Tendo City

I know, no major elections. But there might be some local stuff...

Maine, for instance, has FIVE major ballot initiatives, all pretty important.

1 - Gay marriage. 'Yes' is to repeal the law that the legislature passed earlier this year to allow gay marriage, 'no' is to keep it. Obviously I'm very much hoping No wins... This is, obviously, getting the vast majority of the attention, both locally and nationally. Most people outside of Maine probably haven't heard of the rest of these, but might have heard of this one.

2 - A stupid tax bill. Lower the new-car tax! Have towns make up for it by raising everyone's property taxes! Awesome!

3 - Question to repeal a school consolidation law passed recently. I'm sure noone else here cares about this, but this is an important issue here... local control matters a lot, and this harms that by merging districts. But on the other hand, Maine evidently has some of the smallest average school district sizes in the country, in terms of number of students per district, and all those administrators cost money that this reform is supposed to save. I'm really unsure about how I'll vote this one, myself... I've been skeptical about the whole school consolidation thing all along, but it might ultimately be good... I'm not sure.

4 - TABOR II. This, I think, is the most important question to defeat on the entire ballot, even more so than #1 I think... TABOR (the acronym stands for "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights") is another tax idea, that has a hard spending cap based on this year's budgets. Then you can only increase spending at a set, very low rate per year, 3% I think. This can only be changed by BALLOT ISSUES. Town meetings are bound by this as well, so it rips apart local control of tax spending for all towns that have town meetings (which are many of the smaller towns in this state). Horrible, horrible bill! It'd absolutely destroy education funding in Maine... look at what happened to California after their stupid Proposition 13 property-tax-limiting law, several decades back -- their schools went from first in the country to right near the bottom. The only state with a TABOR-like law is Colorado, who think so much of it that they recently voted to suspend it. Awesome.

Oh yeah, and this is the third time they're trying to pass this; things very much like it have failed twice already. I really, really hope that this one fails too... and maybe, someday, hopefully, they'll give up on trying to destroy our state government and accept defeat? Please?

5 - Expansion of medicinal marijuana. Set up state dispensary system to get it to patients, etc. I'm opposed, but I'd bet this passes. If someone could show scientifically proven studies that show actual benefits I'd consider voting the other way, but as is, no way. The issue only exists as a major issue because druggies want marijuana legalized in general anyway, and I'm very much opposed to that...

Anything going on in this election in any of your states? :)

We've got a Gubernatorial election, Bob McDonnell ® vs. Creigh Deeds (d).

I'm actually on the fence about this one. One one hand, I hate giving my vote to a Democrat. On the other, State Republicans sorely pissed me off with this, what has to be the most nakedly corrupt and predatory law in the history of Virginia, already one of the least-friendly states to motorists in America. It has since been repealed, since basically everyone in the state threatened to do some major electoral housecleaning against any lawmaker supporting it, but I have neither forgiven nor forgotten.

What a coincidence , I have a municipal election today and I plan on voting for anyone except the current mayor.

Well, a year after going Obama, the state of Virginia has gone Republican with a vengeance. Creigh Deeds got massacred, and the Dems were swept statewide. The Dems might also lose their fortress in New Jersey.

It shouldn't be a surprise, though. Obama didn't win the presidency because he was qualified. He won because America was in full anti-Bush mode last year and voted with its heart instead of its brain.

Now, we're seeing atonement for the mistake.

God help the Democrats in next year's midterms. :)

Weltall Wrote:Well, a year after going Obama, the state of Virginia has gone Republican with a vengeance. Creigh Deeds got massacred, and the Dems were swept statewide. The Dems might also lose their fortress in New Jersey.

It shouldn't be a surprise, though. Obama didn't win the presidency because he was qualified. He won because America was in full anti-Bush mode last year and voted with its heart instead of its brain.

Now, we're seeing atonement for the mistake.

God help the Democrats in next year's midterms. :)

Many people wanted to see a black man as president, You had the black vote and the white guilt vote going in Obama's favor.

John McCain failed to differentiate himself from President Bush for a public that did not want more of the same and He was too advanced in age to be a good prospect for taking on a high stress job like the presidency. The impression people had was that the McCain-Palin ticket was the equivalent of having Bob Dole Paired with Dan Quayle.

The Democrats do seem to have won the upstate New York House race though, that hadn't gone Democratic in 130 or more years, and despite polling showing the conservative having an advantage...

Evidently sabotaging your own nominee and trying to go with the far-right Conservative Party guy instead of the Republican didn't work out so well. All of this Republican infighting and destruction of moderates ultimately does nothing but help the Democrats. But anyway, it does seem that the Democrat won, so one good thing did happen anyway.

As for Maine, #1 looks like it's going to pass (horrible... :() though it is close enough that a recount is assured, #s 2, 3, and 4 all failed (very good news there at least, for 2 and 4 going down!), and 5 passed.

I was hoping #1 would fail, too.

In fact, in breaking with my usual belief of judicial interference, I think it's time to mandate the legalization of both gay marriage AND marijuana.

Because, I can't see any reason to deny gay people the ability and benefit of marriage, and there's no logical reason to keep weed illegal. From personal experience, it's less of a social problem than alcohol, and by a wide margin.

Legal gay marriage is inevitable eventually, younger people of all political persuasions aren't anywhere near as anti-gay as older people... as what you said there shows. So it IS coming, sometime, the trend in its favor is obvious. The only question is how long it'll take.

Unfortunately, this vote clearly shows that it will take longer than many people had hoped. This should have been a stoppable bill, I'd think... but still, it IS coming. And no, crazies who oppose it (not that I know of anyone here who believes this stuff, but I'm just saying), it won't lead to bestiality, pedophilia, and polygamy being legalized next. Those things are ... slightly ... different. :)

Of course, it did take like three tries to get gay people added to the list of people employers can't discriminate against and block bills to remove them, so it's not like we can't try again and maybe win that time. There have been at least four or five "No On One" votes in the past 15 years or so relating in some way to gay rights, and a "Yes" one or two as well. This ensures that there will be more. It'd have been so great if we (people opposed) could have won it though... :bummed:

It's hard to beat the combined powers of the Mormon and Catholic Churches, obviously... those two churches were the leading forces behind Yes On One.

... But I am happy that TABOR lost, at least! Gay marriage would mostly just benefit the like ~10% or whatever of the population that is gay. TABOR would hurt everyone.

Its a sad reality that a minority can have their liberties denied simply because the majority opposes it.

Government is supposed to exist to protect people like that... but sadly it doesn't always do it. :(

Weltall Wrote:I think it's time to mandate the legalization of both gay marriage AND marijuana.

There's no logical reason to keep weed illegal.

Damit, Usher I'll give you a great logical reason, I'm barely getting D work out of my lab partner as it is.

DONT FUCKING HELP THEM SLACK OFF ANY MORE. [size=3]Otherwise I'll never get any sleep.[/size]

The weeds of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Weltall Wrote:The weeds of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Very funny..

Weltall Wrote:The weeds of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

or the one.

Wow, turnout in Maine was 58.5%, the most ever for an off-year election. I know we had a bunch of important ballot issues, from gay marriage to TABOR, but still, I'm impressed...

I'd be more impressed if question 1 had actually FAILED, but still, seeing such a high turnout when there were no national races is nice.

Gay marriage is SRS BSNS. But seriously, I'm surprised it was banned in a New England state. Eh, like ABF said, it'll become legal someday, maybe not on a national level, but on several state levels until only the Bible Belt opposes it, and even it will one day have to concede. The world is round, the Earth revolves around the Sun, evolution is real, and gay people aren't evil. Religious or not, people eventually have to face reality.

In other news, WOW. The healthcare reform bill passed the House. Now it's off to the Senate, so we can't celebrate just yet. Still, I'm pleasantly surprised. :)

I think the way it will happen nationwide is like with school integration, eventually the Supreme Court will say that anything else is unconstitutional. But that'll probably take a while, and yeah, it's likely some states will legalize it before then.

This defeat in Maine means that anti gay marriage people are now looking seriously into getting New Hampshire and Vermont ballot issues, to stop their gay marriage laws too.

You know, government exists in part to protect minorities from the majority... and so do the courts... so yeah, that's why I think that eventually the key move will come in the courts.

If not that, then certainly the people will eventually, in some number of years, support gay marriage. It's really too bad that we aren't quite there yet... I thought it'd be closer than it was. :(

... Oh yeah, and how, exactly, are the huge amounts of direct support the Catholic and Mormon churches gave to this effort, and California's last year, legal? Aren't there laws about this kind of thing?

Quote:In other news, WOW. The healthcare reform bill passed the House. Now it's off to the Senate, so we can't celebrate just yet. Still, I'm pleasantly surprised.

Yes, it is awesome. Very close, just 220-215... but it passed. The one major caveat is that anti-abortion activists managed to get a horrific radical anti-abortion amendment included into the bill that totally bans any coverage of abortion under any government-funded health plan, meaning that women who can't afford to buy separate insurance to cover it will just have to suffer and die in backstreet abortions or something... hopefully this does not make it into the final bill! It's kind of amazing that while we make slow progress on gay rights, abortion rights seem headed straight the opposite direction... people have forgotten some of the reasons why it was legalized in the first place. Hopefully we won't have to learn that again... but at this rate, who knows.

But other than that, yes, it was fantastic news that it passed. Now for the Senate...

The Republicans wouldn't be in the mess they're in if they spent more time being fiscal conservatives and waste less time being social conservatives.

Honestly. Abortion is a good thing. Gay marriage is a good thing. If you like neither, well, don't abort your kids and don't marry within your gender. But, denying these things to those who want them is nothing but spite. In no way does it affect you unless you choose to participate. It's why I changed my views on these topics.

Honestly, reading back on some of the discussions we had on the subject and reading the things I said leaves me quite embarrassed.

Weltall Wrote:The Republicans wouldn't be in the mess they're in if they spent more time being fiscal conservatives and waste less time being social conservatives.

Pretty much. Bush spent money liberally (not that Obama isn't doing the same) on a war we didn't need and on tax cuts during a time of economic growth. At the same time, Republicans have been imposing their morals on society, which is a violation of basic human rights. They're conservative in all the wrong ways.

Weltall Wrote:Honestly. Abortion is a good thing. Gay marriage is a good thing. If you like neither, well, don't abort your kids and don't marry within your gender. But, denying these things to those who want them is nothing but spite. In no way does it affect you unless you choose to participate. It's why I changed my views on these topics.

Honestly, reading back on some of the discussions we had on the subject and reading the things I said leaves me quite embarrassed.

Eh, don't feel bad. My posts from 2003 or so are probably even more retarded. I especially feel like a jackass when I think about some of the things I said regarding the War in Iraq (i.e. screw our lack of international support, the rest of the world is wrong, Saddam has WMDs and could strike at any moment). I sounded just like the people I've been bashing for the past five and a half years. :)

I'm pretty impressed that bill got passed (minus the abortion part, but somehow it doesn't surprise me that that snuck in), and from the eyes of at least this humble Canadian, this is a good step to seriously improving health care in the United States (and I'm pretty sure my family in America harbours the same views as I've heard some them speak openly on several occassions about how badly they've been screwed over by the current system). So really, bravo. This is good for the American people.

But for all the talk I hear about the Republican party being broken and in shambles, I'm not sure if that's really the case. One way in which Canadian and American politcs differ is the concept of party discipline - when voting on a bill in Canada, MPs are not permitted to vote opposite what the party has decided. Even if they're morally opposed to the issue, they still can't vote "no" if the party has decided that it will vote "yes." This obviously isn't the case in America where reps are free to vote as they feel (and 39 Democrats voted Nay). But still, out of 177 Republicans, all but 1 voted against the bill. Does every single Republican (minus one) think so alike that they all hold the exact same views on such a serious issue, or is the party much more coherent than we all think? I definitely think it's the latter. The way the Republicans voted so (almost) uniformly says a lot of positive things about how that party is run, and the fact that the bill barely passed despite such a strong Democrat majority speaks volumes about the state of that party.

Weltall Wrote:The Republicans wouldn't be in the mess they're in if they spent more time being fiscal conservatives and waste less time being social conservatives.

Honestly. Abortion is a good thing. Gay marriage is a good thing. If you like neither, well, don't abort your kids and don't marry within your gender. But, denying these things to those who want them is nothing but spite. In no way does it affect you unless you choose to participate. It's why I changed my views on these topics.

Honestly, reading back on some of the discussions we had on the subject and reading the things I said leaves me quite embarrassed.

There acting like the old "European" right, That's why Fascism is considered right wing in Europe, General Franco of Spain was all about defending the established church and the "traditional misogynist values" , If you weren't a pious church going christian then you can just fuck off and die in a labor camp, Its only because of his staunch anti communism that our governments made bed fellows with that fucker.

American conservatism is supposed to be based on classical liberalism, The tv "conservative" pundits use "liberal" as a pejorative.

Fittisize Wrote:I'm pretty impressed that bill got passed (minus the abortion part, but somehow it doesn't surprise me that that snuck in), and from the eyes of at least this humble Canadian, this is a good step to seriously improving health care in the United States (and I'm pretty sure my family in America harbours the same views as I've heard some them speak openly on several occassions about how badly they've been screwed over by the current system). So really, bravo. This is good for the American people.

But for all the talk I hear about the Republican party being broken and in shambles, I'm not sure if that's really the case. One way in which Canadian and American politcs differ is the concept of party discipline - when voting on a bill in Canada, MPs are not permitted to vote opposite what the party has decided. Even if they're morally opposed to the issue, they still can't vote "no" if the party has decided that it will vote "yes." This obviously isn't the case in America where reps are free to vote as they feel (and 39 Democrats voted Nay). But still, out of 177 Republicans, all but 1 voted against the bill. Does every single Republican (minus one) think so alike that they all hold the exact same views on such a serious issue, or is the party much more coherent than we all think? I definitely think it's the latter. The way the Republicans voted so (almost) uniformly says a lot of positive things about how that party is run, and the fact that the bill barely passed despite such a strong Democrat majority speaks volumes about the state of that party.

Despite what has been said over the past year, I don't think the Republican party dead and gone forever. In fact, it wouldn't shock me terribly if they won back at least one house of Congress in 2010. From 2003 to 2007, the Republicans ran the White House and held a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Today, the Executive and Legislative Branches are controlled by the Democrats. Just as the tables turned then, they can turn again.

It seems to me that when things go wrong, people blame whatever party is in power. Since things went so horribly wrong during Bush's second term (in my opinion, the worst things he did occured during his first term, but it wasn't quite enough to cost him the 2004 election), the people were quick to elect a Democratic Congress in 2006, and with the recession that followed in late 2007/early 2008, the people had had enough of the Republican party, and with McCain seeming to be just a repeat of Bush, the election pretty much belonged to the Democrats from the start, whether it was Obama or someone less popular (though Obama's charisma certainly helped). Now that unemployment is still on the rise (though Wall Street is making a steady recovery), Obama's approval rating is dropping and people are leaning more conservative.

Much of what happens has little to do with the president or the government, but nevertheless, they get the blame whenever things go awry. There will eventually come a point when Americans lose faith in both parties and will start voting split ticket again so as to prevent anything from being accomplished. :)

It's funny that people were saying the Democrats were up shit's creek without a paddle a few years ago and are now saying the same of the Republicans. Dynasties don't last forever though. Still, this is a rare, historic opportunity for the Democrats to get some major healthcare legislation passed, so I do hope that the Senate will pass their version of the bill as well and that the final, compromised bill will still contain a public option. I'm less confident about the Senate vote than I was about the House vote, and I wasn't very confident about the House vote at all. If healthcare reform doesn't pass before 2011, we may not have another opportunity again for a long, long time. And this was supposed to be our filibuster-proof Congress too. :(