Reply to What votes can I make in Nov against the upzone-ing in MoCo??

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On the other hand, assuming that people who speak at public meetings (such as the listening sessions) are representative of residents of Montgomery County overall is a mistake.[/quote]

If that is the take, it begs the question: why have any community engagement/input at all?  One might assume certain representation; assuming that it would not be representative also would be a mistake.

If there is such uncertainty about something so sweeping and impactful, and if the Council wishes to take the temperature of public opinion on the matter beyond the listening sessions in a way that draws from a far greater proportion of the population, then a referendum/ballot initiative prior to legislative action would be in order.[/quote]

It does not beg the question. It might raise the question, maybe, although in fact I don't think it does.

Why have community engagement/input? To give people an opportunity to express their opinions. Fortunately, public meetings are not the only opportunity for community engagement/input. If you have ever attended even one public meeting in Montgomery County, you will know that attendance at public meetings skews old, white, and affluent. And no, that's not an insult. It's just an accurate description of who attends public meetings in Montgomery County. I fit into that demographic, myself.[/quote]

Lovely racist, ageist and classist way of saying we should have community input, then ignore it when inconvenient to an agenda.

There hasn't been public feedback of similar or greater scope indicating the opposite of the general sentiments expressed at the listening sessions.  Maybe if there was a more accurate way to gauge the interest of MoCo residents...Oh, wait, there is!  A ballot initiative! [/quote]

It is not racist, ageist, or classist to state the fact that people who attend public meetings are very disproportionately white, old, and affluent, compared to the overall population of Montgomery County. I have been to plenty of public meetings where [u]every[/u] attendee appeared to be a white person, and where I (in my 50s) was among the youngest people in the room. 59.4% of the population of Montgomery County isn't non-Hispanic white. 82.3% of the population of Montgomery County is under age 65. 34.5% of housing units in Montgomery County are occupied by renters. Half of households in Montgomery County have an income less than $125,583. How does that compare to the people who attend public meetings?

If you want to put your time and effort into a ballot initiative, have at it. It's your time and effort. [/quote]

It is racist, ageist and classist to note the race, age and wealth of the people attending public meetings as an argument that their positions are not representative of the general populace [i]when you have no substantial evidence to the contrary[/i].[/quote]

It's racist, ageist, and classist to state the fact that the race/age/class demographics of people attending public meetings are not representative of the race/age/class demographics of the county as a whole? Nope, sorry, I can't take that seriously.[/quote]

There you go again with the strawmen...

If it is known that old, white, wealthy folks tend to think green is better than yellow, does that mean that that thought about colors is not prevalent among non-old, non-white, non-wealthy folks?  Of course not.  You'd need to find that out by gathering data from the rest before making such an assertion.

But there has not been such data gathered, and suggesting that positions voiced by a preponderance of old, white, wealthy folks should be discounted without such data is ageist, racist and classist.[/quote]

Have you talked in real life to any non-old, non-white, non-wealthy people, any time in the last 5 years?
[/quote]

Red herring.[/quote]

You keep saying "strawman" and "red herring", so I'm actually going to look up the definitions in Merriam Webster.

[i]
strawman
noun
1
: a weak or imaginary opposition (such as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted
2
: a person set up to serve as a cover for a usually questionable transaction

red herring
noun
1
: a herring cured by salting and slow smoking to a dark brown color
2
[from the practice of drawing a red herring across a trail to confuse hunting dogs] : something that distracts attention from the real issue[/i]

Now maybe you can explain how it's weak/imaginary opposition, distracting attention from the real issue, to point out the reality that

1. twenty-something renters in Germantown or Glenmont might have different ideas about the sanctity of exclusively single-family zoning than sixty-something homeowners in Chevy Chase
2. most people attending the listening sessions were not twenty-something renters in Germantown or Glenmont
[/quote]

The strawman argument noted was:

"[i]It's racist, ageist, and classist to state the fact that the race/age/class demographics of people attending public meetings are not representative of the race/age/class demographics of the county as a whole? Nope, sorry, I can't take that seriously.[/i]"

It is a straw man because it fabricated the idea that the prior post was making an absurd argument of equivalence of demographic characteristics between different demographics when the prior post did not say that at all.  The prior post didn't even say that the opinions of those in attendance were necessarily representative of the rest.  It challenged the insinuation of the post before that that the race/age/class of those in attendance somehow made the sentiment expressed invalid [i]when there was no substantial evidence to suggest such invalidity[/i].

The post:

"Have you talked in real life to any non-old, non-white, non-wealthy people, any time in the last 5 years?"

was a red herring (and, presumably, ad hominem) because it did not speak to the point made in the prior post, which was that there had not been the data gathered from non-old/non-white/non-wealthy residents to test any hypothesis that the opinions on the AHS expressed by those in attendance were not shared by others.

The last part of your post is its own strawman.  Neither have I suggested that there can't be differing opinions among the demographics, nor have I characterized those in attendance as largely that younger group you suggest.  [i]But we don't have substantial data regarding their opinions[/i] or that of other groups who might not have been well represented at the listening sessions, [i]and we should not make assumptions about those opinions  just to counter the evidence we [u]do[/u] have from those listening sessions[/i].[/quote]

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