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David Greene

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
2 years 40 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 12/13/12 at 02:23 pm in response to With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists

"organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority."

I think you completely missunderstand how community organizing works. When done properly, there is no overriding authority. Decisions come from the grassroots community out of a set of shared relationships and values -- exactly the thing I think you desire.

Do community organizing groups have leadership and full-time staff? You bet! But the...

Posted on 12/13/12 at 02:30 pm in response to With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists

> As a DFL activist and Atheist I like to let people know that talking about blessings and god and
> Jesus and all that as an automatic add on to campaign rhetoric is alienating and inappropriate.

I hear what you're saying but if the candidate truly is driven by his or her faith, it would be odd not to mention that, wouldn't it? I mean, don't you want to know how the candidate is rooted in her or her values? That's very helpful information for me as it tells me how to...

Posted on 12/13/12 at 02:38 pm in response to With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists

> There it makes sense the MN United didn't focus on appealing to atheists, because very few
> atheists are as "Civil Rights Challenged" as religious people.

I find that hard to believe. Every white person is "Civil Rights Challenged." Just talk to some of the liberals in Uptown about the Southwest LRT or to people in Minnetonka about community-oriented senior living facilities.

Not to only pick on white people, I have seen bigotry in all kinds of communities. I...

Posted on 12/14/12 at 05:03 pm in response to With talk of tolerance and equality, one group is still forgotten: atheists

> were it not for Religious groups the Amendment wouldn't have existed in the first place that's just
> an historical fact.

Well, that's not entirely true. The amendment was created out of political expediency. Yes, it used a particular segment of the faith-holding population to catapult it into the spotlight but if it were not the anti-marriage amendment it would have been something else. The amendment existed to drive turnout

There have been many "Civil Rights...

Posted on 12/11/12 at 02:41 pm in response to Minnesota leaders off to a rocky start at legislative ‘preview’

> If yours dropped, the assessed value of your property must have dropped a bunch too.

Not true. The property tax is a fixed levy distributed according to relative value. It is entirely possible for a home to appreciate in value _less_than_ other houses in the community and thus get a property tax cut.

Posted on 12/05/12 at 02:09 pm in response to St. Croix's mega-bridge will mostly benefit corporations, not citizens

The mega-bridge just doesn't make sense. No traffic counts or estimates I've ever seen justifies it where there is a perfectly good interstate bridge six miles away.

Unfortunately, Paul Udstrand is correct. Stillwater business owners are going to rue the day they moved that "problem traffic" out of their business center.

I don't believe fracking has anything to do with this. It's much simpler: real estate developers. They've been chomping at the bit to develop of the east...

Posted on 12/05/12 at 02:17 pm in response to No amendment allowed: A constitutional problem we’re stuck with

> It could be worse--we could still have state legislatures appointing the Senators

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I believe the original idea was to give state legislatures some say in how federal affairs are conducted. That could be quite useful today as we grapple with unfunded mandates and geographically unbalanced appropriations.

Posted on 12/04/12 at 02:01 pm in response to Why is White Bear Lake shrinking? Angry residents blame DNR

Absolutely! We are looking at doing native plantings in our yard, which seriously needs new landscaping. Budget is a bit of an issue at the moment but we are getting there.

After a few walks through state parks with restored prairie, it's hard NOT to want that in your backyard!

Posted on 11/21/12 at 03:16 pm in response to DFL legislative ‘unity’ may be hard to keep with likely tax and spending fights

Broadening the sales tax is a must. Studies have shown that doing so not only raises revenue, it makes the sales tax more progressive. Either we're all in this together or we aren't.

Better yet, we could lower the overall rate and still get more revenue.

It's particularly necessary to tax services. As usual Charlie Weaver wants to protect the rich by eliminating this option. I hope by this point Minnesotans will be able to see his obstruction for what it is. The DFL really...

Posted on 11/21/12 at 11:54 am in response to 'Endangered' tax credits a key part of financing affordable housing projects

"But how much affordable housing does the metro need now and in the future? In point of fact, nobody really knows."

This is exactly why the Met Council's work to revive a long-dead affordable housing plan is so important. Under Republican leadership this task of the Council was left to rot. Thus, no one really knows what the current situation is and what's coming in the future.

I am glad we finally have a responsible set of people on the Council.