[Capr-announce] Rural rebels "short on reason, long on hyperbole"

[Rodney McFarland]

A few sentences from a recent article by PI columnist, Joel Connelly are
quoted below.

"The mayor's race is dormant, but voter unrest may be about to vent in a
different direction. Pickets bearing signs with such slogans as "King
Communist County" showed up when King County Executive Ron Sims spoke
last week to the 34th District Democrats. Rural rebels, angry at the
county's "critical areas" ordinance, will dog Sims all year. They are
long on hyperbole, decidedly short on the capacity to reason and
persuade. Still, the King County executive seems off his game: Seeing
Sims on Wednesday evening was eerily similar to watching Randy Johnson
serve up home run balls to three Red Sox hitters a night later."

Mr. Connelly is in a business that turns a deaf ear to well-reasoned
arguments and gentle persuasion. He promotes hyperbole because it is
useful to him. Exaggeration, spin and outright lies provide better
entertainment and he is, after all, in the entertainment business. That
is why you see thousands of column inches of environmental hyperbole for
every inch of "rural rebel" hyperbole. But we are learning. Perhaps with
a few years of practice at exaggeration and spin we will hit the right
level of entertainment that even Mr. Connelly will have the necessary
reasoning capacity to be persuaded that we have a place in the politics
of the region.

Yeah, right!

What if, instead, we just hit him with the proverbial 2x4, i.e.
Initiative 22. If we can get it on the ballot, it will pass, and we will
start getting 2 or 3 column inches per thousand. The "rural rebels"
won't be quite the rubes we are currently seen to be by the urban
sophisticates.

It is up to you. To gather the necessary signatures we will have to work
the streets. We can't rely on the mail distribution alone as that method
is untested. We know we can gather signatures if we get out and work a
bit. 
We did it before when limited to only a small fraction of the county.
Initiative 22 has much more support all across the county and we can
gather anywhere. We need you to be a Captain for volunteers in your area
to rally around. It will be less work than the referendum Captains were
faced with. The initiative is a single page, you only need a single
signature and there are many places to collect. One group is planning to
go to Mariner games; with enough people they might get most of the
signatures we need in two or three games.

If you are willing to consider being a Captain, please come to an
organizational meeting at the McFarlands', 15019 SE May Valley Road,
Renton, 98059 at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 21. If you can't make the
meeting but want to help gather signatures or be a Captain, send me an
email at rod at sage1.com.

You can sit at home and complain or you can do something. The world is
run by those who do something and show up. Five people gathering
signatures together is much more fun than doing it alone. See you
Thursday.

Rodney McFarland, President

Citizens' Alliance for Property Rights

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