Call me small minded. Or naïve. Or partisan. I lay claim to little bits of all three attributes. Any one of which may account for my railing against the local assaults on individual freedom while overlooking a larger threat to democracy. Not so much the Russian invasion of Ukraine, though, with good cause, President Biden has labeled it as such. Rather, the possibly bigger threat to democracy, also duly labeled by the President — the scary orange dictator-in-waiting on the home front, former President Donald Trump.

Here I am claiming that burdensome taxation represents a threat to personal freedom. That the granting of massive property tax favors to hand-picked business interests by unelected bureaucratic agencies violates the democratic spirit. That the coercion (by an equally unelected State agency) of local schools to erase traditional sports team names represents an unwarranted usurpation of local decision making. That the self-assured presumption by city government to arbitrarily enroll homeowners with an electricity supplier of its choice (unless they take the step to opt-out) is a free-choice-skirting imposition of government authority.

I often write about these abrogations of freedom. I’m concerned that many elected politicians and, even worse, unelected functionaries of the administrative state want to tell you and me what kind of car to drive or stove to buy. All for the greater good, of course. Or “for your own good,” as my parents often said. And they,........

© Finger Lakes Times