Octopodial Chrome

Ironworks Lofts are a development on Frederick, Colo., trying to bring the loft look to the suburbs. IMHO, they’re going about it all wrong: the really cool thing about a loft environment is that it’s downtown: shopping, food, drink and entertainment are all but a few steps away. Now, yes families nowadays tend to want yards (although why is beyond me: a yard is merely a money-hole which produces nothing—a garden is all anyone needs), space for pets, good schools and a safe environment (really, they want a good place for their kids); one thing also mentioned was a desire for better parking.

So how does one bridge the gap between downtown living and suburban safety? I like the idea of façades which look like urban buildings—that’s a good idea. I like building out in the suburbs, where crime is not nearly as common (at least until the kids hit their teens…); we’ll keep that too. But having free-standing faux-downtown buildings is just odd. And where are the shops? What we want is something that looks like downtown (that’s the whole point of this exercise), but also works like it. So join the entire row of houses: now it looks like a proper street. Put the yards in back, where the alleys would be in a normal city. Attached housing has a stigma, but if there are four feet of brick connecting buildings, I don’t think anyone would complain.

That solves the look component. How do we get the downtown feel? By having businesses and housing together. Alternate community-owned business spaces and homes. Maybe some buildings are completely homes; maybe the first floor is for business and the upper floors for residence; maybe some are dedicated to business. This isn’t a condominium situation, exactly; it’s more a case of a housing association which owns its retail properties. Profits from rents are shared out to the owners, each of whom benefits from the environment.

Now, how to solve parking? Simple, really: put it underground. This development already disguises garages as delivery entrances: just take that idea a little further, and give each residence a certain number of private spaces.

Such a development would look & feel like an urban area, but without the nuisances folks dislike about a true urban environment. It’d be pretty cool.

One of the critiques which the radical Islamists raise against us is that our freedom and tolerance lead to vice on a previously unheard-of level. They’re right: many of us live in a cesspit of iniquity, and have no desire to be freed from it. But as Dinesh D'Souza points out, this is the way it must be.

The thing is, without freedom there is no virtue, but only the appearance thereof. The man who will be killed if he gets drunk cannot be lauded for his sobriety; the woman who will be stoned if she commits adultery cannot be praised for her fidelity. Yes, we live in a crass, vulgar and sinful society: but that makes the success of everyone who isn’t crass, vulgar and hopelessly sinful all the better.

This is a lesson that we Americans need to learn, just as much as the Islamists. Everyone who advocates laws against alcohol, or against homosexuals, or against atheists, or against Christians—he aims to prevent his fellows from doing what he believes is wrong: if he’s correct, he has stolen from them the ability to choose the right; if he’s wrong, then he has kept them from doing what is right.

It’s an interesting article, ending with this profound thought, that America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible for its citizens the good life, and equally important, the life that is good.

Today’s the 228th birthday of the Declaration of Independence (but not of our government—it was not formed until 21 June, 1788). We may have our problems, but we’re the best thing going. What other states are so free as our fifty? Where else is freedom—religious, political & social—so abundant?

Naturally, we need to fix some things. First of all, the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law must be overturned. This law: governs how much may be given to candidates and what may be given to parties; it forbids minors from giving; it penalises the wealthy for spending their own money; it bans mention of candidates by name within a space of time before elections; it regulates when and how politicians can fund-raise: it is in clear violation of the First Amendment. The Congress unconstitutionally passed it, violating the oaths of office of each Senator and Representative who voted in favour; President Bush signed it, violating his own oath of office; a majority of the Supreme Court upheld it, violating their own oaths. In a just world, the Congressman who voted in favour would never be re-elected, and the President and Supreme Court justices would be impeached (yes, it’s quite possible to impeach Supreme Court justices). It not being a just world, the least we can do is overturn the atrocious thing. It is so blatantly in violation of our Constitution that it cannot be allowed to stand.

Secondly, we need to stop the vile practise of infanticide. Morally, this is a far worse matter than the above—but it is civilly more legitimate: certainly the State has the power to make murder legal; we have the duty to ensure that it does not. Laws against abortion no more violate the right to privacy than do laws against murder. The fœtus is a human being, distinct from its mother and from its father; that it is dependant upon her in no way gives her the right to slay it, any more than an eight-year-old’s dependence on his parents gives them the right to kill him. Infanticide needs to be banned and punished, now.

Thirdly, we need to end Prohibition. There is no legitimate argument for outlawing recreational drugs: they are the essence of a private matter; the essence of what Mill wrote about when he advocated the liberty of every man to live as he sees fit. For a country founded on freedom, our treatment of drugs is an abomination. Regulate them, control them, tax them—treat drugs like any other consumable substance.

These are, to my mind, the most pressing issues at hand in the US: one is a baldfaced violation of our basic law; one is a baldfaced injustice; one is a baldfaced intrusion of the State where it has no business being; all are easily correctable.

Roger Pilon reflects on the nature of liberty, culminating with this fine thought:

What the Founders envisioned was a world in which individuals pursued happiness as individuals or as members of private, voluntary associations—families, businesses, churches, charities, and the like. That world of private individuals and associations—the civil society that Tocqueville spoke of—was where most of life was meant to be lived, with government limited primarily to securing the rights we have or we create in that world.

Let is strive to return to that condition; let us even try to improve on it (for even the Founders were not complete respecters of Liberty in every aspect). Where there is a definite need for government, let it exist; but where there is none, let it not.