Last week we were was puzzling over why the General Assembly would spend so much time on issues that are of limited importance: Like guns in private cars on commercial parking lots and defending citizens from the horrors of cameras that identify those who break the law by running red lights.

They were spending all this time and energy when there was a two-year budget to pass. Even more important, citizens of the Commonwealth are facing Regional Rigor Mortis and a growing Shelter Crisis. These are two issues for which the state government now has primary responsibility and these dysfunctions are growing worse each day.

Why is this happening in “the worlds leading democracy?”

Legislators know that no matter what they do in Richmond, traffic congestion in the New Urban Regionsthat are the economic engines of the Commonwealth will get worse. Regional Rigor Mortis ( https://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issues05/06-06/Risse.htm ) will continue to diminish and eventually wipe out the prospect of prosperity, security and sustainability – individually and collectively.

Legislators know that no matter what they do about the bills before them, there will be less and less affordable and accessible housing and the Shelter Crisis ( https://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issues05/07-25/Risse.php ) will continue to become worse for the vast majority of the citizens in the Commonwealth.

Not one legislator will yet admit these realities.

Not one of them has yet stated they know why these trends exist, but they know in their hearts – right hearts and left hearts – that this is happening. They know in spite of campaign promises and oaths of office it will continue to happen.

So legislators believe they might as well spend their time on something they can talk about “winning,” or at least “fighting for,” when they get home and especially when they next run for office.

The reason that they can get away with this behavior is that their actions in the legislature mirror the behavior of citizens in a fat, self-satisfied society unwilling to face the need for Fundamental Change.

It is not easy being green, but it is easy being a Commuter Consumer. As long as you have good credit and do not ask too many questions, everyone loves a Commuter Consumer who votes her party ticket.

The vast majority of the Commuter Consumers (especially the RHTCs – aka, Running as Hard as They Cans) get up and go to work almost every week day. They come home, pop dinner in the microwave and settle in to be “entertained” for from four to six hours. Then they go to bed.

Over the Internet, by phone, on weekends, at lunch hour and on the way home from work, Commuter Consumers buy those items they saw in the advertisements that paid for the “entertainment.”

Commuter Consumers are sure they need these things because the ads make it clear that these products and services insure long, fast lives with lots of good sex.

Of course, if Commuter Consumers start to ask questions, things get very murky very fast:

Why is traffic getting worse and worse?

Why can the school’s best teacher not afford a house in the best school district? Those who do all the other things – mowing the grass, hauling goods, making pizza, stocking shelves, cleaning offices, cleaning homes and staffing day care centers have even fewer choices for shelter.

Why is the cost of location-dependent goods and services – schools, fire and safety, water and sewer, fuel and energy, repair services, mail and delivery, safe food and other necessities of life going up faster than incomes?

Why is the quality of public services going down? Why are children not doing better in school as compared to other First World students?

Why do citizens not feel as safe as when they were was growing up?

Why are health care cost rising so much faster and the indicators of individual health so much lower than in other First World nation-states?

Why are the bottom 95% of the economic food chain losing ground every year in the face of unprecedented per capita consumption and “standards of living”?

Why are our elected and appointed governance practitioners not doing a better job?

Those who turn off the TV, shut down the video game, stop searching e-bay for bargains and get off their cell phones to raise questions about the “big issues” find no easy answers.

If they dig deep, citizens find that the cumulative impact of acquiring those things that the advertisements claim will make them happy individual consumers turn out to make society very sick.

The things that ads implore Commuter Consumers to consume result in fat, stress, traffic fatalities, poor SAT scores, low saving rates, pollution and other indicators of disorder – but it sure was entertaining.

Not wanting to address the need for Fundamental Change, Commuter Consumers focus on something they can get their hands on:

The neighbors dog, cars speeding on the cul de sac, the developer who wants to build houses in the “openspace” behind their new McMansion, who the soccer coach is in bed with, the school board’s policy on Hanukkah, Ramadan or Christmas.

Something that the ads say solves most problems is to buy a bigger house that is far from the things that bother you. This dream house turns out to be even farther from the important contributors to a good life but the ads never mentioned that.

Location is not a problem because the next best thing to a big new house is a new car that can go 140 miles per hour while picking up hotties and / or navigate the Pan American highway from Alaska to Argentina while picking up jungle dwellers to play hypnotic tunes from the back seat.

If you do not qualify for a new mortgage or do not need a new car, the most satisfying activity of all seems to be to attack a well defined subset of those who are threatening ones personal “rights.”

Never mind community responsibilities – much less dooryard-, cluster-, neighborhood- or village responsibilities.

So why should we expect the legislators to not to commit themselves in guns, god, gays and private rights wedge issues or for Congress not to attack “Arab” investments?

After 60 days those hard work, the legislators will go home for a rest before the Special Session. Even if they talk to someone from outside their party they will not be told “get busy or find a new way to spend your time.” Why should they change? The citizens who elect them show no signs of awakening.

A society that relies on a market economy to allocate resources and democratic process to guide governance is the sum of its citizens individual actions. Right now citizens of the Commonwealth are sliding toward total entropy with the governance practitioners going along for the ride.

An Antidote? PROPERTY DYNAMICS is coming soon to a Alpha Neighborhood near you.

EMR