Just look at them and sigh
One of the things Schwartzenegger likes to say is “Let the people decide”. Arnie, for the most part I like you and think you’ve done an okay job, but you’re wrong on this one. Sometimes the people are idiots. Ok, more often than not, the people are idiots. My precinct has approximately 4000 constituents. As of 7:30 last night when I finally got down there, I was voter 375. Yep. 375. There was no line when I got there. As a left there were probably 6 or 7 people standing around waiting to get checked in. Point is, maybe they got to 400 last night. Maybe 1 in 10 actually voted yesterday. Get the people riled up about something and the turn out is higher. Can you imagine if in 1968 Civil Rights was a referendum rather than a Congressional Act signed in to law by President Johnson? What if that one came back to a vote?
That’s why we have the three branches of Government. Checks and balances. Judges are supposed to be activist, on behalf of the people. If the people are too stupid, judges step in and make it right. The legislation steps in and makes it right. Or the Executive Branch steps in and makes it right. Note that a voter referendum isn’t in there. Here we are 31 years later and there is a faction in this country that is still too stupid to understand that we are all equal. Regardless of skin color, heritage, gender, or the number or toes on their left foot. So Maine, you got it wrong. Just like California let the Catholic church and the Mormans dictate public policy, you fell for the same ruse. Shame on all of you.
Several of my friends have recently had grandchildren. I see these little creatures and think “No one has screwed these kids up yet. They will. Right now, these little babies don’t know that there is a difference in skin color and that matters to some people. They don’t know that their parents are well off or dirt poor. They don’t know that it’s not okay in 45 states to love who they want. They don’t know that their father is unemployed laborer. Good thing we’re all here to teach them.
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For those of your Gentle Readers that are too Busy/Lazy/Tired to actually go vote, there is the wonder of Permanent Absentee Status.
They MAIL you a ballot, you vote at your convenience (like when you are sitting on the john. There’s something appropriate about that.)and you mail it back.
In our local election there was only one issue — concerning taxing a local electric utility for the natural gas they us — and there was nobody visible at the polling station in my neighborhood when I drove by. In today’s paper, they say that 7,013 people voted in this city of 67,000.
And if you’re on the john, you are in the correct position for the sample ballot alternative use.
We had no voting this go-round. I feel kind of cheated, actually.
Also: I make a point of bringing the Monkeys when I go vote, because I want it to be something they see as a normal, routine part of being grown.