A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

(Originally posted on 8/12/11 – I lost the original post in a server move and, consequently, any comments that went with it.)

Terry Turner, writing for the Gary Post-Tribune (h/t Indiana Law Blog), reports that the Starke County Commissioners have removed the Starke County Treasurer from office.

Board of Commissioners President Dan Bridegroom announced Belork’s removal from office at a special joint emergency session of the commissioners and County Council.

County Attorney Martin Lucas said the commissioners had the authority to seize Treasurer’s Office records, freeze county bank accounts and dismiss Belork and her employees “to safeguard the county.” The commissioners secured a restraining order from Starke Circuit Court for these measures, which also included banning Belork from access to paper and electronic records. It also indicated the county is seeking a default and damages from Belork’s surety bond.

I expect that this kind of thing will be a huge headache and a lot of work for county attorney Lucas, occasional commenter here and friend of the blog. Hang in there, Marty.

The issue is that, apparently, about $800,000 in taxpayer money is missing. The Starke County Board of Commissioners and the Treasurer have been at odds for awhile, according to the report. The Treasurer failed to attend a Commissioners meeting when asked. For her part, the Treasurer did not comment on the article but had complained in the past that Treasurer record discrepancies predate her tenure in office.

This kind of thing can get expensive for a county awfully quickly; particularly if they lose. Clinton County sued Rep. Clements for actions taken in her former capacity as an auditor. They lost, and, as a result, had to pay her attorney fees (pdf) as well. But, if the Starke County Commissioners legitimately think $800,000 has been misappropriated in some fashion, they might not have any other choice.

(Originally posted on 8/12/11 – I lost the original post in a server move and, consequently, any comments that went with it.)

Alex Campbell, writing for the Indianapolis Star, reports that Rep. Phil Hinkle picked up an eighteen year old man on Craigslist.

You can go to the article itself for the details and decide for yourself, but it certainly appears to be a male prostitution situation. Hinkle himself suggests that it was a shakedown but, when pressed, did not elaborate.

Again, for me, I’m not terribly interested in what people do behind closed doors. To the extent this constitutes infidelity, this is between himself and his wife. If he wasn’t a proponent for enshrining a marriage discrimination amendment in the Indiana Constitution, I probably would not even bother commenting on this. But, he is, and so, I am.

When these situations have cropped up in the past, I think one of the standard apologies is to excuse apparent hypocrisy with arguments about aspirational morality. “I am fallen and fallible, but that is no reason not to legislate to require the morality to which I aspire.” Or something like that.

But what I think we need to get out of our collective heads is the notion that being gay is immoral. Cheating on your wife is immoral (but not, so far as I know, illegal) because it’s a betrayal of trust. I’m open to the idea, but not necessarily convinced, that paying for sex is immoral. But I don’t see the immorality of being gay. Some would point out that the Bible disapproves of it; but that’s not so much an argument as an appeal to authority. So far as I can tell, the negative affects surrounding being gay pretty much all flow from social opprobrium, not from the fact of being gay itself. By voting to ban marriage equality, Rep. Hinkle has contributed to that opprobrium; apparently to his own detriment. And, political petard hoisting is pretty generally news worthy.

It’s fashionable in some circles to sneer at optimism. It’s a too-cool-for-school teen affliction; and, in political circles, it’s a way to try to get one up on Obama who used notions like Hope and Change for political gain. Sure, his use of those abstractions was calculated, and certainly the Obama administration’s governing has fallen well short of the rhetoric. But, it must be said, governing is harder than talking. And, there is certainly the suspicion that President Obama wouldn’t make good on some of his rhetoric even if he had unilateral control of the government. But Palinesque “hopey changey” mean girl venom disturbs me. It reminds me of a passage from a SubGenius rant from long ago, Nenslo’s “Hateword.”

The scariest part of the Con’s lulling lies is that they are all true. Not the ones about the products and how bad you need them, I mean the ones about how life can be beautiful, it’s easier to go with the flow, things are better than they’ve ever been. They know how True they are, so they do anything they can to make those True truths look stupid and childish. They make “don’t worry, be happy” into an insulting song, ugly t-shirts, plastic hats, moronic coffee mugs so when someone says it to you it makes you want to smash them in the face, but you can’t, so you go buy a three dollar shot of Bar Gin instead. And worry miserably.

They make you want to KILL “Have a Nice Day,” and then sell you the T-Shirt with a shot and bleeding smiley-face on it. They make you HATE LOVE and LOVE HATE, mock sincerity and honesty, and sneer at genuine emotion. Then they sell you two-hundred-dollar leather jacket so you can prove you “aren’t a Conspiracy Zombie” like all those poor schmucks who don’t have skulls on their t-shirts.

In some respects, I think America has gotten too smart for its own good. (While, in other respects, of course, we can be a nation of mouth breathing morons.) I think we’ve lost a certain naive optimism of the kind that often results in prosperity for hard workers who are too dumb to fail. And, we sneer at genuine emotion.

So, my webhost migrated the server on which this blog is hosted; there was a lag in the propagation, having the consequence that two of my recent posts landed on the old server without migrating to the new one along with everyone else. These were the posts on the Phil Hinkle matter and the Starke County Treasurer. I think I can retrieve them but haven’t done so yet.

On the drive into work this morning, I heard a BBC World Service report on the riots in London and other cities in England. When things get rough like this, it provides a little insight into things we take for granted. In particular, I’m thinking of the basic nature of government.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are two of the bigger thinkers in this arena. I may have not understood them fully when I read them in the first place and less so in the years that have passed since. But, my Cliffs Notes version is that Locke had this vision of government as a social contract where, in a state of nature, people are basically reasonable and tolerant and government is mostly just a way to do things better. Hobbes had a harsher view, where we choose government only because the alternative is worse. The state of nature, Hobbes suggests, is a war of all against all where the life of an individual is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Government is a way of selecting a Leviathan as a sort of super-predator to keep the other predators at bay. You’re at the mercy of the Leviathan, but that’s preferable to hordes of lesser predators.

I tend to think that Hobbes view of the state of nature was the more realistic one. The rioting reinforces this notion. I know there are some who have these cowboy notions that, since they are armed, they can protect their own stuff nicely without the help of the government, thank you very much. But, in the absence of Leviathan, there is just going to be escalation – you and your puny gun is no match for ever larger gangs of armed looters.

That said, government can’t govern efficiently without the bulk of the public being quiescent. In that sense, the consent of the governed is necessary. It seems to me their are two primary paths for obtaining the acquiescence of the governed – overwhelming force by the government, scaring the populace into submission; or, one way or another, making sure the bulk of the governed have a skin in the game — i.e., they benefit from the government and have something to lose if it falls whether it be a loss of protection of their own property; loss of income coming from the government; or something else.

If the government is only protecting the property of other people, and it’s not paying you off; it had best make sure you are afraid, otherwise you’re likely to regard laws and other government dictates with indifference if not disdain.

And, a complete side note on the nature of reporting. That BBC report had the reporter closely interviewing a rioter about why he was doing what he was doing. When the rioter spouted some nonsense, the reporter was quick to press the issue and cross-examine him about seemingly contradictory positions. I could only think that we’d be much better served if reporters were quicker to question the wealthy and powerful in the same fashion.