OUTRAGE:Town squelches public’s right to vote

Editor’s note: With fewer real football stories taking place, we are entertaining ourselves with commentary on other issues involving the state. We’ll try to append a note at the top of each in case you’d rather just skip the stuff that isn’t football.

The Town of Argo, a suburb of Birmingham, has decided it would not comply with the will of the people and hold a vote on the dissolution of the town. This decision despite the fact that probate judge Wallace Wyatt certified the petition.

The town is in clear violation of the law, and is in clear violation of all that is moral.

I posted yesterday a long piece exposing the problems in smaller municipal governments, and today an even stronger confirmation comes along.

The ideal of the best government being the government closest to the people is true; however, it is also false.

Experience shows that too small an area of government creates a very bad case where the government is run by people unsuited to the task of governance. One judge told me a long time ago, that these small town fire or water or sewer boards are problems because too many uneducated persons get onto the boards and for the first time in their life they taste power—and go crazy with it.

I wish that were not true, but for years I’ve watched politics and seen good people turned by power.

And now we get to look at Argo—an insignificant town outside Birmingham, best known as a speedtrap—as the poster child for why we don’t want municipal and county governments with any additional constitutional powers.

Being right about the problems of local government doesn’t make me happy. It makes me sad for the good people who live in Argo. Good people having their right to vote denied by corrupt local officials.