Mediaboss Marketing

Editor:

Its tempting to think of the people of the Bible as idiots; after all, they didnt have modern conveniences like cars, smartphones or deed-restricted housing.

But what they did have was an acute understanding of how to maintain peace in small communities, as that was their core lived experience. Respect must be paid to concepts like Jubilee, because those concepts (such as not coveting your neighbors donkey) helped maintain social order in small communities for centuries. To apply modern labels like libertarian to those concepts is ignorant.

Ive proposed a secular Jubilee, to be implemented by releasing the deed restrictions on housing units owned by private citizens. This would give economic freedom to locals who have served our community for decades (make no mistake: this is payment for services rendered, not some random windfall, and has been earned many times over). And releasing the deed restrictions would immediately bring housing to market, whereas deed-restricted units rarely trade.

But Jubilee is not just about freeing the real estate market. Releasing the deed restrictions would create a new political environment and would free our towns political process from being dominated by the housing issue.

We now have politicians who rule because they control the employee-housing voting bloc, deed restrictions that run with the land forever, class war and government that is literally stuck in traffic because it is captive to the housing issue. Maybe we are the idiots.

Millard Zimet

Aspen

Continued here:
Are we the idiots? | Opinion | aspendailynews.com - Aspen Daily News