I’ll update and bump this post if I find anything that changes my mind, but I’m inclined to agree with the RLCC that the best course is to vote no on everything.
The sample ballot for the special election showed up the other day, and some of them “sound good” in the brief description, but I’m easily convinced that they are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Update:
Funny how the commercials from the Howard Jarvis group used exactly that metaphor. As is often the case, all you need do is listen to who it is sponsoring the ad to know how to vote. The pro side is the teachers union. The con side is Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. And there’s nothing in the voter info pamphlet to convince me otherwise, so it’s final: Vote no on all of it.
One More Update, and bumped:
Tom McClintock has posted his recommendations, wherein he makes a tepid case for voting yes on 1D and 1E. I, frankly, don’t see it. But look at his arguments.
The Sensuous Curmudgeon has posted a thoughtful letter with which I largely agree. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:
My fellow Republicans:
As our party is going though a much-needed period of introspection, please consider that there was a time when this party stood for the Constitution, the rule of law, national defense, free enterprise, limited government, low taxes, balanced budgets, and individual rights. We still honor those principles; but those who now govern have no concern for or even understanding of such matters.
While the other party has been winning elections and undermining everything we have traditionally valued, what issues dominate our political discourse? Our party has been talking about sex and religion.
When we say “sex,” we mean topics like abstinence, promiscuity, homosexuality, pre-marital relations, contraception, sodomy, nudity, pornography, masturbation, same-sex marriage, sex education, abortion, and morning-after pills. Does that list sound familiar? It should, because those are the issues that too often dominate your campaigns.
Except for late-term abortion, where the other party has an extreme position that could be exploited (except that it’s lost in a sea of other sex-related issues), there is absolutely no reason to discuss such matters as part of our party’s policies. The Constitution doesn’t give the federal government any authority over those issues. If they need to be addressed, it should be done only at the state level.
When we speak of religion, we mostly mean the current movement to insert religious doctrines into public school science classes, especially creationism and its love-child, intelligent design. It seems to us that this is a latter-day substitute for prayer in public schools, which is essentially a dead issue these days, but still a hot-button item. There are other religious issues, like objections to certain areas of biological research.
I think, parenthetically, that the case can be made that same-sex marriage is not a “sex” issue. But her larger point is very well taken. If the Republicans’ lunatic fringe creationist, bible-thumpers take over the party will be marginalized. It’s time to focus on what the real core values of conservatism are: “the Constitution, the rule of law, national defense, free enterprise, limited government, low taxes, balanced budgets, and individual rights.”
I suspect that those who like their so-called social conservative issues would be more comfortable in a country governed by those principles than the country we’re heading for.
Update:
Here’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. Note how when Ol’ Tingle Leg asks Pence a direct question about evolution, he squirms and evades and absolutely refuses to answer the question. Now he may be smart and honest enough to recognize evolution as the fact that it is, but he’s obviously pandering to the lunatic fringe of his party. This kind of embarassing performance is no way to govern, and no way to win elections.
NB: Matthews in no way “destroys” Pence. Pence does that to himself.
The party must realize that the country has changed, he said. “Americans do want to pay taxes for services,” he said. “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”
David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.
In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”
Update:
Well, the New Yorker’s fact-checking continues to be first rate. Turns out that, while parts of the article have merit the basketball part is pretty weak. I’ll bow out of that debate; I have no dog in that hunt. I don’t watch, much less play, basketball.
