[TheForge] nonpartisan politics as it affects artists

[A. Vida]

Phlip wrote:
> 
> OK, guys, here's my letter, sent off this morning. Anybody else?
> 
> Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...
> 
> It is my understanding that there is a bill currently under consideration in
> Congress, the Artists' Contribution to American Heritage Act of 2003 (H.R.
> 806). I would like to express my support for this bill.
> 
> As a blacksmith and artist in my own right, my work is not yet of museum
> quality, but I have had the opportunity to see the works of many other
> smiths, some right here in CT, and in your district, that is just
> incredible. Your support of this bill will encourage some of this remarkable
> work to be available throughout the future, for the public, rather than
> limitted to private collections.
> 
> I know Connecticut is proud of its history. Please help us be proud of our
> future, as well- it won't cost us a penny ;-)

	What is the substance of the bill?  I'm not a big fan of government
	in the first place.  Some appears to be a necessary evil if
	wholesale chaos and destruction is to be avoided, but I'm not at
	all fond of extraneous government involvement in the lives of the
	public. Promoting art, or marriage, or abortion, or religion, or 
	picking	your nose with your cocaine-shovel pinky nail is certainly 
	extraneous by any reasonable definiton I can think of.

	As for not costing us a penny, I would like to see a demonstration
	of how that would be the case.  Without reading the bill, I could
	not and would not support it.  Not trying to be a pill here, but
	people have widely varying ideas of what is good and reasonable
	where law is concerned.