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Petition to Create "Secretary of Arts"

Jan 12, 03:41 PM

Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to
appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, The United States has never created such a position. We in the arts need this and the country needs the arts—now more than ever. Please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Comment

  1. We artists are some the biggest champions of individual expression and personal freedom on the planet. Yet somehow, we think it’s okay to create a cabinet position to impose our values on the rest of the country.

    Why should WE get special treatment? Oh, is this everyone rush to the government and see who can cry loudest? I thought we had a constitution to protect us from that, my bad.

    If (and heaven forbid) this position is made, be prepared so see the relative importance of it dwarfed by the hundreds of other cabin positions created for the various other “interest” groups.

    If you still think you’re doing the right thing, consider this: As a result of federal funding for the arts, private donations to organizations have gone DOWN. If the funding were to cease, private donations would more than compensate for what government once provided.

    If you need an analogy, consider this: If everyone got their little 2 cents in with the government, it would bring this country to its knees. How do you think special interest groups operate? The benefits are concentrated but the costs are dispersed. It’s unfair to the 99.9 % rest of the population who does NOT benefit.

    I don’t care how much faith you have in Obama; what we need is LESS government.

    I am a pianist, organist and composer, and I attended PGSA in 2006. I am an advocate of the arts, yet I would NEVER, support something like this – a petition to put control of something so precious as music, art, dance, poetry, and drama in the hands of bureaucrats. I sincerely hope the US Constitution is alive and well somewhere because it is certainly not noticed here.

    — Waffleflip · Jan 19, 12:22 PM · #

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