March 12, 2010

Supports Amendment 4

 Brian Paradise, Ponte Vedra Beach

With the appearance of Amendment 4 on November’s ballot – thanks to a million Floridians’ petitions, the democracy versus republicanism debate is being revisited: How much power should the people have?

The answer is our mixture of representative and direct democracy. We elect representatives to protect our interests and represent our views, but we retain for ourselves the power to vote on taxes (among other key issues).

Thomas Jefferson warned about representative government: "Unless the mass [i.e. the people] retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals . . . selected for the trust."

Florida Hometown Democracy’s Amendment 4 embodies our Founding Fathers’ wisdom: It restores a voice to the people on community changes that affect them. Representative government has failed in so many of these cases because those in power have ignored the will of the people. As Jefferson said: "The mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights."

In summary, Amendment 4 simply gives us residents of a community a veto power, at the ballot box, over bad decision-making by elected officials. Merely to let them make these harmful decisions again and again before we can vote them out at the next election creates damage that cannot be repaired. And we are paying for it with our soaring taxes and plummeting property values, as well as in other ways.

Let’s vote YES to instituting this time-honored check-and-balance that our Founders made a fundamental feature of our government, and that our land-use decision process clearly needs.

 Brian Paradise, Ponte Vedra Beach