Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men [Intermediate and highly recommended]

(8) Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism [Elementary and essential]

(9) Ludwig von Mises, Socialism [Intermediate and essential]

(10) F.A. Hayek The Road To Serfdom [new critical edition edited by Bruce Caldwell] and Individualism And Economic Order. [Intermediate and important]

(11) F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order [Intermediate to Advanced and essential]

Rothbard, Murray: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

An absolutely awesome book. If you are interested in liberty and how we could thrive with less or even no government, this is, in my opinion, the most important book to read. I think Lew Rockwell, who I recently had the pleasure to meet at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says it best about this book:

Once you are exposed to the complete picture -- and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century -- you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. ... Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. ... He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. ... The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

And finally, from Lew again:

The book is still regarded as "dangerous" precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

Learn more about this book and read it at http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp.

Read, Leonard: I, Pencil

I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much thought to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets, and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.

From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:

Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand -- the possibility of cooperation without coercion -- and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”

Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf

Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239

Friedman, Milton: Capitalism and Freedom
http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Anniversary-Milton-Friedman/dp/...

Friedman, Milton, and Friedman, Rose: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607

James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight Lee: Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity
http://www.amazon.com/Common-Sense-Economics-Everyone-Prosperity/dp/0312...

See review at http://wichitaliberty.org/node/192

Callahan, Gene: Economics For Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School
http://www.mises.org/books/econforrealpeople.pdf

Hazlitt, Henry: Economics in One Lesson
http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics.asp

A very important book that has inspired several generations of thinkers. See review at http://wichitaliberty.org/node/226.

Boaz, David: Libertarianism: A Primer
http://www.libertarianism.org/

Doherty, Brian: Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
http://radicalsforcapitalism.com

This huge book is more about the people and the movement rather than the principles of libertarianism.

Murray, Charles: What It Means to be a Libertarian
http://www.amazon.com/What-Means-Libertarian-Charles-Murray/dp/0767900391

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray N. Rothbard

An absolutely awesome book. If you are interested in liberty, this is, in my opinion, the most important book to read.

I think Lew Rockwell, who I recently had the pleasure to meet at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says it best about this book:

Once you are exposed to the complete picture -- and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century -- you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. ... Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. ... He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. ... The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

And finally, from Lew again:

The book is still regarded as "dangerous" precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

This book is available for purchase at the Mises Institute at http://mises.org. It may be read in its entirety from that site, and an audio recording is available there as well.

As humans, we have the right to gamble, as it is an activity that people may voluntarily take part in, and it causes no harm or violence to others.

As such, we have to wonder why most forms of gambling have been illegal in Kansas for so long.

More importantly, what has changed this year that would cause the state to allow us to gamble in casinos? What has happened that would cause this activity, formerly considered a vice by the state, to be allowed and even desired?

The answer is simple: the anticipation of millions of dollars in new revenue for the state to spend. It is for that reason that the legislature and governor are willing to let the people gamble in casinos.

They changed their mind cheaply, too. The amount of revenue it is estimated casinos would bring to the state is barely more than one percent of the state's total spending. Subtract from that the extra spending that even casino supporters concede the state will need to fix the problems some gamblers will cause.

It's sad to realize the legislature and governor can be bought so cheaply.

We as humans have the inherent right to gamble. The legislature should not have to pass a law allowing this right, we should not have to gain a majority vote in order to exercise this right, we should not have to suffer huge expansion of government regulation to tell us where and when and on how many of what type of machines we can exercise this right, and we shouldn't have to pay the state a huge chunk of casino revenue in order to exercise this right.

That's what is perverse about gambling law in Kansas.

Here's the one law concerning gambling in Wichita and Kansas that I would vote for: "All laws prohibiting and regulating gambling in Kansas are hereby repealed."

That's the only law consistent with personal freedom and liberty.

The law that has been passed, however, provides more power for the state and more opportunities to regulate our lives.

Even casino supporters concede large social costs will accompany a casino. As we have government that stands willing to pay these costs, the taxpayer will suffer these costs.

In the balance, the expansion of state bureaucracy, tax collection, and regulation, plus the social costs that the state believes it must shoulder; these considerations outweigh our freedom to gamble.

The ending of For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, by Murray N. Rothbard:

Toward a Free America

The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives, who are often attached to the monarchical traditions of a happily obsolete European past, libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy. Libertarians are the only genuine current heirs of Jefferson, Paine, Jackson, and the abolitionists.

And yet, while we are more truly traditional and more rootedly American than the conservatives, we are in some ways more radical than the radicals. Not in the sense that we have either the desire or the hope of remoulding human nature by the path of politics; but in the sense that only we provide the really sharp and genuine break with the encroaching statism of the twentieth century. The Old Left wants only more of what we are suffering from now; the New Left, in the last analysis, proposes only still more aggravated statism or compulsory egalitarianism and uniformity. Libertarianism is the logical culmination of the now forgotten “Old Right” (of the 1930s and ‘40s) opposition to the New Deal, war, centralization, and State intervention. Only we wish to break with all aspects of the liberal State: with its welfare and its warfare, its monopoly privileges and its egalitarianism, its repression of victimless crimes whether personal or economic. Only we offer technology without technocracy, growth without pollution, liberty without chaos, law without tyranny, the defense of property rights in one’s person and in one’s material possessions.

Strands and remnants of libertarian doctrines are, indeed, all around us, in large parts of our glorious past and in values and ideas in the confused present. But only libertarianism takes these strands and remnants and integrates them into a mighty, logical, and consistent system. The enormous success of Karl Marx and Marxism has been due not to the validity of his ideas -- all of which, indeed, are fallacious -- but to the fact that he dared to weave socialist theory into a mighty system. Liberty cannot succeed without an equivalent and contrasting systematic theory; and until the last few years, despite our great heritage of economic and political thought and practice, we have not had a fully integrated and consistent theory of liberty. We now have that systematic theory; we come, fully armed with our knowledge, prepared to bring our message and to capture the imagination of all groups and strands in the population. All other theories and systems have clearly failed: socialism is in retreat everywhere, and notably in Eastern Europe; liberalism has bogged us down in a host of insoluble problems; conservatism has nothing to offer but sterile defense of the status quo. Liberty has never been fully tried in the modern world; libertarians now propose to fulfill the American dream and the world dream of liberty and prosperity for all mankind.

The opening words of Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman, written around 1962:

In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.” It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic “what your country can do for you” implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, “what you can do for your country” implies that the government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

Thank you to Karl Peterjohn for this excellent, well-researched article.

Urban Renewal: A Flawed Idea That Failed 50 Years Ago
By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1) Urban renewal failed across the United States in the 20th century. The urban renewal efforts from the 20th century that are the foundation for the newly proposed redevelopment agency in Wichita rely upon these old Kansas laws that require an increase in local government’s powers. There are no clearly defined steps that will avoid repeating these past mistakes in the public hearing discussions so far.

2) The financing mechanism for this new redevelopment agency is not clear. Other communities might have agencies with this label and operate their Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) money through them, but integrating the current CDBG programs into this new agency have not been made clear. The revenue need to fund this agency is unspecified. The city has property, sales, and fee revenues that can be raised to provide the substantial funding needed for this proposed new agency.

3) No efforts have been clearly defined to avoid repeating the mistakes that occurred in the 20th century urban renewal redevelopment process. If the city is going to make mistakes, let’s not repeat the errors of the past.

4) Current city activities will be impacted by this redevelopment agency. This includes and is not limited to central inspection, zoning, and planning.

5) The city will need to restore the eminent domain powers that the 2006 legislature removed from state law for many of the proposed redevelopment efforts to work. While the eminent domain reform enacted in 2006 does not take effect until July 1, 2007, the city needs a plan that will fit within the boundaries of state law.

6) A disproportionate amount of the burden created by urban renewal fell upon low income and largely minority groups. Urban renewal programs provided disproportionate benefits to high income, developers, and citizens with close ties to these programs at city hall.

INTRODUCTION ON WICHITA

The Wichita City Manager is promoting a new city redevelopment agency and using the existing urban renewal statutes that exist in Kansas law for this community. Sedgwick County officials have joined both appointed and elected city officials in discussing this concept.

Urban renewal was an important post World War II program that tried to rehabilitate and improve cities all over the United States. Unfortunately, urban renewal and the government dominated and controlled redevelopment process that was the essence of urban renewal in the 20th century failed. It was also a very expensive failure.

Wichita has gone through two rounds of urban renewal. The first effort was in parallel with the national efforts that ran from 1949 to 1974.(1) Downtown Wichita changed significantly when urban renewal programs used their eminent domain powers to acquire large chunks of property in Wichita. The City of Wichita has been one of the largest property owners in this community since this program began. Century II was one of the major redevelopment projects in downtown Wichita during this period of time.

Fortunately, the troubled history of urban renewal is one that is readily available. This is particularly critical for a city like Wichita that went through a second stage that it has been following with a city directed special redevelopment program since the late 1980’s.

Developer Jack DeBoer issued his “DeBoer Plan” for downtown redevelopment in Wichita almost 20 years ago. DeBoer’s vision was for the construction and development of a large number of new and enhanced existing facilities in downtown Wichita. The focus would be in turning the downtown area into an entertainment/tourist destination with a variety of primarily enhanced public facilities. The DeBoer plan was largely implemented in stages with the “crown jewel” being the recently approved downtown arena. This private-public partnership was expected to transform and revitalize downtown Wichita. A large amount of public and private funds were expected to be spent to turn this vision into a reality.

The centerpiece for this revitalization proposal was three major projects downtown: a 500 foot keeper of the Plains that would be for Wichita what the space needle is for Seattle; a new downtown hotel; a new downtown arena. In addition a variety of other attractions would be built to attract people, particularly tourists, to downtown Wichita. The Wichita ice arena and Childrens Museum were two of the other significant attractions that were built.

The irony of the DeBoer proposal, was the fact that almost 20 years later, DeBoer is most prominently attached to the East Bank/Waterwalk development proposal and was NOT specifically part of his 1980’s era proposal. This redevelopment project, which included a large amount of city owned parcels, included land that had originally become city property back in the urban renewal era.

The DeBoer redevelopment proposal went well beyond the arena and a 500 foot Keeper of the Plains statue. Downtown Wichita was supposed to become an urban tourist destination location with a variety of attractions to get both residents and out-of-town tourists to flock to see. Naturally, accommodations like a new hotel would be needed to go with the recent expansion of the Bob Brown convention center complex attached to Century II.

The expansion of museums on and by the river, a new ice rink, remodeled Lawrence-Dumont stadium (roughly 20 years ago) and other improvements were all supposed to stimulate a new form of local development that went beyond the traditional businesses and industries existing in Wichita. The City of Wichita and Sedgwick County spent huge sums to build, expand, or remodel facilities in and around downtown. Meanwhile, the private sector that was already downtown quietly continued to shrink and diminish.

A new local bus station was built downtown in the 1990’s. Macy’s retail store disappeared to be replaced by the Finney State Office Building that the city helped arrange by providing a nearby parking facility.

The initial reaction to the DeBoer revitalization plan was mixed. The family of the late Black Bear Bosin quickly sank the idea of inflating his statue into a 500 foot city landmark. That was the only idea that was not substantially implemented, and by raising the base, a good argument can be made that the intent of the DeBoer plan to increase the height of the keeper has been partially met.

The city has just finished spending a large amount of tax funds raising the pedestal for the Keeper of the Plains statue so that the original statue is more visible to the public. However, it is not clear to what degree this statue is attracting either local or outside the Wichita area visitors into downtown. The city supported Indian Museum that is adjacent to the Keeper of the Plains statue has continued to struggle and this facility continues to have a variety of operational problems that continue to appear in the news from time-to-time.

Both the city’s ice arena as well as the Children’s Museum have struggled over financial operating costs and budget problems at several points since these facilities were opened. Downtown Wichita’s Old Towne area has seen an influx of restaurants and nightclubs. Many of the private projects have required a variety of taxpayer funded support that included but is not limited to parking. The high amount of turnover in the ownership and operation of many of these private facilities raised performance questions. Similar firms outside of the downtown area did not receive the same benefits that many of the downtown firms received. This situation raised equity issues for similar businesses. Is local government capable to step in? The sizable financial losses from the operations of the now city owned Hyatt Hotel during its first few years of operation raises questions about the effectiveness of the public-private redevelopment efforts that occurred in the last few years of the 20th century in Wichita.

Wichita has struggled both with the explicit urban renewal along with the rest of the country in the middle of the 20th century. Follow up redevelopment programs during the last 20 years have created a number of changes downtown but the growth in this community had largely eluded the downtown area. This Wichita history is important for city council and other local officials to keep in mind when examining the redevelopment agency proposal and resurrecting urban renewal.

I. NATIONAL URBAN RENEWAL: A BRIEF HISTORY

Urban renewal failed. Even before the federal urban renewal efforts ended in the 1970’s the academic critics were pointing out major problems. The goals were not being met and costs far exceeded initial projections.

In my September 6, 2006 letter to city leaders discussing urban renewal I pointed out the wide range of literature discussing urban renewal and redevelopment that dated back over 40 years ago. This history was wide ranging and featured prominent scholars from that era who included several who went on to national prominence in other public realms like the late Senator Patrick Moynihan who was also a White House staffer for several presidents, and White House staffer to former President Reagan, Martin Anderson. In addition, major urban scholars like Jane Jacobs, Harvard professors Edward Banfield, and Nathan Glazer who focused upon city improvements and trying to reduce and ameliorate the urban poverty problem had a major impact at looking at city issues.

Now a case can be made that urban renewal has never totally ended. That is a certainly a reasonable position in light of the existence in some states of the urban renewal statutes in state law that were enacted roughly 50 years ago. The late Ronald Reagan jokingly commented that there was nothing as eternal as a government program. The echoes of urban renewal and similar redevelopment efforts continue like a governmental version of the scientists “Big Bang” echoes detected by the Bell Laboratory scientists who won Nobel Prize in Physics for their effort.

As far back as 1963 then professors Glazer and Moynihan wrote in their classic “Beyond the Melting Pot” described urban renewal and its ethnic and sociological impact this way, “There have been difficult (sociological) problems, but not different from those in other great American cities. The major attempt to deal with these problems has been through urban renewal—the rebuilding of the area so as to reduce the low-income and increase the middle- and high-income population. This movement has been supported by all the middle-class groups and institutions in the area, who of course would like to see less crime and disorder and crowding and dirt around them.” (2)

Urban renewal had impacted the natural evolution of the neighborhoods that were in transition in New York City in the 1950’s as the Irish, Jews, and Germans moved out to be replaced back then what Glazer and Moynihan referred to as “Negroes” and Puerto Ricans. Glazer and Moynihan comment on the paucity of Puerto Rican community organizations and attribute this in part to the impact of urban renewal, “Aside from the storefront churches, organizational life is not strong among the Puerto Ricans….but Puerto Rico, just as the rest of Latin America, has always been weak in spontaneous grass-roots organization. Probably the rise of organization has been inhibited too by the factors that have dispersed the population and prevented the development of a great center for the Puerto Rican population—housing shortage, slum clearance, and the availability of public housing….The demolition of the houses that affront the neighborhood means precisely the demolition of those that house vast numbers of Puerto Ricans—families living in single rooms, families taking in migrant relatives, displaced children, and temporarily homeless friends. Ironically, ‘improving a neighborhood’ means moving out those who are most crowded, have the least room, and whose resettlement offers the most difficult problem for themselves and city agencies.”(3)

Slum clearance is just a synonym for urban renewal. Slum clearance is the argument being put forth by the advocates for new city redevelopment agency. Glazer and Moynihan identified over 40 years ago simply bulldozing buildings does not address the underlying problems. These are problems of crime that result in the dilapidation that is being used to justify a new city agency.

What will be done differently in 2006 than what was done in 1956? If local officials are going to make build a new city bureaucracy and expand the city’s role in controlling property within the city limits, Wichitans need to know why the local officials should repeat the same mistakes that were exposed over 40 years ago?

Aesthetically, urban renewal was a failure creating a monotonous diversity that the leading urban scholar of her day Jane Jacobs described, “Anything looks ugly if it is done badly. But this belief implies something else. It implies that city diversity of uses is inherently messy in appearance; and it also implies that places stamped with homogeneity of uses look better, or at any rate are more amenable to pleasant or orderly esthetic treatment. But homogeneity or close similarity among uses, in real life poses very puzzling esthetic problems. If the sameness of use is shown candidly for what it is—sameness—it looks monotonous.”(4)

In fact, the converse according to Jacob is true for cities, “Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order…Nevertheless, even though intricate mixtures of buildings, uses and scenes are necessary for successful city districts, does diversity carry, too, the disadvantages of ugliness, warring uses and congestion that are conventionally attributed to it by planning lore and literature? These supposed disadvantages are based on images of unsuccessful districts which have not too much, but too little diversity. They call up visions of garish, sprawling, unremitting commerce. None of these conditions, however, represent flourishing city diversity. On the contrary, these represent precisely the senility that befalls city neighborhoods in which exuberant diversity has either failed to grow or has died off with time…. Flourishing city diversity, of the kind that is catalyzed by the combination of mixed primary uses, frequent streets, mixture of building ages and overheads, and dense concentration of users does not carry with it the disadvantages of diversity conventionally assumed by planning pseudoscience.(5) Jacob then proceeds to criticize the urban planners and urban renewal advocates of her day for their failures to understand the intricacies or the spontaneous order created by the marketplace operating under a rule of law.

The problems outlined in a practical sense by Jacob are examined in much greater detail that extends well beyond urban renewal and municipal revitalization and into a broader discussion of the role of urban experts, government planners, city residents trying to live their lives and how this exists in an America where the role of the government has been expanding during the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century.(6)(7)

The most recent national explosion of this issue is the eminent domain battles that lead up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent and highly controversial, Kelo decision ratifying forced land acquisition powers for private developers at the expense of current landowners when exercised by local units of government. That has led some Wichita city leaders to put this city behind an effort to have broad based powers to condemn private land using eminent domain and then be able to turn that property over to other private hands. This led the 2006 Kansas legislature to pass legislation that will limit municipal eminent domain powers for redevelopment beginning July 1, 2007.

These failures go far beyond the sociological analysis offered by Glazer, Jacob, Anderson, and Moynihan. Hoover Institute scholar Martin Anderson identified a number of problems with urban renewal.

In addition, liberty and control over property by citizens was diminished for all and in some cases eradicated for the people living in the targeted “redevelopment” areas. “Who wants urban renewal? Certainly not the lower income groups—they get displaced from their homes to make way for the modern apartments they cannot afford to rent. It is hard to know whether the middle class is much concerned with the changes that have occurred in the cities…Then who is behind the tremendous push for urban renewal? Raymond Vernon, former Director of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, has speculated that the main stimulus for urban renewal comes from two elite groups—the wealthy elite and the intellectual elite. Both groups have strong economic and social attachments to the central city.”(8)

In a book examining eminent domain abuse and its ties to urban renewal, Steven Greenhut looked at Anderson’s analysis and warned: “Nothing much has changed today.”(9)

Greenhut also pointed out, “Without eminent domain, very little of the destruction could have taken place. But once the government had the right to take whatever it pleased in the name of the ‘higher good’ then the sky was the limit.”(10)

Urban renewal did do massive amounts of damage. Let’s look at one well examined and very costly case: Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis that was described: “Few people could have missed the demolition of St. Lous’ Pruitt-Igoe and other hideous housing projects that came to epitomize wht the urban-renewal program was all about: creating high-rise, crime-ridden slums that eventually had to be dynamited before any real urban progress could be made.”(11)(12)

Von Hoffman’s Harvard University study went on to describe this redevelopment tragedy this way, “St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe housing project is arguable the most infamous public-housing project ever built in the U.S. A product of the postwar federal public-housing program, this mammoth high-rise development was completed in 1956…Only a few years later, disrepair, vandalism, and crime plagued Pruitt-Igoe. The project’s recreational galleries and skip-stop elevators, once heralded as architectural innovations, had become nuisances and danger zones. Large number of vacancies indicated that even poor people preferred to live anywhere but Pruitt-Igoe. In 1972, after spending more than $5 million in vain to cure the problems at Pruitt-Igoe, the St. Louis Housing Authority, in a highly publicized event, demolished three of the high-rise buildings. A year later, in concert with the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, it declared Pruitt-Igoe unsalvageable and razed the remaining buildings.”(13)

If the city of Wichita is going to resurrect the urban renewal that led in it worst cases to problems like the one listed above, a specific program is needed to make sure that these past mistakes are not repeated. In addition, it must be clear where the public funding sources will come from to provide for this redevelopment.

Avoiding the government redevelopment/urban renewal model is needed. This problem remains a national challenge for communities across the country. In Abuse of Power, Steven Greenhut describes the 21st century challenge this way: “For as bad as the old urban renewal was—and almost everyone from every political perspective has criticized the outcome of this massive federal program—at least it was done to remedy what its proponents saw a genuine urban problems of substandard housing and rundown neighborhoods. Since at least the early 1980s, urban renewal has morphed into something known mainly as redevelopment. Advocates of modern redevelopment projects often use the same language of blight to justify their efforts, but the purpose has changed dramatically.”

“Whereas the old urban renewal was designed largely to wipe away areas that unquestionably were down on their heels, the new urban renewal is basically about filling city coffers with money. It’s about building tax bases. It’s about luring new commercial retailers into older areas to bring in additional property and sales taxes. Just because these financial motives are sometimes (but not always) dressed up in the language of the New Urbanism or downtown revitalization or blight removal should not fool one into thinking that the new urban renewal is about anything more than money.”(14)

For local government to proceed, it must have eminent domain powers to remove the wrong people from the targeted property. This has led to condemnations of property across the country and destroyed the property rights for homeowners in many cases. Lakewood, Ohio is one example but books have been written outlining a large number of cases that cross the country.

“As there were no structural problems with the houses, the City (Lakewood, OH) relied upon terms like ‘economic and functional obsolescence’ to find blight. Translation: The houses lack two-car attached garages and second bathtubs and their yards are too small. No modern family could possibly want a historic, well maintained house without a two-car attached garage.”(15)

The author of this study “Public Power, Private Gain,” issued by the Institute for Justice in 2003 provided numerous abuses similar to Lakewood’s that are occurring throughout the country. Dana Berliner’s book is filled with outrages to individuals, a variety of businesses, churches, farmers, and others in the name of eradicating “blight” or “neglect” or “distressed” properties.

Many of these outrages occurred in Kansas. “Unfortunately, for the citizens of Kansas, their state is one of the worst abusers of eminent domain, especially in comparison to other states with similar population size.”(16) Problems with redevelopment in the context of eminent domain abuses were specifically cited in Kansas City, the infamous Gross case out of Merriam, and Topeka. Kansas was ranked second worst out of the 50 states behind only California in this national study.

In the Gross case a small businessman operating a used car lot lost his property because the city of Merriam condemned it so a neighboring BMW dealership could acquire the property.(17)

These abuses were part of the foundation for the effort to reform Kansas eminent domain laws in the wake of the Kelo decision on eminent domain by the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, there is also a similar and even more anti-property owner case coming out of the Kansas Supreme Court recently. Unlike Kelo that has been extensively covered in the news media, the Kansas case has received almost no local news coverage.

“A good example is the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in the case of General Building Contractors and Robert Tolberg v. Board of Shawnee County Commissioners. The justices not only affirm the county’s right to take virtually any property they chose in the name of economic development, but they also show open disdain for the property owners who are challenging the taking of their properties. Throughout the ruling, one sees an emphasis on process rather than on rights. As long as the government followed the letter of the law and the proper redevelopment process, then the court couldn’t see what the controversy was about. Yet, courts are supposed to serve as a check on the government’s edicts, holding them up to timeless constitutional principles rather than the planning ideologies of the day.”(18)

This was the perspective of a California eminent domain author in looking at the problems in Kansas recently. The Kansas events where eminent domain was used to favor private parties helped set the stage in 2006 for the legislature’s efforts to limit eminent domain takings for non public purposes. This is primarily for economic development efforts but in some other states even the traditional eminent domain powers for public purposes are now being questioned or even limited. In other states, the voters have been specifically asked to decide the proper role for eminent domain powers in the case of redevelopment.

November 7, 2006 the voters in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, and South Carolina all passed initiatives that would restrain the government’s power to seize private property. If Kansas powers would receive a similar opportunity, a similar outcome by voters speaking out to defend their property rights is likely.

Naturally, for an elite few who are at the center of local government power, this is not an outcome that they approve of in their vision to improve their communities. The genius of the founders in providing a system where power was supposed to be spread widely among the people also puts a crimp in the utopian planners. “As in all utopias, the right to have plans of any significance belonged only to the planners in charge.”(19)

In the wake of the Berman, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 1950’s that provided the foundation for the expanded eminent domain powers for government became the foundation for the loss of private property rights and a sizable expansion in government’s ability to modify property ownership into the hands that the state prefers.(20)

Lower court decisions had problems with this concept but their argument, “One man’s land cannot be seized by the Governmnt and sold to another man merely in order that the purchaser may buildupon it a better house or a house which better meets the Government’s idea of what is appropriate or well designed.”(21)

II. CONCLUSION

Urban renewal failed nationally over 35 years ago across this country. Wichita’s effort to redevelopment within the national urban renewal and outside it have at best a record that is incomplete and continues to require significant public support even for nominally private, albeit many are not-for-profit entities.

The city should not proceed precipitously in once again proceeding down the “urban renewal/redevelopment” path. The experiences in the last 20 years should make city leaders sanguine in proceeding down the proposal coming out of the city manager’s office.

All possible avenues should be examined. “By the end of the federal urban-renewal program in 1974, cities that refused Title I funds and let the market hold sway over downtown redevelopment projects generally had more more impressive downtown revitalizations than those that relied so heavily on federal power and that abused property rights so egregiously.”(22)

Wichita needs to avoid repeating past mistakes. Providing a strong level of property rights actually enhances development. A stable system of government that is not excessively large and expensive is a stronger incentive to growth than a new governmental body promoting “redevelopment.”

Individual states are engaging in a number of experiments: on November 7, 2006, the voters in the city of Nashville, TN approved an ordinance requiring that the city get voter approval before any and all taxes could be raised. This question arose in light of that community’s high property tax rates.

FOOTNOTES

1) Abuse of Power, Greenhut, 2004, page 107
2) Beyond the Melting Pot, Glazer & Moynihan, page 179.
3) Ibid, page 107-8.
4) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, J. Jacobs, 1961, page 223.
5) Ibid, page 223.
6) Constitution of Liberty, F.A. Hayek.
7) Vision of the Anointed, T. Sowell.
8) The Federal Bulldozer: A Critical Analysis of Urban Renewal, 1949-1962, page 218.
9) Abuse of Power, Greenhut, page 111.
10) Ibid, page 110.
11) Ibid, page 111.
12) “Why They Built Pruitt-Igoe,” A. Von Hoffman, Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard U., 2000, http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/PruittIgoe.html.
13) Ibid.
14) Abuse of Power, page 114.
15) Public Power, Private Gain, D. Berliner, Institute for Justice, Washington, D.C., 2003, page 166
16) Ibid, page 78.
17) “Condemnation Is Used to Hand One Business Property to Another,” D. Starkman, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2, 1998, page A1.
18) Abuse of Power, page 150.
19) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, J. Jacobs, 1961, page 17.
20) Takings Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain, R. Epstein, 1985, page 178.
21) Ibid, page 178-9.
22) “Urban Renewal and Its Aftermath,” J.C. Teaford, page 458 cited in Greenhut.

The contrast between the statist Hillary Clinton and the libertarian Milton Friedman. Gathered by Thomas D. Kuiper.

The Free Market

"The unfettered free market has been the most radically destructive force in American life in the last generation."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton on C-Span in 1996 stating her troubles with the free market

"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself."
-- Milton Friedman, Wall Street Journal, May 18, 1961

Social Security

"We can’t afford to have that money go to the private sector. The money has to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend that money better than the private sector will spend it."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton in a disagreement with a Republican congressman

"I have long been a critic of Social Security, basically because I believe that it is not the business of government to tell people what fraction of their incomes they should devote to providing for their own or someone else’s old age."
-- Milton Friedman, WSJ, March 15, 1988

Health Care

"I had a few ideas about health care, and I’ve learned a few lessons since then, but I haven’t given up the goal, and that’s why we kept working step-by-step to insure millions of children through the Children’s Health Insurance Program."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton at the 2000 Democratic Convention, still wanting socialized medicine in the United States

"It is taken for granted that workers should receive their pay partly in kind, in the form of medical care provided by the employer. How come? Why single out medical care? Surely food is no less essential to life than medical care. Why is it not at least as logical for workers to be required to buy their food at the company store as to be required to buy their medical care at the company store?"
-- Milton Friedman writes against Hillary’s health care plan; WSJ, Feb.13, 1993

Government Spending & Taxes

"Other developed countries…are more committed to social stability than we have been, and they tailor their economic policies to maintain it."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton writes her affinity for Europe’s cradle-to-grave welfare policies

"Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all."
-- Milton Friedman, WSJ, June 15, 1995

Free Trade vs. Fair Trade

"Too many people have made too much money."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton condemns the insurance industry, feeling it’s not fair that certain businesses are making ‘too much money’

"'Fair' is in the eye of the beholder; free is the verdict of the market. (The word 'free' is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with 'freedom.' The word 'fair' is not used in either of our founding documents.)"
-- Milton Friedman, WSJ, Mar. 7, 1996

Bill Davitt makes some excellent points about the dangers of giving politicians power to control blight through eminent domain. He also explains why it is best to vote for Carlos Mayans for mayor of Wichita.

Bill warns us that your home or business may be declared blighted even though it is in good and desirable condition. He is referring to cases all over the country where local officials abuse their power to declare property blighted so that it can be taken from its owners. The Castle Coalition has examples of property that is being declared blighted. You be the judge as to the condition of these properties:
www.castlecoalition.org/CastleWatch/bogusblight.

Testimony of William T. Davitt before Senate Judiciary Committee of Kansas Legislature at 9:00 A.M. on Thursday, March 1, 2007 AGAINST amending BLIGHT into Kansas Statutes as an excuse for EMINENT DOMAIN.

My name is William T. Davitt from Wichita. Everything I say is my opinion, belief and understanding.

Last August I went to a meeting called by Wichita City Manager. 250 people in the room. Fancy buffet with salmon sandwiches along the wall.

Up on the stage two members of Wichita City Council show color slides on large screen. "Oh, look at the beautiful swimming pool, manicured lawn, attractive apartments! It is so wonderful that we are going to have all this in Wichita REDEVELOPMENT!"

Standing at the microphone, big developer from St. Louis explains that he will continue owning these new apartments and collecting the rent. Says he is going to KNIT together churches and schools, city and county government, taxpayers and philanthropists.

Question from audience: "What if we don't want to sell our land to you?" Answer of developer: "We'll TAKE IT with EMINENT DOMAIN ... clean up Wichita's BLIGHT!"

And BLIGHT is why we are here today. They want the legislature to nail BLIGHT in Kansas Statutes so they can use BLIGHT as an excuse to destroy our homes and places of business with a bulldozer, take our land away from us, turn our land over to big developer from St. Louis so he can build rental apartments and scoop in millions of dollars in profits for himself.

Well, you say your home is so beautiful that they can never declare your home BLIGHTED. Don't kid yourself.

BLIGHT is going to be whatever the Kansas Supreme Court says it is following the argument of BIG LAW FIRMS representing BIG DEVELOPERS . . . because every judge on Kansas Supreme Court owes his job to a handful of BIG LAW FIRMS.

That is why we desperately need an amendment to our Kansas Constitution taking selection of these judges away from BIG LAW FIRMS and requiring these judges to be confirmed by Kansas Senate as is done in the federal.

We also desperately need an amendment to our Kansas Constitution that will protect our homes and places of business from EMINENT DOMAIN.

What more can I say?

LIBERABUS DOMINE.

William T. Davitt
Wichita, Kansas

Note that Wichita City Council member Carl Brewer IS in favor of creating a REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY.

Wichita Mayor Carlos Mayans IS NOT in favor of creating a REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY.

From Dan Mitchell:

Walter Williams Warns Against Tyrannical Majoritarianism.

Most people assume that decisions should be made by majority rule, but that assumes 51 percent of the people should have the right to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people. The sign of a free society, as Walter Williams explains, is that people have inalienable rights:

What's so great about majority rule? Let's look at majority rule, as a decision-making tool, and ask how many of our choices we would like settled by what a majority likes. Would you want the kind of car that you own to be decided through a democratic process, or would you prefer purchasing any car you please? Ask that same question about decisions such as where you live, what clothes you purchase, what food you eat, what entertainment you enjoy and what wines you drink. I'm sure that if anyone suggested that these choices be subject to a democratic process, you'd deem it tyranny. ... Our founders intended for us to have a limited republican form of government where rights precede government and there is rule of law. Citizens, as well as government officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government intervenes in civil society only to protect its citizens against force and fraud but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange. By contrast, in a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. The law is whatever the government deems it to be. Rights may be granted or taken away. ...In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." That's another way of saying that one of the primary dangers of majority rule is that it confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability on acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical. Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and could actually be opposites.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/02/28/democracy _or_liberty

As reported in The Wichita Business Journal:

The response from the Wichita Historic Preservation Board was positive. The six members liked the design and thought the project could be good for downtown.

They still voted no.

So for the moment, a developer's plan for a downtown hotel and conference center is blocked by a law, the Kansas preservation statute. What is the problem with the proposed building? "[the problem] is that it incorporates too many materials and features inconsistent with the surrounding buildings. That includes glass, marble, stainless steel, redwood and balconies."

This design is judged as "too modern" to be compatible with the "overall historic appearance of downtown."

It is a sad day in Wichita when a law prevents an individual from making an investment in the improvement of his property, especially when private investment in downtown Wichita is desired and needed. This law needs to be repealed before it causes more harm.

Furthermore, it devalues private property rights when property owners or developers must subject themselves to the whims of groups such as the Wichita Historic Preservation Board. As John W. Sommer wrote in The Cato Journal:

With few exceptions, historic or landmark preservation illustrates the powerful force of cultural elites who impose their tastes on the landscape at the expense of the general public. City after city has been confronted by small groups of architectural aesthetes who are as highly organized as they are both righteous and wealthy. In city after city these groups have succeeded in stalling, or permanently freezing, the pace of physical and functional change. In the name of “heritage” or “culture” or “a livable city,” and invariably “in the public interest,” preservationists seek to legislate “charm” for others.

We would be much better off with out these two disruptive forces -- the Kansas preservation statute and the Wichita Historic Preservation Board -- acting against our economy and private property rights.

The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us – we're supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.

Remember that one's relationship with the state is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law ultimately is backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people.

The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The 20th century's worst tyrants were political figures, men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the state. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.

Our constitutional system, by contrast, was designed to restrain political power and place limits on the size and scope of government. It is this system, the rule of law, which we should celebrate – not political victories.

-- Congressman Ron Paul

Written by John D’Aloia Jr.

".... nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." - - U.S. Constitution, Amendment V. The taking of property by eminent domain for reasons that do not meet the historic definition of "public use" has been much in the news since the Supreme Court handed down its infamous Kelo decision.

Eminent domain is not the only way that private property can be acquired by government. Placing restrictions on the land by law or regulation can also be a taking that warrants just compensation.

The Pottawatomie County Commission has adopted a change to the county's zoning rules that restrict the use of land that is within the inundation boundaries down stream of watershed dams, that is within the boundaries of the area which would be inundated if the dam was breeched. Two of the stated purposes are to (1) protect life safety and the general public welfare, and (2) to prohibit dwelling units in the inundation area. While existing land uses as of the effective date of the amendment are grandfathered and declared to be conforming, if a person has a residence in an inundation area that is destroyed beyond 51 percent of its real value, by any cause, the home cannot be rebuilt in the inundation area.

Imposing a restriction on property which limits the ability of a landowner to use the land is, for all intents and purposes, a taking of the property. That this is so was recognized in the county commission's discussions. As reported in the January 31, 2007 Smoke Signal, County Planner John Keller told the commissioners that for dams already in place, the amendment was a compromise on the part of the planning commission and taking the property rights was a necessary measure of that compromise.

A principle that bears on the matter is that when government takes an action "for the general public welfare," the cost of that action should be borne by all citizens, not just a few. This is the principle behind the Vth Amendment. In this case, the zoning ordinance amendment has taken property rights from everyone who owns property that lies within an inundation area, limiting them as to what they can do in the future with their property. For this, they should not be forced to bear the full cost of what is being done "for the general public welfare." They should be compensated using general tax revenues, transferring at least part of the cost to all citizens.

The article also stated that the restrictions were needed to "save" the watershed districts from having to upgrade dams, upgrades that would be cost prohibitive. This in itself is a shifting of the financial burden required "for the general public welfare" from all citizens to individual landowners.

The citizens of the State of Oregon recognized the justice involved in these situations when they adopted by referendum Measure 37. Measure 37 requires agencies enforcing a newly imposed land use regulation to either pay just compensation, equal to the reduction of the fair market value caused by the regulation, or to modify or not apply the regulation so the property owner can use their land as allowed at the time they acquired the property. Measure 37 was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court. (The text of Measure 37 can be read at www.oia.org/SonOf7text.htm.

I know not how many people are affected by the county's action, or to what extent the value of their land has been lessened, but with 26 watershed dams in the county, and plans for constructing 56 more, I suspect that there are those who will be impacted and will have reason to initiate a request for "just compensation."

Writing from New Orleans, Louisiana

The recent passing of Milton Friedman, a personal hero of mine, was marked by praise and admiration for him from almost all sources.

At the end of chapter 2 of his important book Capitalism and Freedom, Dr. Friedman lists some things that the U.S. government currently does that can't be justified in terms of the principles of limited government and individual liberty and freedom. These are:

1. Parity price support programs for agriculture. I believe he means farm subsidies here.
2. Tariffs on imports or restrictions on imports …
3. Government control of output, such as through the farm program …
4. Rent control … or more general price and wage controls …
5. Legal minimum wage rates …
6. Detailed regulation of industries …
7. … the control of radio and television by the Federal Communications Commission.
8. Present social security programs, especially the old-age and retirement programs compelling people in effect (a) to spend a specified fraction of their income on the purchase of retirement annuity, (b) the buy the annuity from a publicly operated enterprise.
9. Licensure provisions in various cities and states which restrict particular enterprise or occupations to people who have a license …
10. So-called "public housing" and the host of other subsidy programs directed at fostering residential construction
11. Conscription to man the military services in peacetime …
12. National parks …
13. The legal prohibition on the carrying of mail for profit.
14. Publicy owned and operated toll roads …

This list is far from comprehensive. To this list we must add Dr. Friedman's support of school choice through vouchers, something that is very unpopular in Kansas.

We should remember that Dr. Friedman wrote this book in 1962, before the tremendous expansion of government from the Great Society programs right up through the compassionate conservatism (and tremendously fast-growing federal spending) of George W. Bush.

I wonder how many of the newspaper reporters and editorial writers praising Milton Friedman, not to mention politicians, knew of his strong belief in and advocacy of a very limited government. Would they still praise him? Would they be willing to take his advice?

Thank you to John Todd for this material. John has much experience in real estate, and cares deeply about the rights of property owners.

Subject: Comments and concerns regarding the proposed changes for the Housing Code of the city of Wichita.

The city’s housing code has problems. Here is an overview of the problems. Some suggested improvements follow.

General concerns covering the Housing Code ordinances and enforcement.

1. Has a “crime” actually been committed if a property owner owns a property in which a board and paint separate (peel) in violation of the Housing Code? Are folks who are found in violation in front of the city’s municipal court becoming part of the growth in the population in the county jail sometimes?
2. Is there “selective enforcement” of the existing ordinance? Does peeling paint receive the same attention in Reflection Ridge as it does in Midtown?
3. Are city, county, and school district owned properties subject to the same code? Are code violations on government owned properties subject to no penalties?
4. Is “blight” the cause of neighborhood crime or is the lack of enforcement of criminal activity in certain neighborhoods creating the neighborhood flight and subsequent need by property owners to secure their properties by boarding up windows and doors?
5. Is the Municipal Environmental Court free and independent from the legislative (City Council) and executive functions (City Manager) of the City? Does the setup of the Municipal Court meet the “separation of powers” doctrine we expect from government?

Recommendations to improve Wichita housing and the city’s housing code:

1. Reports of prospective housing code violation complaints need to be in writing with copies of the signed complaint given to the property owner and to the person reporting the alleged violation. Nothing undermines a sense of community more than government allowing one group of people to anonymously “snitch” on another group.
2. Mediation between the aggrieved parties should be required before the complaint goes to court. The Wichita Bar Association has a system of mediation already in place.
3. City Code Enforcement Officials should be licensed, and be required to have at least five years of prior “hands-on” building experience.
4. Municipal Court Judges need to be elected by the people rather than appointed by the City Council. The City Council could handle this through the passage of a Charter Ordinance.
5. Blight needs to be defined in the ordinance.
6. City owned properties should comply with the ordinance just like privately owned property.

Here are the detailed comments on th