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MM:

Sorry, ma'am, but in the context being used within the regulations mandated by Middletown City Hall, "fixing up" is NOT "modernizing"!!!  What they mean by "fixing up" is to "make it like new, BUT (there's always a "but" isn't there?) to make it like new back when it actually WAS new!!!"  If your building was a Ford Model T, "fixing it up" does NOT mean adding an electric starter and air conditioner, and perhaps a modern, OHC engine.  It means RESTORING it to a condition as it was when it rolled off the assembly line, but you'll still have to crank-start, and the top speed will still be very low.  They want you to DE-modernize it, as there is a segment in this town that thinks it is "fun" to dress in period garb, play olde tyme baseball, and act like they are the aristocrats from the gilded age.

 

I say: MORE POWER TO THEM, up to the point where they want OTHERS to PAY for it!!!  You see, for some reason, they think that they actually ARE the "aristocrats" and that we peons (all of the rest of us) OWE it to them to give them what they want!!!

I have not forgotten such statements from long ago, and cannot forget them.  They make me afraid--very afraid--and America's 200 years appears to have elapsed.  People do not seem to understand what all of the recent "bailouts" really mean.  We are writing checks that cannot be cashed.  Most people cannot conceptualize a "billion", let alone a "trillion" and they certainly do not seem to understand that "the government" is US!!!  The government has NO MONEY unless they first confiscate it from their very own citizens!!!  Believe it or not, we ("we" as in the all of the citizens of the USA) now owe MORE than we are worth!!!  If we liquidated EVERYTHING, we could NOT pay off all of the public and private debt that we owe!!! 

 

In other words, there is no further wealth left to spread!!!  We have squandered it all on things that we could not afford.

 

It is time to look past the OLD Downtown and move on to the 21st Century.  The OLD Downton was...now we need to move ahead and enough of trying to fool ourselves that what was is coming back...because it ain't.

MM:

Well, first, it is NOT Marty Kohler's money!!!  Why should HE have the right to dictate the decor of YOUR private property???

 

Second, why does Middletown City Hall keep insisting on spending OUR money on making things OLD???  Why not MODERNIZE??? 

 

Third, if some group or other has a fantasy of re-enacting the 1800s, why should the rest of us be made to subsidize it??  Should the rest of us expect public funds be made available for us to remodel our private property to suit our fantasies???

 

Lastly, (and ignoring the recent bad examples set by our federal government) it is NOT the purpose of government to use public money to subsidize undercapitalized private enterprises, or to shore up poor business plans.  If a business is failing, it is more likely that the government is TAKING too much of THEIR money--not because the government is not GIVING it enough of OURS!!