The majority of people won’t bother with all of this, though, because it’s hard. They will instead do what you suggest: pack up and move to somewhere that has the services they desire. That can kill a community over time. Indeed, people moving like you suggest has caused rural communities to whither and decay over the past decade, as people leave them for cities with more services and greater opportunities. It’s not a desirable outcome, and the accessibility of town government to petitions like these doesn’t hurt the community, it helps to protect it by keeping it responsive to its residents’ needs.
BTW - this is why I hope to hell we never get the government involved in healthcare in this country (US). If you think screw ups around cable internet are fun, have fun trying to get decent health care in a timely manner. I have too many close friends who are vets and watching how the VA jerks them around is disheartening. If you think average citizens are going to rate any better - ha!
At this point I don't really expect much from the government. Honestly I wish they'd stop trying so hard to do everything. When company services suck at least I'm not forced to pay them every year.
> this is why I hope to hell we never get the government involved in healthcare in this country (US).
I have government health care in my country. Forced town meetings and everything. It's a huge mess. Poorly managed and lacking in resources. In some places you can't even wash your hands because there's no water. Politicians are so corrupt they steal money meant for COVID-19 vaccines and masks. Health insurance is still necessary for high quality care.
Bingo - the crux of why government services often suck: because they can.
Which is why if you don't want government to suck, you have to actively push on it from the outside. Most people can't be bothered to get involved so you get the freaks, charlatans and otherwise batshit crazy people driving the train - which further exacerbates the problem :p
The only reason they suck is their payments are guaranteed and they have no competition. If we get rid of this comfort, they'll have to stop sucking. Not that I expect this to ever happen.
I see it like organ donation. A lot of people would do it if were default-donate (like recent changes in the UK), but if you don't want to you can opt out.
Likewise you would be forced to hear the issues, and then you can go home after if you don't care.
Nobody wants to be forced to attend government meetings. People have better things to do. If the government can't do its job, then people should not have to pay taxes.
The current way is very top-down, big-media heavy. "Hey I want to talk about healthcare" from the top leader. That's great if it's what people actually care about, but there might be other issues, esp local ones.
We can't really do that with government.
The government is not a foreign occupying power, and we are not its passive consumers. In the US the citizens are the government, and the government governs with their consent. With this comes the responsibility to engage and spend our time every so often to ensure that the government runs to our satisfaction.
I remember a video of a US politician making a speech about how "we are not them". Probably referring to the fact the US government routinely does questionable things such as violating the rights of its own citizens in order to protect its own interests. Not sure what his name was...
> and the government governs with their consent
Not really. Consent implies the right to say no. US citizens can't just tell the US government they don't accept it. Governments use force to impose their rule so if citizens don't accept the government their only choice is armed insurrection.
I've been told that the threat of insurrection against the government is a huge reason why americans enjoy their right to bear arms. Those who actually try it though will probably be labeled terrorists and everybody knows how the US treats terrorists.
Yes they can. That’s literally what elections are for.
You're free to leave.
If nobody else is interested in your idea of society, you're not free to impose it on them.
That's you. You're the people. There's no separate entity that is "the government" that's going to take care of everything for you, except other people, who it turns out, may want different things than what you want.
Of course there is. The government exists and is staffed by a very small portion of the general population. I simply don't understand how anyone could believe otherwise.
It's not even possible to argue that governments represent the people's interests since corporations constantly lobby it in order to get favorable decisions and laws.
> except other people, who it turns out, may want different things than what you want
What these people want is irrelevant. This is about what people need. People need things such as essential services and basic infrastructure. This is not controversial in any way. Governments failing to provide this basic stuff defeats their whole purpose.
The evidence in the article seems to support the opposite. The only actual vote (that was discussed in the article) showed that the majority did want it.
Moreover your role as an honest politician, is to figure out how to improve the average persons life and advocate for that position. That position is not always (and is in fact frequently not) a position of inaction.
I highly doubt that the author (or anyone else, except perhaps someone running a municipal broadband contractor) has gone into municipal politics advocating for municipal broadband with the idea that it's going to be a direct net gain for them. As you suggest, the amount of time you have to put into it far exceeds your personal benefit. People like this almost always do it because they believe that this is the best course of action for the public good, not their own.
There exist disasters caused by self-dealing dressed up in aspirational language.
But too often ignored is the silent, massive, and insidious weight of missed opportunity cause by cowardice dressed up in bureaucratic language.
More to the point, when something came up that was meaningful to him, he stepped up and did a lot of work to try and make it happen, and in the end things did get meaningfully better even if not in the exact way the author had hoped.
I think you severely misinterpreted this story.
FTA: "I had lived in this town for twenty years". That means 20 years' worth property taxes and sales taxes, at the very least.
> I think the general attitude in the article is sickening.
Of trying to improve the town in which you've lived for 20 years?
Huh? Did you read both parts? (or the first part even?).
I thought it worked out remarkably well.
Our local small town has cohesive activist mafias, with a lot of overlap in membership, who are happy to make the city council's life hellish and have outsized power. I could write a much more crazy-making substack article.
OTOH, the inevitable individual cranks that go to all public meetings in order to be heard don't seem to have much in the way of persuasive abilities.
Remember that the next time you are trying to sell something in a company at a meeting. Go into the thing with a nailed-down ally or two who share talking points with you.
Interventions are made with the quality of the site in mind.
(I'm just another reader, but have had many interactions with mods as well as watching what they do and why.)
Submitting Part 2 in a few days would probably be a good idea.
Did they end up paying more than funding it with the taxes? Maybe.