Who is most conservative?

Not much of a choice for voters as everyone on the ballot is hard left. In your opinion, which of the Arcata Candidates is most conservative and why?

Fair question. I’ll be honest: I’m probably not the “most conservative” candidate, but I’d push back on the idea that everyone on the ballot is the same.

“Left vs. right” is only one way to sort people. Libertarians use a two-axis model, often called the Nolan Chart. One axis covers economics, and the other covers how much power government should have over your personal life. That creates a spectrum from authoritarian to anti-authoritarian, not just left to right. Two candidates who both get called “left” can be far apart once you ask how much power they think government, or anyone else, should hold over you.

I’m a left libertarian. I’m skeptical of concentrated power, whether it’s government telling you how to live or big interests making decisions that affect your neighborhood without your input. Here’s what that means in practice:

• Personal freedom. I’m pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ+ equality. Your body, your relationships, and your identity aren’t the city’s business, and the city should treat everyone equally.
• Drug policy. What adults put into their own bodies is their decision. I support ending the drug war’s approach of treating use as a crime. Drug use should be handled as a health issue, with local resources directed toward treatment, harm reduction, and serious crime instead of arrests for personal use.
• Fourth Amendment and surveillance. You shouldn’t have to give up your privacy just by driving to work. I oppose automated license plate readers like Flock cameras, which log every passing car and store that data with a private company, whether or not anyone is suspected of a crime. If police want to track someone, they should get a warrant. Arcata should resist participating in a surveillance network around people who’ve done nothing wrong.
• Growth should pay its own way. New development should cover the roads, water, and fire protection it requires, instead of passing those costs on to existing residents. Conservatives and libertarians of all kinds tend to agree with that.
• Safety before height. I support more housing, especially at low and moderate income levels, but not beyond what our fire district can actually protect.
• Accountability for big decisions. When a hardware store becomes a low-employment data center without review by the Planning Commission or Council, that’s a decision being made for the community, not by it. Public oversight of major changes is how ordinary residents keep a check on concentrated power.

So if you’re a conservative who cares about fiscal responsibility, local control, and keeping government out of your personal life, we may agree on more than you’d expect. Ask each of us the same questions: who pays for growth, and who gets to decide, the city, big interests, or you?

I think political labels can oversimplify what local government is really about. Rather than labeling my colleagues, I encourage voters to look at each candidate’s record, priorities, and approach to making decisions.

This is a nonpartisan local election, and I believe voters should be able to evaluate candidates based on their values, records, priorities, and commitment to serving the entire community rather than political labels.

These are my values and the principles that guide my work on the Arcata City Council.

I believe in being responsible with public money, making decisions based on facts, and being transparent and accountable to the people we serve. I believe growth needs to be responsible and that we cannot approve development without considering whether our roads, water and wastewater systems, fire protection, and other infrastructure can support it. We need to make thoughtful decisions about how taxpayer dollars are spent and make sure our investments benefit the community.

I also believe in supporting local businesses, creating more opportunities for homeownership, addressing our housing needs, and making sure every neighborhood receives attention and has a voice in City decisions. Fiscal responsibility and caring for our community are not opposing values. We should be able to do both.

I believe housing is a human right and that everyone deserves access to healthcare. I believe in participatory democracy, where the people closest to an issue should have a meaningful voice in decisions that affect their lives. Residents should have a real opportunity to shape decisions about their neighborhoods and their future, especially those whose voices have too often been overlooked.

I believe government should be by the people and for the people, and that means all the people. We need to dismantle oppressive systems and practices that leave people out, silence their voices, or prevent them from having a meaningful role in decisions that affect their lives. Every person, in every neighborhood, should have the opportunity to be heard. Government should serve all of us, not just those with the most power, influence or money.

I believe every neighborhood matters, and local government should work for everyone. That means listening to residents, including working families, older adults on fixed incomes, young people, immigrant and Spanish-speaking residents, and our unhoused neighbors. People should feel that they belong in Arcata and that their voices count.

I don’t believe every local issue fits neatly into a left or right political category. What matters to me is whether we are solving problems, listening to residents, using public resources wisely, and making decisions that serve Arcata as a whole. I encourage voters to look beyond labels and consider what each candidate has actually done, what they propose to do, and how they would be accountable to the community.

Hi Tony, I appreciate your question.

As a Political Science scholar and policy practitioner, I can say that I am conservative as can be when it comes to those matters which used to be part of the “conservative” agenda. By this I mean, most importantly, a very conservative adherence to the values and protocols embedded in the US constitution and Declaration of Independence. 

According to many verdicts by judges practicing US and international law, today’s Republican party is not conserving Constitutional values and protocols and so it can not be deemed conservative in our American Constitutional government.

Being the Administration which has been found guilty of violating the Constitution, (including rape which he had pay restitution for and felony 34 felony fraud verdicts for the President to name a tiny few, and/or laws stemming from therein), more than any  other in history means it is radical beyond our previous measures. 

I would love the opportunity to show my literally conservative allegiance to the values of preserving democracy. This would continue to include protecting people from tyranny of masked tools of terrorism getting paid for shooting into cars with children in car seats and sending people to die in unconstitutional detention centers using unconstitutional “cruel and unusual punishment” to terrorize the detainees and their families and communities.

In the early 1970’s an Economist named Milton Friedman redefined conservatism and republicanism to mean essentially “supportive of de-regulation”. Few who voted for his ilk understood this was rich-folks code for “let the richest 900 people (the current number of billionaires in the US) in the country do whatever they want with their big corporations and the economy will prosper, ‘trickling down’ to working families.” The opposite has taken place by design, as the gap between rich and poor has increased exponentially ever since this cult of economics was initiated by Friedman.

This was a departure from truly conservative republicanism and conservatism embodied by the General of WWII who became President Eisenhower. He was the one who coined the phrase warning of the “Military Industrial Complex,” now associated with “the hard left” because it is critical of the billionaire class and other war profiteers controlling the government and pushing us to war compulsively (as we are doing now in Iran) so they get rich from ever increasing war spending and ever increasing social stratification (poverty).

So, in classic American Political Science, which I have taught at Cal Poly, College of the Redwoods and elsewhere, I may be the most conservative and todays republicans and complacent democrats are the most radical shredders of the constitution for Epstiens and Elons to run over us working people -who used to have unions to defend us- with immunity. Then they spend billions on candidates that will do as they say. That is the military industrial complex which now includes the tech industry.

We can take America back to democracy one Arcata at a time, by protecting our residents from Trumpist ICE terror and Trumpist election denial and sabotage, ensuring our constitutional rights are enjoyed by everyone those founding documents and values intended: “We the people” and  “All people.” 

Thank you, Tony, please feel free to reach out directly at blasebonpane@gmail.com

Keep Thinking Glocally, Arcata. Vote Bonpane!