Once
again, Mayor Griego is preaching his religion of socialism -- "Thou
shalt worship Government as The One True God, and I am its prophet" -
as the "solution" to a perceived "problem" here in Albuquerque. This week (Punchline, 20-26 April, "Food for Thought"), it's the lack of an "international" dining scene.
First, Mayor Griego needs to put down The Communist Manifesto long enough to skim through the "Restaurant" section of The Yellow Pages,
and He'll see plenty of ethnic restaurants -- Arabic, Cajun, Chinese,
Cuban, French, Greek, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican,
Native American, Persian, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, not to mention
various styles of American (that does still count, right?).
But since Eric the Red sees this "lack" of "international" restaurants
as a "problem," what does He propose as a solution? Simple -- provide a
bit of subsidies, tax breaks and regulatory relief to those kinds of
places that He supports (provided that they're politically-connected,
of course) to give them a leg up on the competition. As for the "lack"
of a "decent transit system" to get people to these places, that's the
easy part -- simply throw a few more million at SunTran. Someday it will break even, and maybe even show a profit, right?
I as a libertarian have a simpler, less expensive, more fair solution: relax the tax and regulatory burdens across the board for eateries of all types, and let the scene grow on its own. As it has been doing despite
the existing burdens of The State. Then maybe Eric the Red can quit
playing Mayor, open his own restaurant, and show the world how it's
done.
As for Ethiopian cuisine, that's an easy one, too -- show up and sign
up for the Ethiopian Communist Party. Then you get to eat. Refuse to do
that, and maybe they'll let you eat. If they don't decide to use you
for target practice with their AK-47's first.
[ Side note here: My original title was "Thought-Food Poisoning." Aside
from the title change, placing the name of the column I was responding
to at the top as opposed to in the text, and the omission of a few
spots of italics, it was printed unedited.
The way I wanted it to look / The Alibi's version -- MWB]