Here We Go Again
The Florida legislature has put 11 constitutional amendments on the 2012 ballot, and they all suck.
Once again they are pandering to their base while attacking judges, women, the separation between church and state, and the ability of local governments to fund themselves.
The legislature is trying to cut taxes that they don’t get, while raising the fees that they do get, and holding the sales tax that they get at 6%.
A blogger at the Sun-Sentinel renders his opinion of them, but the most important point made is that the League of Women Voters recommends voting ‘NO’ on all of them.
The most egregious is Florida Religious Freedom, Amendment 8 (2012). This isn’t about ‘Religious Freedom’, this is about giving tax dollars to sectarian schools. It is supported by the ‘Clan of the Red Beanie’ because funding of Catholic schools by the state would free up more money to pay their lawyers and the penalties they owe.
Understand, the state can’t regulate religious schools in any way, so they are free to do whatever they want with the taxpayer funds. I can hardly wait until the first Muslim school receives the money. This is going to get so nasty and cause so many law suits.
They will be Federal law suits because the legislature is trying to stop the state courts from pointing out when they violate the state constitution. They want mob rule, as the Florida legislature has become a mob of angry, ignorant people thanks to the voters and creative redistricting.
6 comments
In a way I want to say “let Florida have the government it wants — and deserves — good and hard.” It’s like an alcoholic. Intervention simply won’t “stick” unless the alcoholic hits bottom, and Florida keeps finding new ways to go lower, like an alcoholic who drinks more to take his mind off the troubles caused by his alcoholism. How low can Florida go? A part of me is curious to know.
But then I think of all the good folks suffering because the majority of Floridians appear to be unthinking cads who elect Medicare cheats to the governorship and otherwise do stupid things of that sort, and it’s less of a game of “how low can they go” and more a game of “how many innocents will die?” Somehow less entertaining when you think of it that way :(.
The problem is getting normal people to vote. People just give up and say it doesn’t matter, so a minority gets to elect the officials and change the constitution. That’s why the GOP has been pushing the Voter ID laws, to make a PITA to go to the polls and stop this crap. About 25% of voters are making all of the decisions in the country, and that’s why we get stuck with such losers in office.
The only hope is that these things require 60% of votes to pass, so there is hope that 41% of the people who go to the polls will have sense enough to stop the power grab.
I don’t know about people giving up, but there’s definitely a large number of Americans who do say “why should I care? What difference does it make in my day-to-day life?” and don’t bother becoming involved in the political system. Just call it the United States of Apathy…
In the end, every single one of the ba**ards in office got there because the majority of the people in his or her district or state voted for’em. That’s the bottom line. Our government wasn’t installed by some foreign dictator, our government was installed by voters, and if the average American whines about his government, the culprit is easy enough for him to find — just look in the nearest mirror.
And yes, I know about the gerrymandering of House districts etc…. but senators and governors are elected in state-wide elections, and when you look at Governor Fraudypants in Flori-duh or Governor Goodhair in Texas or Governor Doublewide in New Joisy or … well, it wasn’t gerrymandering that put’em there, yo.
Most of these guys get in because they have the money to put ads on TV, and the morons who vote still believe that ads have to be true or they wouldn’t be on TV. It is amazing the faith placed in TV screens. It doesn’t occur to them that the ads might be lying.
People just refuse to get involved. I keep harassing my neighbors to register and vote, but they don’t bother. Among registered voters, a huge chunk were registered when they got their drivers license, but have never been to the polls.
They seem to want someone to tell them what to do, and when, rather than making any decisions for themselves.
Back to another of your statements… About 25% of voters are making all of the decisions in the country, and that’s why we get stuck with such losers in office.
I think it’s more than that. 50% of people are below average. And average just is not so smart nowadays. It just isn’t. I don’t know what that’s so, maybe people just can’t develop smarts if they never know the kind of hardship that our ancestors experienced, maybe life is just so cushy and easy nowadays that people just never have to exercise their brains, but the average American is, frankly, a dolt.
This is self-correcting over time, of course, if it is in fact the reality of life being too easy nowadays that creates so many Doltus Americanus. The GOP appears to be rushing to remedy that situation headlong, yo. The problem is the dead bodies. I don’t like dead bodies. I don’t know anybody who’s ever been near actual dead bodies who likes dead bodies. Well, except a few psychopaths like run the GOP, but I’m not sure they ever care to see the bodies resulting from their policies, it appears good enough to them to just know that dead bodies are happening and, like, they get a woodie the size of a redwood tree. So yeah, it’s self-correcting… but… man. What a bummer.
We are watching evolution in action as people commit suicide by ignorance. People have lost the drive for self-preservation and are actively working to destroy their sources of oxygen, water, and food so that a few people can gather more things than they’ll ever need or use.
When they start to notice that things are going bad, they just can’t figure out why, and look for scapegoats to blame, rather than the source of the problems.
At some point people lost the ability to discern the difference between knowledge and belief. Too many people assume that they are the same, and act like it. Trying to convince them that they are free to believe whatever they want, but they have to know how things work. They just don’t want to make the effort, and would rather limit themselves to their beliefs.
Curiosity has been eliminated in the US. People no longer want to know. The programming on television reflects the total lack of imagination that has infested our ‘culture’.