Everyone's Opinion Newsletter

The "League" is back at it again; upon whose request, a mystery, they just conveniently appear out of thin air. On June 12, 2009 the Altoona Mirror entertained us with an article entitled, "League offers ideas for fiscal solvency", authored by William Kibler. The last time they were here was on March 26, 2009 as per another Mirror article titled "League projects huge city deficit" again authored by William Kibler.

The 'League" refers to the Pennsylvania Economy League. In March, a league consultant, who was advising Altoona city council on finances, indicated that, the city could sue the county commissioners into reassessment and it would be a friendly way of doing it. This time around the League uses a senior researcher, who in a different way politely states, the tactic of reassessment would be the quickest and surest way to provide relief for the city. The league has gone from a friendly way to a tactic, and their frequent visits suggest their tactic is to build a momentum for reassessment.

To counter the brainwashing of Kibler's recent article let?s start at the beginning and go through it. It starts off: So sue me, Blair county Commissioner Donna Gority says, and she's not kidding. - Those of us who have followed these events know that Gority is not kidding; county government is like a child to this woman, but concerning reassessment or any form of taxation on property, she is sincerely wrong.

The so sue me part is troubling because Gority will not be personally liable, but we the property owners will be held responsible to pay the bill. To politically grandstand with such a remark suggests a lack of both responsibility and discretion. The tortured electoral process for electing commissioners contributed to her re-election to begin with and provides a platform to advance political views without challenge, giving her undue influence over majority opinion, which the Mirror self-servingly capitalizes on to facilitate reassessment.

The next statement attributed to Gority is: Forcing the county to reassess would relieve the commission of political responsibility for an unpopular action, because they'd be doing it under compulsion. This statement is packed with mischief.

First: the characterization of reassessment as an unpopular action turns a specific into vagueness; the intent is to blur the line between responsibility and negligence.

Second: Reassessment is unpopular with a majority because it is an uncivil action and when used as a tactic, as suggested by the LEAGUE, it becomes an endorsement of retrospective laws and for government to employ retrospective laws is to embrace incivility.

In 1786,Thomas Paine, wrote an article titled: Attack on Paper Money Laws, which is a must read in its entirety. In this article Payne touched on retrospective laws, the excerpt follows: "Another branch of this principle of civil government is, that it disowns the practice of retrospective laws. An assembly or legislature cannot punish a man by any new law made after the crime is committed; he can only be punished by the law which existed at the time he committed the crime. This principle of civil government extends to property as well as to life; for a law made after the time that any bargain or contract was entered into between individuals can no more become the law for deciding that contract, than, in the other case, it can become the law for punishing the crime; both of those cases must be referred to the laws existing at the time the crime was done or the bargain made. Each party then knew the relative situation they stood in with each other, and on that law and on that knowledge they acted, and by no other can they be adjudged ? Therefore all tender laws which apply to the alteration of past contracts, by making them dischargeable on either side, different to what was the law at the time they were made, is of the same nature as that which inflicts a punishment different to what was the law at the time the crime was committed: For in all cases of civil government the law must be before the fact."

Gority advocates that if the commissioners were sued into reassessment that their hands would be politically clean because, they'd be doing it under compulsion. To allow compulsion to govern without challenge is a capitulation that reflects a dereliction of duty. Disrespect for principles suggests a lapse in morality and to divorce morality from principles will eventually cause an ugly dilemma. Politically, Gority can probably justify the morality of her principles and the principles of her morality but continued distortions that persistently undermine the integrity of civil, constitutional and republican principles, cast a pall upon her integrity.

Kibler's article with its accomplices is indeed an exercise in debauchery, an intellectually lewd, botched attempt in propaganda that is subversive in its nature. The nature of reassessment is in itself, the nature of a retrospective law. UNCIVIL!

The Freeman

Blair County