At this point if you’re not registered to vote, then you’re screwed. Or we’re all screwed. Or whatever. If you are registered, please vote. I’ve been looking at the sample ballot, and though it might be too little too late, I wanted to do a walkthrough of what’s going on and maybe we can get a short discussion going till doomsday. I’m as cynical as the next leftist, but right now, I feel like if enough people get out there and put in their ballots, we can really displace a lot of neoconservative power. We can debate all day long about whether or not democrats and republicans are two different parties or one, but you can’t tell me Ellen Simon is the same as Rick Renzi or Jon Kyl is the same as Jim Pederson. Okay, maybe you can. But did you know that Jon Kyl is gay? Robothouse has absolutely no problem with this, we only have a problem with the fact that he’s pro life, against gay marriage and civil unions and supports the war in Iraq. However, your homophobic republican coworkers probably do care that he’s a big sausage working cock gobbler.
At any rate, pull out your sample ballots and read along. The fact is that some of this shit is confusing and maybe if we put our heads together, when we piss in the ocean (that’s a metaphor for voting) at least we piss in the right direction.
When it comes to the candidates, I don’t think you’re doing anyone a disservice if you just vote straight democrat. It’s very important that you vote against superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne. He’s the worst.
The Flagstaff Unified School District Questions: Okay, I don’t know. I’m gonna get some info and update this. I swear the rest of this is only slightly more informative.
Prop 100. A yes vote would deny bail to anyone charged with “a serious felony”. Though I’d like to see some sort of legislation that denies and grants freedom to those accused of murder and such, in some way that has nothing to do with whether the accused is rich or not, that’s not gonna happen and this proposition is simply the wrong way to go in my eyes. Nevermind the fact that “serious felony” is not defined. Robothouse says vote no.
Prop 101. I have no fucking clue.
Prop 102. This would deny “improper” immigrants awards in a civil court case. Whatever. I bet this shit passes. They can stick this one up their asses. Vote no.
Prop 103. What’s incredible about this one is I haven’t seen one inch of media coverage about this. This would make English the “official” language of Arizona. Genius. What would Jesus do? Jesus would weep. Again.
Prop 104. I guess this would allow the state of Arizona to go into (more) debt to provide for stuff like law enforcement and public safety. Uh, I dunno. Whatever.
Prop 105. All fuckin garbled language for what could be either super good conservation intentions or very dark eminent domain legislation. I’d really like someone in the know to ring in on this one.
Prop 106. This one seems rad. To be honest I don’t really care that much for conservation so a bunch of honkeys can enjoy “nature” but it seems like this’ll really fuck big developers in the ass and that’s what Robothouse is all about.
Prop 107. This shit is so unconstitutional it’s just sad. It’s really just a god awful state of affairs that we even have to vote no on this. This is one of those ones that if you don’t vote, you should feel like a homophobic fascist for letting this shit slide.
Prop 200. What a concept! If you vote you could win the lottery. Why not? There’s no poor or sick people in Arizona that could use that money. As far as I know, there is absolutely no poverty in Arizona, and we should just throw a million dollars away to some schmuck that’s done their civic duty.
Prop 201. Okay this would be a more effective ban on smoking than already exists. To me, I say, why not… On the other hand, the only time I take in second hand smoke is at poorly regulated house shows and this, unfortunately, would have no effect on that. I’m really not sure voting yes is really necessary. Except to stick it up Phillip Morris’ million dollar butt hole. It’s tempting.
Prop 202. Why anyone would vote no on raising the minimum wage in Arizona, at least five years since it should’ve been raised, is completely beyond me and my neandertal brain. And yes I spelled that word wrong on purpose.
Prop 203. Hey this’ll tax cigarettes more and put that money in primary education funds. Are you so addicted to death that you can’t help the children?
Prop 204. Hey, it’s hogwash. I seriously doubt this prop will have any effect whatsoever, but whatever, just vote yes. Oh wait, male dairy cows were put on earth by god for human consumption, they don’t have any right to move around. Fuck cows. And fuck a pig too. But not cops. Cops are rad.
Prop 205. Recipe for serious voter fraud or good natured attempt to increase voter turnout? I have no idea. This would eliminate polling places and you’d just send in your ballot by mail. This sounds all good, except it also eliminates the sample ballot, which I’m using right now to hopefully, spread the word, whether you agree with one word of what I’m saying, the idea is dialogue. Without the miniscule information included in the sample ballot all you’d have is those fucking ads.
Prop 206. Ah yes, the fake smoking ban. Paid for by Phillip Morris, this would repeal the ban on smoking in bars. If you like to smell like a dirty asshole after a serious bender, vote yes. Yes, sometimes you smell like a serious asshole after a bender anyway, but you know what I’m saying, right?
Prop 207. This sounds like a big clusterfuck. Eminent domain. The government can take your shit. All in all, this one sounds like a yes vote would be excellent for the victim of “the man” taking their house. Unless I hear otherwise, I’m voting yes.
Prop 300. This one is fantastic. If this one passes, you can only take adult education classes like ESL if you’re a United States citizen. I really like this one in tandem with the English-as-official-language proposition. “You have to speak English. No, you can’t take a class that teaches you English. Get out of my country, you ugly brown person.” These propositions are not racist at all. How come there’s no propositions that say, “If you voted for George Bush, you will be sent to Iraq ahead of everyone else, no matter how poor or stupid they are and regardless of your physical condition. You reap what you sow, motherfucker.” ?
Prop 301. Basically, this one fucks anyone arrested on a methamphetamine charge to their full punishment. No parole. Vote yes on this one if you support sheriff Joe and you’re a fascist and you think addicts are terrorists rather than members of your community that are sick individuals that need treatment and support.
Prop 302. This one would bump the salaries of state legislators from 24,000 to 36,000 dollars a year. Honestly, this sounds fair. Except they have to be fucking rich to run for office in the first place. Part of me says fuck em. Part of me wants to help the one guy that got elected because he wants WalMart out of his neighborhood.
So that’s it. In epilogue, I’d like to see those radio and TV ads attacking so and so continue on past November 7th. Like, “Hey, you know that guy that beat me by a goddamn landslide. Well, he sucks and I’m gonna pay for ads for the next two years and tell you why he sucks.” I think that’d be really fun.
Please Vote. You know the rich people will.
Democrats and Rebublicans are both full of shit. Dems want more taxes, Reps want to be morality police.
Libertarians advocate small government, small taxes, individual freedom, and civil rights.
Seriously, vote for David Schlosser.
Also, what the fuck about 206? You keep talking about how certain initiatives are fascist and to vote against them, but then you say “vote no on 206″ and you become the fascist by telling people where they can and can’t smoke. 206 allows the OWNER of the bar to decide if they want smoking in THEIR bar. Who gives a shit if it’s sponsored by Philip Moris? Just like the eminent domain initiative; private property should be just that, and government should have no business in other people’s property.
libertarians are all about private propety, aren’t they?
we already have an army of cops to protect private property.
libertarians also advocate zero business responsibility, privitized education funding (because hey, every student chooses where they go to school, right? wrong.), amped up border security (to protect our businesses) and i’ll admit that compared to the other jackasses, every once in a while, they seem really cool, but most of the time they just seem like jokers with no clue. much like myself. except, they’re super nationalist.
if i’m a fascist for saying that i like smokeless bars, then i’m a fascist. that’s fine. on the one hand, i understand that it should be the owner’s right to decide. on the other hand, i just dont have that anarchist/right wing/kneejerk reaction to say ‘fuck the government, don’t tell me what to do.’ i just think not allowing smoking in public places is a good idea. sorry we disagree.
as far as phillip morris paying for the legislation: if all drugs were decriminalized, which as a libertarian, you gotta be for. and it wasn’t just tobacco and alcohol corporations with these places set up for making money from stupid people like myself, then i wouldn’t care as much. but, to me, it’s phillip morris that’s the problem.
oh, and thank you. i never knew the difference between a democrat and republican. now i know.
also, i was just reading that ‘prop 207′ is actually not good. though frank might like it. basically if a guy wants to put a liquor store by a school, and the neighborhood association deny’s the permits, if 207 passed, the guy could sue the association for however much he thinks he’d make from the business. total bullshit. it was written by a new york developer, but i guess that’s not important, according to frank.
if i could add, ive heard frank say so much stuff about this town and his role. he really frightens me. ten years of listening to this city’s elite machevelianly plan our town’s future. every 6-8am in the morning for the past ten years… it was really inspiring.
The thing about prop 205 is it’s just a way to keep people like illegal aliens and the homeless from voting, so definitely vote no on that one.
RE: Prop 106 vs. prop 105:
Short answer: YES on 106, NO on 105
They are competing propositions, meaning that whichever prop gets the most votes wins. Prop 106 is what conservationists, educators, progressives, and sensible people throughout the state have been trying to get passed for years. It does a couple main things:
1. Immediately conserve over 300,000 acres of land, and eventually almost 700,000 acres of land.
2. Requires state lands dept to work with local/regional planners to manage growth, determine which state lands get developed, etc.
Prop 105 is basically a sham; it was created by legislators at the last minute to compete with prop 106 and confuse voters. It is supported by developers who want every goddamn acre of the 9 million acres of state trust land to develop.
More info on prop 106: here.
Bobby,
I’m sorry if I sounded condensending with my little opening rant about democrats and republicans. Didn’t mean to come off that way.
Libertarians are not always for “amped up border security” however. The problem we see is not that the border is open, it’s that the immigration process is a complete mess, and because of that people chose to come illegally. It takes years and thousands of dollars to become a citizen. I’m not opposed to illegal immigration, and understand that these people are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. But, If the immigration process were a much easier affair, we would see a downturn in illegal immigration.
I am a bit confused about your information on 207 though. There are provisions in the proposition dealing with court cases. But it does not go after neighborhood associations, nor does it suggest that “the guy could sue the association for however much he thinks he’d make from the business”. The provision says that the “property owner is entitle to just compensation for the value of the property”, not the value the proper might have made if there was a buisness there. This protects guys like Bob:
Bob owns a bakery.
The city enacts a new zoning code saying that Bob’s area will now be exclusivly used for waste storage.
This makes the value of the property where Bob’s house sits very low.
Under 207, Bob would be entitled to recieve compensation for what the value of his property was.
You can find the propositions here: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/2006_Ballot_Proposition_Analyses/
These are without bias.
“This makes the value of the property where Bob’s house sits very low.”
err, not house, bakery.
also Pope, you’ve heard me every day from 6-8am? Who do you think i am? I don’t get up untill 8 (:
I very much appreciate all the comments here. Again, the idea is to provide information. This is rad. i’m going to print this out when i go down to my polling place.
Frank, I think I sounded a bit put off as well, as I responded before 7am. On prop 207, i might’ve paraphrased the legislation to the point of problematic representation. But i do believe the idea is that if a business with a lot of money is turned down on a new development by whomever is in charge of deciding what kind of business can go there (it probably has nothing to do with a ‘neighborhood association’ whatever that is), than that business person can sue that legal body for damages. or whatever.
for example, if this law was in the books and flagstaff was smart and said, “a super walmart is bad for our community as well as every other community worldwide, we don’t want it in our town.” then walmart could’ve sued whoever was responsible for that decison. the city council, i suppose. the way i understand it, this is how one part of that legislation would work. basically it becomes a win/win for developers. i know there are other parts to this prop that might be really fantastic on their own, but this aspect is why i, unless i get new information, will vote no on it.
Arizona is racist. Coconino Community College is in trouble while Flagstaff and it’s namesake school district got a deeper red line. Gay marriage is still against the law but “civil unions” are not. Or something. You won’t win a million dollars. The government can’t take your property. Or something. Rumsfeld resigns. No smoking.
The election is way over, but David Schlosser had the most fucked up comment in the paper a few weeks before the election. As a public school teacher, I was very offended. Usually I’m not too easily offended by idiotic comments from asshole people who don’t have a chance in hell of being elected, but this guy went too far. Here is his quote: “As I candidate for Congress and a product of American public schools, I feel I have an obligation to speak truth to power. Your public school and your Congressional representative are – statistically speaking – probably both dismal failures, and for the same reason: neither is truly accountable to constituents.” In addition to this, he said, “Only in America do we commit such egregious malpractice against our children that they actually get dumber every year they remain trapped in the public school monopoly.”
Granted, I’ve only been teaching in public schools for four years. I’d also like to add that I do think that public schools fail to “make the grade” for many children in many respects. But, what the hell does this guy know about what is going on in classrooms all throughout Arizona every day? What does he know about all of the teachers who have no lives because they bust their asses day and night to give their students the absolute best, most thorough, and most effective education that can be provided? More than likely, nothing. His comments totally devalue what hard-working teachers all throughout the state do every day by making a broad generalization based on… well, I don’t know what it’s based on. Statistics? These statistics aren’t referenced at all in his interview.
Public education could definitely use some work. A lot of work. But, the flaws in education have to do with a top-down system in which people who have absolutely no contact with the classroom are making really specific, really important decisions for the classroom. If David Schlosser is willing to make comments about a system that he probably has no direct contact with at all before he is elected, what kind of decisions will he be making for this institution after election. What kind of top-down bureaucratic bullshit will he throw into the classrooms to try and make kids smarter? I’m sure he is an expert on the subject.
I’m not trying to start any kind of beef with Frank for posting in support of Schlosser. I’m sure there are many things about him that may have been appealing. However, saying that kids come out of the public education system “dumber” than then they went in is completely ignoring/devaluing/silencing all of the hard work that teachers put into their work./life/passion. So I say fuck David Schlosser, and I am happy he wasn’t elected.