Nothing gives you perspective like some time away.
That’s certainly the case for me this week. I’m out of the country in the wilds of northwest Iceland. It’s a place brimming with awe and rarity. It’s a place that makes you question everything you’ve known and accepted. It makes me see ourselves in a very different light. In looking back home, here’s what I observed:
A recent study shows that 2 in 5 women say they would consider raising a child as a single parent. Huh. If you talk to most of the married women I know, they’ll tell you they pretty much did that anyway. Sorry if I sound sexist here, but the truth is that in the United States, either guys are far too distracted to do the heavy lifting when it comes to getting the kids to adulthood, or their efforts are far too unappreciated. I personally feel unappreciated, but that’s a guy thing.
The Aurora City Council this week wisely banned marijuana shops for one year. Local lawmakers are looking out for our safety here, knowing that a government, not the market, knows better when it comes to regulating potentially dangerous businesses. So during the next year, city council members will determine how many pot shops there can be, and what the rules of engagement will be since the world ended last November when Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana. This will prevent neighborhoods being marginalized by suffering from a proliferate of questionable business, such as pawn shops and check-cashing stores, which steadfast libertarian types on council point out are legitimate businesses that the market should govern. Marijuana shops will be limited in number and by proximity because they are potentially dangerous, even though as a state resident you now have a constitutional right to smoke dope. This constitutional right, however, isn’t as constitutional as your right to a gun, which city lawmakers feel needs no restriction on how many gun stores or firing ranges should be allowed, because the market governs that. If Aurora is anything, it’s consistently inconsistent.
Some voters in Colorado Springs, a place where anything can and shouldn’t happen, are working hard to right the wrong that Democratic state Sen. John Morse inflicted on that righteous community by leading the charge at the state Capitol for Colorado’s ho-hum gun reform earlier this year. In short, they’re trying to recall his sorry self. Said voters are shocked, shocked and dismayed that an elected official would sink to the lowly depths of gun control, embarrassing the community and shining a tawdry light on the good people of Colorado Springs.
Too bad they didn’t get religion back in 2007 when the respectable Douglas Bruce wandered into the state House, representing that great burg. Unlike the current sissy gun-control Cretin, Bruce merely kicked a reporter on his first day in office, was eventually the first lawmaker ever to be censured by the entire House, was thrown off a committee for failing to honor veterans and made it clear that Colorado Springs had become a place where you need to roll up the windows and lock the doors as you sped through town. Between this recall and anything that comes out of the Focus on Family freak show that the Springs lauds with a highway sign, it becomes clearer all the time we might want to cede that land to Kansas.
It used to be that if you wanted something done right, you went right to the top. Governors, mayors, presidents and CEOs were the ones who could make things happen. That was before county sheriffs in Colorado overthrew state government and took over the place. Case in point this week is the all-powerful Doug Darr of Adams County, who alone decides who will pay or won’t do jail time as payment for their crimes. In the old days, police could only arrest and suggest charges to the constitutionally separate court system, which was empowered to convict and mete out punishment. It was a separation of powers thing. So passe. These days, state sheriffs, including Darr, make it clear they’ll enforce the laws they like and stick the state’s new gun laws wherever they please. Darr now decides who from Aurora does and doesn’t go to jail under the auspices of a year-old budget problem. If Aurora’s five designated jail beds are full, the sheriff hands out Get-Out-of-My-Jail-Free cards to those he considers barely-criminal types, like car thieves and such.
No wonder they call this “Colorful” Colorado.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com