Letter to Paper March 17, 2001

March 15, 2001

DON'T TREAD ON WHOM?

Dear Editor:

Vince Davis' latest installment of his ever-expanding Manifesto is an excellent illustration that life on our idyllic island is a true microcosm of life in the real world.

At the risk of being terminally boring, I'd like to lay out the premises underlying that observation. People everywhere are the products of family, environment, education, social forces and history, pretty much in that order. These are the forces that shape our lives and determine our ability to cope, relate, fit in and succeed or fail at mastering the challenges that life presents. Add to or deduct from any one of these shaping mechanisms and you get a totally different result. Times of great turmoil, such as wars, famines and depressions create whole generations of people that are forever affected, in most cases profoundly, by their experience. They are truly victims of history, and they sadly point to the disaster that robbed them of their happiness to the end of their days. During times of relative peace and prosperity, people are free to develop their inherent talents to best realize their individual dreams. These are times of great progress and innovation.

In free societies, a John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford or Bill Gates can parlay his freedom and talent to create huge empires, thousands of jobs and unimaginable wealth and power. Those of lesser ability do what they can to emulate these superstars, and still others stand on the sidelines and watch. This is known as the pursuit of self interest, and it, more than any other factor, drives our capitalistic society forward, sometimes at a breakneck pace. This pursuit of self interest is tolerated, but no longer encouraged by government.

Despite the many benefits it spins off, some of these are perceived to be at the expense of the bystanders. These are the people who are dizzied by the pace of progress, and some even assume victim status as an excuse for not keeping up. They cry for a return to 'the good old days' or at least maintenance of the status quo until they can regroup and catch up.

So government has busied itself with creating programs to protect, educate, subsidize and otherwise coddle the bystanders, or self proclaimed victims of all this progress. And this policy is in government's self interest to pursue - politicians are acutely aware that each bystander has one vote to cast, exactly the same number that a Bill Gates has.

So, old Bill will probably never realize his dream of an integrated operating system-net browser empire, but so what? He'll find a way to make the most of his company's breakup, just as Rockefeller did after Standard Oil was busted for turning too many customers into "victims." And government will again emerge as the watchdog of the little people and protector of the downtrodden.

Which (finally) brings us back to Avalon.

Like most small towns, this one has a full measure of status quo-ism, as evidenced by Mr. Davis' plaintive arguments. But let's face it - people don't opt to live on a tiny island because they are thirsting for new challenges. I venture to say that there is more status quo sentiment here than in any other square mile of Los Angeles County. And that's to be expected. There is no better place to escape the stress of the mainland rat race than a remote island.

However, this island is firmly committed to the long term goal of building itself into a major tourist destination. So the stage is fully set for a head-on collision between the people attempting to pursue their self interest by supporting our declared community goal (through the creation of more vacation rentals for the visitors we are trying to attract), and the 'victimized' status quoers who visualize their cozy little hideaway as being raped and pillaged by these greed-crazed interlopers in Gucci loafers.

Can the City ever reconcile these seemingly mutually exclusive forces? Not to worry, Mr. Davis. Your elected officials have counted the votes on each side and opted to protect YOU. The issue was never in doubt - visitors can't vote here. You can come down from your soap box and relax in the knowledge that you and your loyal followers (Vinny's Victims?) will soon be protected by a sweeping measure (taken from Big Bear Lake, who stole it from Carmel, who probably got it from Havana) which will thoroughly stifle the insidious spread of those cursed vacation rentals.

Too bad we won't be able to test your 50% use tax proposal though - I'm sure that would have written a whole new chapter in Island economics, not to mention community relations. Maybe you can start a new campaign to disband our Visitor's Bureau - that would take a lot of pressure off everybody.

Don't relax too completely though. I understand that the new property owners association is rallying absentee owners to register here to vote. I think I heard 500 as the number of potential new votes. Think that might elect a few free market advocates? And so the process moves inexorably on: progress - protection, progress-protection.

J.D. Meier

Avalon

The opinions expressed are those of the Author and not necessarily those of CIPOA.

wls@CIPOA.COM