Every year our town sends up some fireworks in a field next to the school (currently proposed for demolition and reconstruction for $100 million). When we’re not watching fireworks we are passionate about providing sanctuary to the undocumented, complaining about Donald Trump separating adult and child migrants (at 1/100th the rate that the Massachusetts family courts separate adults and children?), and putting out Black Lives Matter and rainbow flags.
A few days ago, from our town mailing list:
Virtuous woman: I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to host a party for Greater Boston and that looks like what we are doing. Do we have to be listed in the Globe????
Response from a skeptic (not me!): do you really intend to say that townsfolks should be limited to attending only those festivities in their own towns?
Virtuous: Nope, it just does not have to be listed in the Globe. What does that do to our Public Safety Detail budget? It was a very low-key, bring your blanket walk in with kids and hang for a few hours?no barbecue back in the 70s. Crowds were not enough to make you get there hours in advance to park. Parking was not restricted as there was no need. Times have changed, clearly.
Another virtuous woman: I for one (and I may indeed be the only one) would like to limit attendance to our First of the New Year party to town residents and their personal guests. We stopped going because it had become such a zoo.
I was able to resist the impulse to suggest that we install checkpoints at our borders this evening and ask would-be migrants from other suburbs to show their documents…
Why? a slightly less obvious riposte (‘how do we insure the people attending are actually ‘local’? who has the authority to stop and question people? and on what grounds this authority is conferred? is it even legal?’) would have provided much merriments to us, your beloved readers.
Zero the budget. A volunteer-developed event is self-limiting.
No borders, no walls. No Town of Lincoln at all!
I bet if you went to the event, you would see a bunch of families from all over town having a great time and celebrating the 4th. There are always going to be a couple of “get off my lawn” types complaining but so what? I appreciate your finely-tuned eye for hypocrisy, but in this case its probably misplaced.