Why is it always the Mormons fault?

I read a Deseret Morning News article (see here) about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposing the sale of so called "alco-pop" in grocery stores. The statement from a LDS Church spokesman says in part "To allow the sale of distilled spirits in grocery and convenience stores promotes underage drinking and undermines the state system of alcohol control."
I also read some of the comments associated with the article. One thing that I found interesting in the comments is the amount of people saying it's the Church's fault that liquor laws are so strict in Utah. One reason I find these comments so interesting comes from my frequent travels at my previous job. I found that Utah is not so different from many states in having strict liquor laws. For example, New Jersey has separate liquor stores that are closed earlier than grocery stores and are also closed on holidays. Last time I checked, New Jersey didn't have a majority of residents who are members of the LDS faith. So how come every time the Utah State Legislature looks at doing anything with regards to our liquor laws, people immediately scream that it's the Mormons fault?

Public Salaries

I've been frequenting www.utahsright.com for salary information on public officials. I decided to take a look in their forums and found that there are quite a few public employees that are miffed that their salary information is posted on-line with their name. Why do some have such an objection to this?

I feel that if they don't want the public (who they work for) to know their name along with their salary, they should go work somewhere else. I think people who object to this, forget that it is the citizens that provide for their employment. Is it wrong for me to know that MY City Administrator, Gary Uresk, makes $103,551.00 per year? Or that MY Chief of Police, Paul Howard, makes $88,658.00 per year? Or that MY Public Works Director, Scott Anderson, makes $81,934.00 per year? I don't think so.

*Salary information taken from www.utahsright.com.

Or maybe we're an Ostrich?

I've been thinking more about election security recently. This thinking has been prompted by recent articles and editorials. A recent editorial in the Standard Examiner (see here) quotes Joe Demma, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, as saying Utah's experience with touch-screen voting has seen 100 percent success. Our state, Demma says, has complete confidence in the touch-screen system. "It's just that other states don't know how to run elections like Utah does." Is this true? Are all the other states that are seeing problems with the Diebold machines stupid? Are the researchers at Princeton University who did a study (see here) pointing out the faults of the Diebold machines stupid?

The Standard Examiner's editorial also points out that it would be interesting to see if a disinterested third-party audit would find problems with the Utah election machines.

So maybe Utah election workers and machines really are that good, or maybe we just have our head stuck in the sand and we don't know any better.

Finally a decent response to anti-UTOPIA article.

The Salt Lake Tribune finally published a nice opinion response (see here) to their anti-UTOPIA article that ran last week. The response points out many flaws with the original article. I don't ever remember UTOPIA being "sold as a risk-free proposition." If everything had gone according to plan, it would have been a low-risk proposition. What UTOPIA didn't count on was being sued by Qwest early on. I really like how the opinion piece also points out the fact that Qwest or Comcast could both provide service over UTOPIA. They both choose not to. This is their choice. Isn't America all about providing choice? Some may wonder why they choose not to? They have a monopoly. The government already paid for Qwest's infrastructure.

I found another interesting thing to point out. The Tribune published a letter to the editor (see here) that aligns with the anti-UTOPIA article. It is written by a man named Robert Fuehr. In it he says things such as "Proposals that appear too good to be true usually are and should be viewed with great suspicion. The UTOPIA assurance that the $202 million in city money would "never be at risk because UTOPIA would almost certainly succeed" now looks terribly hollow and false. " This sounds pretty tame and could sound even understandable if we were to believe that Robert Fuehr were a normal citizen. Unfortunately Robert Fuehr is not a normal citizen. He is the former vice president of US West (pre-cursor to Qwest.) So what would Robert have to lose with UTOPIA? I would guess that, being a former vice president, Robert holds stock in Qwest. Anything that could damage that stock price would be detrimental to Robert. Yes, Robert, just as you say in your letter, some things "should be viewed with great suspicion."

Best way to teach about government?

I've been thinking quite a bit this week about a topic that came up in my church meetings on Sunday. One of the men in the class mentioned that in his home growing up they were taught by example not to criticize political leaders. This got me thinking about how to teach our children about their right, even their obligation, to influence politics without teaching them to be critical of authority figures?

I've found that my kids have learned a great deal about the political process in place in this country by watching me be involved in it. Is it wrong for them to know that I'm against my City Council limiting my free agency by forcing me to pay for recycling? If they were to never hear me criticize decisions made by my political leaders, how would they know how the process is supposed to work? I want my children to be involved in politics. I want them to make their positions known to their elected officials. I want them to know that it's good to question decisions made by our elected officials. That's the way a representative government works.