Sellwood Bridge: All dismantled and ready to go

@jpk LOL

 @I812  

If violent armed meth users take over my vacation home I will do the same thing with them I did when the vampire zombies took it over.

 

If there are no police services then I will do what must be done to protect me, my family and my neighbors. Reasonable people stick together and do what it takes to survive. We have a well armed neighborhood including my gun hating liberal neighbor and one of my very good friends. He finally got a gun the other day and we are going shooting next weekend so that he can be relatively proficient. Until then I am showing him how to handle a gun safely with daily lessons.

 

He is really taking this gun ownership seriously and working very hard to be as safe as he can. So far we have spent at least 10 hours in preshooting training and safe handling of the gun.

 

As for being about me, it really is about me, my family, friends and neighborhood. Politicians in general have forgotten the individual and is focused on money and power. We now live in a kleptocracy and everyone is grabbing all they can. My wife and I feel like we are on our own as government is really about expanding their powers and have totally ignored the middle class hard working Americans.

 

It will only get worse as time goes on.

@RalphCramden Wow!  What you have stated is so naive.  From reading your posts I considered you to be conservative but also somewhat educated.  You can't really believe what you said works in an urban environment, can you?

 

You may have a vacation cabin somewhere in the sticks but what works in extremely low densly populated areas is a recipe for environmental, health and other disasters in an urban setting.  What happens with a gang of meth producers decide to inhabit your remote property while you are away?  What happens if they happen to be heavily armed and unwilling to vacate when asked?  Have you ever looked at Mexico?  Mexico is what happens to urban and rural societies when corruption and lawlessness rule.

 

What happens when all your neighbors decide they don't like the high sewer bills and disconnect and use outhouses?  Besides contaminating your groundwater, which you have chosen to drink because you didn't want to pay for water, the stench permeates the outdoors and rats infest the neighborhood.  Or how about your neighbor that sells you your beef, although it turns out to be contaminated with ecoli?  How do you deal with that?

 

And what happens when your neighbor decides to run a metals plating business or garbage facility on his property because he can make money and there are no planning and zoning laws governing private property use?  And what do you do about the other neighbor that decides to raise chickens on his property and the stench of chicken manure cannot be confined to the outdoors but permeates your house?  Or the fabrication shop that forges metal during the graveyard shift because that is the time he can get workers?  Do you call him up and tell him he is interrupting your sleep and expect him to stop?

 

And your dirt roads?  They become the playground of 4-wheelers who just love it when the mud gets deep and they can run their jacked up pickups at high rpms through the mudholes and whoop-de-doos eventaully making the roads impassible to typical passenger vehicles.  Is that working for you?  I've seen it happen in more than one area.

 

And then there are the homeless that decide to camp in your backyard because it is well maintained.  When you tell them to move off your property they start brandishing guns and throwing rocks through your windows.  Of course you have chosen not to have police services so there will be no help.

 

In difficult economic times there are no programs for the unemployed so they go door to door knocking and asking for help.  When a half dozen grizzled homeless show up on your door step at the same time and they are all armed do you slam the door in their face after telling them to take a hike?  Or when you find four or five people in your driveway stripping your car of anything valuable do you threaten them knowing they will overpower you or do you resign yourself to the lawless society you and your fellow believers have created by saying you do not need law enforcement?

 

And what do you do when you open your door one morning and their is a baby wrapped up on your porch crying because it is cold and hungry?  Do you take it in?  Or do you leave it there to die?  There is no agency to call because you chose not to pay taxes.

 

And on, and on, and on.  Like many people you don't realize that the answer to society's problems are not simple or free.  It is not just about you.  There are many who can take care of themselves, have reasonable ethical and moral vaues, and will act responsibly whether anyone expects it or not.  But, there are many more that will take every advantage they can find regardless of what others think.  Have you ever witnessed a natural disaster such as hurricane Katrina or Sandy?  Have you noticed the looting, theft, and vandalism that occurs during these tragic events?  While we would like to believe people are inherently good and will do the right thing, that is simply "pie in the sky" thinking.  And no, you cannot simply arm yourself to the degree necessary to be safe under any circumstance.  The number will be simply overwhelming.

 

So then your choice is to become one of the lawless you despise or accept your fate of being overrun.  Which are you going to choose, Ralph?

 

Here's a parting thought for you:  Don't like congestion, population growth, and increasing density?  Stop having children.  A third of all growth comes from within; meaning it is our offspring.

 

There are no simple answers Ralph.  Don't kid yourself into believing there are.  And there are no free rides. 

 @I812  

I don't want to pay any taxes but that isn't reasonable. That being said I don't need any government services and wish I could get out of paying for services I don't want. I don't need police, fire, street maintenance, water services, sewer services, or much of anything else.

 

At my vacation home I don't have any of those services. I am not in a fire district, police are 30 minutes out on a good day and generally don't investigate property crimes, and there is no water or sewer and the roads are dirt which I grade several times a year.

 

I wished that my roads in the neighborhood were dirt with lots of bumps because then folks wouldn't race down here trying to avoid the traffic. Because we have good roads they can speed around here all the time. We try to get police out here for which we pay taxes but they never come. If we had dirt roads we would pay less taxes and wouldn't have people racing down the street. Problem solved.

 

As for trucks in Sellwood it will just increase the traffic once the bridge is finished. They will still use 17th and 13th and will clog up traffic even more because there will be more of them. It will be a major thoroughfare from SW PDX and LO to SE PDX and Milwaukie.

 

Sellwood is already the area to avoid especially during rush hour. With a good bridge it will just get worse.

@RalphCramden Actually, you missed the point Ralph.  Prior to the Sellwood bridge being declared structurally unsound, large trucks regularly crossed the bridge.  When the load limit was placed on the bridge it forced trucks to use alternative routes which increased truck traffic on lower designated surface streets.  It also increased trucking costs due to longer trips, and it increased air pollution and noise in along other routes.  The new Sellwood Bridge will simply enable a return to the passenger and freight traffic that historically existed prior to the structural issues forcing the weight limit.

 

And I would think that any government that built a bridge with public funds that had a life expectancy of 50 to 100 years or more that couldn't accommodate large truck traffic would be committing malfeasance in office.

 

I spent a career listening to people who wanted all the benefits of a robust economy but none of the minor inconveniences that are inherent in one.  These same people often wanted to prevent anyone from imposing restrictions on them and their property but wanted to control what happened on their neighbors property.  And of course they wanted and used the benefits provided by government through taxes and fees but opposed every tax and fee increase irrespective of its validity.  Are you one of those, Ralph?

 @dougrpdx  @podunk.2 

I am that cheap. Every savings adds up and all in all I can save thousands of dollars every year.

 

Just my rain water harvesting and using that water to run my toilets saves me about $30 a month. Over the years I have saved thousands in water and sewer bills.

 

I am just following the lead of Apple, Microsoft, GE, and every other company that has moved overseas to save money.

 

You go ahead and spend your money on the bridge. I will put that money in my pocket and take my wife out for a nice dinner (outside Portland as I don't want to pay for the business tax).

 @RalphCramden  @deejm2112  @podunk.2 How about you pay for Iraq and we pay for bridges and the betterment of society? Deal?

 @deejm2112  @podunk.2 

You go ahead an pay for it. I am not interested and the laws have given me an option to opt out of paying for it.