Tucson Sammy

The Arizona Daily Star reports that Governor Napolitano wants any future economic “stimulus” payments to go to the state rather than the people. She said that it was a fact that government spending on “infrastructure” or “healthcare” had an immediate economic effect.

Governor, please, you must see how insulting those statements are to our intelligence. I am sure that you do not really believe that dumping money into the state coffers will have any effect on the economy – certainly not immediately. Wealth creation, jobs, better products and services, are all results of private sector activities. You know that, Governor….well, maybe you do not.

Earlier I talked about worldview. Perhaps the Governor has a worldview that differs from the rest of us. In her world, people make way too much money and spend it poorly. They move around needlessly in their cars, whenever they want, when they should be riding transit to work and home. They could be be allowed to keep enough money for food, shelter, and a bus pass (and maybe a little liquor money), and send the rest to the state where the Governor and her staff can spend it wisely, for the good of all. After all, what is the collective judgment of the proletariat compared to Gubernatorial Wisdom and Compassion? She will shower medical care, transportation, education, and public art upon you.

In our world, Lincoln freed the slaves. The owners pointed out that the slaves would just waste the money, were they allowed to keep it, and that they (the owners) knew how to spend it for the greater good of all the slaves. Still, Lincoln freed the slaves, and was a good thing… in our world, at least.

Ballot prop 105, known as “Majority rules”, would require a majority of registered voters to vote in favor for passage, as opposed to a majority of votes cast. This standard would apply only to ballot propositions that raised taxes or fees. The idea is that new laws which reach into your wallet should meet a higher standard than others. It is similar in concept to existing law that requires a two thirds majority vote for the Arizona Legislature to raise taxes.

My first conversation concerning this ballot prop included two Democrat friends, one of whom dropped his jaw with a horrified expression when I said that I liked it. Both friends expressed the idea that any voting standard that deviated from a simple majority of votes cast was certainly an un-American, deviant, evil thing that would bring on plagues of locusts, frogs, et cetera.

I was somewhat taken aback by their visceral negative reaction. It took me a while, but I figured it out. It came down to worldview, our at least, how we see our country. My friends see the simple majority vote as foundational, not as a mere process or tool. To them, the country is great by virtue of the simple majority vote.

They are completely wrong. The foundational principle that makes the country great is individual sovereignty, or liberty/responsibility. Voting is a democratic process that picks, and disciplines, our representatives.

This dichotomy of worldviews accounts the hysteria of my friends. They see the prop as an attack on the foundation of our society, I see it as an appropriate tweaking of a process to adapt that process to a particular law-making instrument.

My friends are not just wrong, there is a dark side to their view. If individual sovereignty is not sacred, but anything done by majority vote is, then we have entered a world of tyranny where forty-nine per cent of the people will be oppressed.

This is an audio clip from a Howard Stern show – WARNING, LANGUAGE – from a man-in-the-street bit. Now, this takes place in Harlem, but this cold have been recorded on any college campus, east or west coast blue state city, or other concentration of Obama supporters.

Boomp3.com

This will be the first time, since I have been old enough to pay attention, that we might actually elect a president about whom the people know virtually nothing.