Month: September 2023

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2023 Orem Primary Results

2023 Orem primary election results map.
2023 Orem primary election results map.

It’s been an interesting adventure for me campaigning for public office for my first time. I’ve enjoyed meeting so many of my fellow Oremites over these last several months, including my fellow candidates for city councilor, and I thank those 415+ neighbors who favored me enough to vote for me in yesterday’s primary election (as reported here). Although this tally was far short of enough for me to proceed to this year’s general election, I may campaign for another public office someday, although I’m not yet sure when or which.

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News

2023 Orem Primary Election

Voting by mail in 2023 Orem primary election.
Voting by mail in 2023 Orem primary election.

Today is Orem’s biennial primary election for city candidates, which will cull our 12 current official candidates for city councilor to only 6, who will appear together in this year’s general election, which will select 3 officers (or about half the council) to serve from 2024 to 2028.

As usual, I considered every one of my electoral options both carefully and prayerfully, valuing records (if any) over rhetoric—and I strove to uphold those candidates who, as best as I can tell, are demonstrating both personal virtue (especially honesty) and political wisdom (like that of America’s Founders). I considered experience merely an added bonus, ignored labels, and treated appearances as frivolous. Those are my voting standards, and I recommend them to everyone.

If you haven’t already voted, then please visit vote.utah.gov for methods. If you distrust mail-in ballots, then please consider voting in-person (with a valid ID) in Orem CenterPoint Church at 1550 S Sandhill Road. Voting ends at 8PM, except for those who are waiting in line.

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CARE Tax

SCERA Center for the Arts.
SCERA Center for the Arts.

In 2005, Orem enacted a small ongoing Cultural Arts and Recreation Enrichment (CARE) Tax to enhance both recreation and cultural arts in the City of Orem. Although I greatly appreciate the good intentions for which this tax was enacted, I also worry that those good intentions are being implemented in a less-than-ideal manner.

If a cause is truly worth supporting, then its champions should never need to compel anyone to support it, but should be able to freely persuade them instead—perhaps not everyone, but enough. And persuasion is the right way to achieve almost everything; coercion should generally be reserved ONLY as a necessary last resort in defense.

We charter political systems, including municipalities, to use their coercive powers to expertly assist us in defending our equal God-given (or natural) rights so that we may remain free. And this includes being free to spend our money as we choose, including on the arts. But our generosity should remain an individual choice, not a collective one.

Whenever our politicians communalize our paychecks and then divvy-up our income among those organizations that best curry their favor, they are not defending but violating our rights. And this practice is not only wrong in principle but it is also generally counterproductive, as the decisions of the few are inferior to the decisions of the many.

If any group wants my money, then they should ask me for it directly, not ask my politicians for my money. We’re all better-off when we stop letting our politicians decide how to engage in philanthropy on our behalf, and instead learn to think for ourselves. Asserting self-responsibility is a vital part of the freedom that we should ideally enjoy.

And this is why, due to matters of both principle and effectiveness, as we Oremites debate renewing this CARE Tax during 2023, we should choose to privatize this process instead. And, as our city councilors spend less time donating our money for us, they’ll be able to spend more time on defending our rights, which is their core duty.