Affirmative Action is most notable, not for its part ending discriminatory practices; but as the wedge that opened the door to the wholesale countenancing of discriminatory practices.
By the New Millennium; there was no meaningful participation left for the people in the formulation of government policy, and no protections against the tyranny of the “greater good.”
In Cornithaca County, the “greater good” is not a decision that is reasoned, or that is voted on, or even answerable — it’s an edict; a proclamation; a caricature of benevolence; an indifferently disguised cronyism that fools no one; emanating from an authority that is too powerful and too much in control to care.
And in the County’s heavily stratified society; you need to step on those below you to keep your place [and keep them in theirs.]
Handyland
Just as nothing so undercuts the pretensions of the elite as the poverty of those at the bottom; nothing shows the “greater good” in a truer light than its policies in the Cornithaca County’s marginalized rural community.
When Cornell’s expanding bedroom community took over Lansing’s government; they lock-stepped with the “County’s” plan to build thousands of units of housing and create an urban “node” in this once rural town.
New zoning [with a Form Based Code agenda] was pushed through, with “Complete Streets” and a “Town Center” creating a suburban pastiche of cozy cul-de-sacs; but there was a problem: by law, they couldn’t exclude “sexually-oriented businesses.”
The solution: Dump it on the rural people.
APPENDIX II: ADULT ENTERTAINMENT ORDINANCE
1) INTENT
It is the intent of this local law to regulate sexually-oriented businesses, to promote the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the citizens of the Town of Lansing and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to monitor the location and concentration of sexually oriented businesses within the town of Lansing.
USES PERMITTED – RESTRICTIONS
Sexually-oriented business, as defined herein, shall be permitted in a Rural Agricultural district only
If you lived on an isolated rural road, with no Sheriff’s patrols and no street lights, and your nearest neighbor was a 24-hour “Adult” bookstore: how would you feel about the “health, safety, morals and general welfare” of your family?
This is how the Greater Good is worked in Cornithaca County.