Thanks to Rob S. for e-mailing me the link to a very interesting article with this title, from a Canadian blog called 'All Fired Up In The Big Smoke'. Here's an excerpt.
People who think of themselves as ‘taxpayers’ or ‘stakeholders’ rarely act like citizens.
What’s the difference, you ask?
Citizens engage. Taxpayers and stakeholders are units in a monetary transaction. They pay. They demand goods and/or services in return. Civic commitment ends there.
This thought struck me as I booted a half-filled bottle of juice that had rolled out from under a seat as I made my way down the aisle of a streetcar a couple nights back. Sitting down, I looked around. Cue my inner Bette Davis: What a dump! (Although it always comes out sounding more like Katherine Hepburn circa On Golden Pond.) It looked as if some sort of evil gust of wind had blown through and deposited a couple blocks worth of litter around the place. Newspapers. Paper bags and dirty napkins. Bottles and cans.
Citizens take their garbage with them. Taxpayers leave it behind on buses, streetcars and subways, reasoning that they pay the lazy union’s outrageous wages, so they can clean it up. Citizens pick up their dog’s poo. Stakeholders pretend that it’s not their dog. Citizens park illegally, get a ticket and pay it. Taxpayers and stakeholders park illegally, bitch about the ticket being a money grab and clog up the legal system trying to fight it in the hopes the issuing officer doesn’t appear in court.
There's more at the link. Thought-provoking and recommended reading.
Peter
5 comments:
It looses the argument when he argues that "In fact, citizens regard the call for smaller government with suspicion, a coded phrase for deregulation and lack of oversight. Smaller government leads to increased Walkertons, Gulf oil spills, near economic collapse."
This is actually in opposite with the part this post quoutes.
It's "big government" folks that always wants the Government to do more, give them more, clean up more, control more, regulate more. That's a "stakeholder" approach, they want more free stuff and no responsibility. He first tries to claim that Citizens take personal responsibility and want to do things fro themselfes, then turns around and claims that Citizens want the government to do everything for them, and control everything, and that Citizens only want to engage in conversations. That's the community organiser approach.
I agree that the post is thought provoking to some degree, but it ends up being a bait-and-switch of classic leftist bent, "if you want freedom you must give the government more power". I've heard the same type of reasoning all my life.
Erik, I agree that his statist views are the opposite of mine - that's why I didn't give the article my wholehearted stamp of approval. Nevertheless, his distinction between 'citizens' on the one hand, and 'taxpayers' or 'stakeholders' on the other, is worthwhile, I think. On balance, I suggest he offers a more interesting perspective than the usual pro-big-government statist gibberish; and as such, there are useful things in his article, as well as not-so-useful.
Sometimes one has to sift through the dross in order to find the nuggets . . .
It's nost so much taxpayers who leave their trash behind, as folks who don't pay any taxes but who live on the public dole. I have found litterbugs to be almost universally left-wingers, also.
chicopanther
Anon got it in one... drones/slugs/leftists always expect someone else to pay the bill.
That piece was a typical left wing troll who wants his reader to believe in "opposite" world. Black is white, wet is dry. It's crap. Taxpayers and "stakeholders" will always be the ones who shoulder the burdens, not just in the taxpaying, but because they do the taxpaying will look for ways to reduce the costs. The Tea Party rallies versus the leftist rallies in D.C. proved this in spades.
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