dissent

Some people don’t like those who dissent from their ideas on how some things are done. They especially don’t like dissent by the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce.

Since January 6, 2024, we’ve had two emails telling us that those in charge of “the way things are done” don’t like us.

We don’t care. We don’t trust people without a sense of humor or who cannot or are unwilling to think.

People who don’t have good ideas always throw rocks at people who do. It makes them feel better.

But there’s no growth or progress without intelligent dissent.

Dissent brings transition, changing that swirl of information within our minds, separating and streamlining and bringing clarity to that jumble of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

Without dissent there would never be a horse race or a football game. (My horse can beat your horse; my team can beat your team, etc.)

Unfortunately, the emotionally-disturbed and mentally-deranged disguise “dissent” and, like spoiled children, angrily use it to get their own way; going on a crying spree or a temper tantrum. But that’s not dissent, it’s destructive behavior, which should never be tolerated by adults.

Those eager or willing to preserve the status quo use dissent as an example of something undesired or harmful.

Ideas, however, should always be welcomed as not all ideas have the same value. Where people have a choice bad ideas eventually die – as shown by quick fads, styles, and no-taste that come and go. A good idea, one of an enduring value, however, will stand the test of time – and the challenge of dissent.

An endless variety of thieves – ranging from purse-snatchers, to those who steal from friends, private homes, businesses, banks, or even the tax from the Widow’s mite ( to give to the rich) – act on a bad idea.

Facing all this dishonesty is the great idea of dissent summed up in four little words: “You shall not steal.”

But we will have government do it for us . . .

And we have a government fighting to preserve a status quo while actively ignoring the idea that “Good fences make good neighbors.” And if you dissent from government policies, you are an extremist or domestic terrorists.

There must be dissent.

Without dissent, how do we know the value of what we’re doing? What are the yardsticks we’re using to measure the benefits of some idea?

Sooner or later, all ideas need challenging.

 

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Links:

A Good Example of Bad Government

A Public Information (BS) Officer

Trash Pick-up

 

 

 

the paris texas city manager tells us the city is adding a Public Information (BS) Officer to the staff.

Paris needs a public information officer like a stray dog needs more fleas.

 

While two years of weeds were still standing in some places and a new crop growing all over town, the City of Paris grew an assistant city manager and a deputy city manger to help the city manager to grow more government.

As the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce previously asked, What did Paris need most, weeds cut or a larger city administration?”

Can anyone explain to local taxpayers why the city’s government is growing when the U. S. Census show that Paris has been losing population since 2000?

In the last two years alone, the city budget grew in excess of seven percent (at 3.5% compounded each year) which, in ten years, will add an estimated 40-percent to the taxpayer’s cost of government.

Over the last 2-years, have city services gotten 7% better? Were 7% of the city streets improved? Older neighborhoods improved 7%? Net jobs increased 7%? Have family net incomes across the board increased by 7%? In-city population increased by 7%?

Paris has been, and is, told a lot of things. Some are true; most are not. An example being, “No new taxes.” (Tax rates, like appraisals, can go down or up or stay the same. When appraised values go up, and rates stay the same, you still pay more. The increase is a new tax.)

Appraisals are guesstimates on market value, and when the guess is not correct, it’s wrong. A property’s actual value is only determined by its sold price, which has little to do with appraisal guesstimates.

 

Adding two new assistant city managers have certainly increased the city’s administrative costs over 7% — and we’re now adding a Public Information (or BS) Officer, who will spend 30percent of their time telling us how things are going good in Paris, 33.5-percent covering up for city managers and assistants and council members, 66.5percent in liaison (politicking) with friends to get their stories straight, and 90-percent of the time hoping some of us believe (him, her, or whatever alphabet they prefer).

 

The weeds keep standing, litter continues its decorating of streets, cars and other vehicles are parked in front yards, junk is in open view, and Paris increases the city budget to assure an administrative control overload.

It is in development and implementation of policies that encourage private business investments in local families and neighborhoods, which keep the economic gates open to equal economic opportunity, are how communities are more likely to achieve success.

Government is like tying one end of a 100-foot rope around your neck and the other end to an 18-wheeler leaving a Kerrville, Texas, truck stop on its way to El Paso – 490 miles and 7 hours and 30 minutes away on Interstate 10. The first 200-feet are not so bad.

But when that big rig starts hitting the posted 80MPH speed limit, you begin to lose tract of things.

And government has no speed limits of its own.

 

                                                    return to Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

 

Links:

    The Big Myth

       A Good Example of Bad Government

     Trash Pick-up

Our government

Figures don’t lie …  so, according to our government, everything is just hunky-dory; the borders are safe, and there’s no inflation at all – it’s just that prices are rising, which show positive and great economic percentages in growth – and it has all the data to back up the claims. The fly in all this pile of government manure is that while figures don’t lie, liars can figure.

Insanity is believing that inflation is a good thing and that liars can’t figure…

It’s things like those that make people distrust government.

It seems that those employed in or working for more government, including in Paris, seem to believe in the stupidity of voters.

The City of Paris budget has increased over 7-percent during the last two fiscal years, and it has added two new assistant city managers to help give away cash (and other incentive tax dollars), while adding litter, letting the weeds grow, allowing telephone poles to injure and kill citizens, and watching too many neighborhoods continue to succumb to blight and decay . . .

The federal boys and girls report National Retail sales (NAICS 44-45) increased 3.1% from $5,402.3 billion in 2019 to $5,570.4 billion in 2020, according to estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Annual Retail Trade Survey <https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/arts.html> (ARTS).

Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses (NAICS 4541) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=4541&year=2012&details=454111>)// had $888.5 billion in sales in 2020, up 35.2% from 2019. This was the largest year-to-year increase of any industry in 2020.

Other highlights:
* Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers’ (NAICS 441) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=441&year=2012&details=441>) sales decreased 2.4% from $1,237.7 billion in 2019 to  $1,208.3 billion in 2020.

* Grocery Store sales (NAICS 4451) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=4451&year=2012&details=4451>) increased 9.4% from $694.3 billion in 2019 to $759.7 billion in 2020.

* Gasoline Station (NAICS 447) <https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=447 &year=2012&details=447>) sales decreased sales decreased 16.6% from $513.5 billion in 2019 to $428.1 billion in 2020.

The Census Bureau has been conducting the ARTS since 1952. This survey included 16,500 employer businesses that sell directly to consumers classified in the retail trade sector in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. It does not include data for businesses in U. S. Territories. Firms without paid employees (non-employers) are included based on administrative data provided by other federal agencies and through “imputation.”

The data are published on a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) <https://www.census.gov/naics/> basis. They are used to benchmark monthly retail sale and inventory estimates each spring used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other federal agencies to develop related products.

 

According to this data, national retail sales increased by 3.1%, grocery prices by 9.4%, and a decrease in auto sales (2.4%) and gas prices (16.6%).

While the report doesn’t touch it, isn’t it likely that inflation created most of the increases, not value. And consumers made market choices on just what they could afford, and that much of the online and catalog sales came from the politically-inspired Covid19 shutdown? 

As sayth the national Democrat Party and the RINO’s in it, “there is no inflation.” The Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce is just wondering, (a) what caused the prices to increase? And (b) how much neighborhood improvement could be accomplished annually by half of what the City of Paris is now paying its administrative staff?

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