cawacko
Well-known member
No response Desh?
Obama Supporters Sign Petition to Repeal the BILL OF RIGHTS
- Thread starter DamnYankee
- Start date
No response Desh?
Robo
Verified User
Hypocrite Howey is some funny little leftist hypocrite, huh? First he bemoans conspiracy theorist then post a fucking conspiracy theory of his own.
Hey Hypocrite Howey, why don’t you try posting some fucking actual evidence for a change?????
I already did. Now prove to me it wasn't. How about showing us the petition that was signed?
Except I didn't post a conspiracy. The guy is an admitted falsifier of audio recordings. There's nothing conspirational about that, is there Grumps?
Robo
Verified User
Well moron, if an issue makes the ballot that I oppose it will have to make the ballot without my aid and comfort because I don’t compromise my principles like moron Democrats do. I take that back! I forgot that Democrats have NO principles!!!
tekkychick
New member
Actually, that's a pretty high level of democracy to say "Gee, I don't agree with you, but I agree you have the right to have it voted on". I'm sure sure *I* would do that, but that's pretty amazing that evince does it.
tekkychick
New member
Do we have to do this YET AGAIN??? You cannot vote away someone's constitutional rights. Period.
cawacko
Well-known member
I sure as heck wouldn't do it. You live in California you know how messed up our initiative process is and what it has done to the state. I'm certainly not going to contribute to it more if it's something I don't believe in. I don't want to see hundreds on initiatives on the ballot when many are things our legislature should be handling themselves.
It's a free country so Desh can sign whatever she pleases. I wouldn't do it but to each his own.
evince
Truthmatters
It blowns the right wing people away when I do it.
It fun as hell to see their faces
cawacko
Well-known member
To see you do what?
tekkychick
New member
Cawacko, I agree we have too many initiatives on the ballot and that has not helped our state.
And I won't sign something I don't agree with.
But I admire Desh for looking beyond the issue and to the right of the petitioners to be judged by the voters.
But yeah, we need fewer, not more initiatives....
And I won't sign something I don't agree with.
But I admire Desh for looking beyond the issue and to the right of the petitioners to be judged by the voters.
But yeah, we need fewer, not more initiatives....
cawacko
Well-known member
Thought you might appreciate this column that was in the SF Chronicle on the history of the ballot initiative process.
Century of California ballot dysfunction
Why is California so hard to govern? One reason is that we're suffering from daddy issues, and this Father's Day is as good a time as any to confront them.
The daddy in question is Grove Johnson, father of one of our most revered governors, Hiram Johnson, who served from 1911 to 1917. Johnson was the governor who persuaded Californians to adopt the ballot initiative process in 1911. Many of us revere that process, but it has its problems. And we never address those problems, because our media keep repeating a bogus story:
A century ago, the noble and sainted Hiram Johnson created the initiative process to give the people of California the power to fight the railroad and other powerful interests. But over a century, we Californians - and especially our special interests and rich people - have corrupted the people's process into something Johnson never intended.
This tale is bunk, for two reasons. First, the problems of today's initiative process (big money, interest-group domination and public confusion) were present - and much rued - from the very beginning. Second, the biggest flaw of the initiative process - the flaw that makes California so hard to govern today - is not the fault of today's Californians. It was introduced by Johnson himself.
Yes, Johnson sabotaged the initiative process. But how - and why? The answer lies in the story of a toxic relationship between father and son.
Hiram's father, Grove, was a politician who always took the side of the machine. He was dogged throughout his career by charges of corruption. (During the Civil War, Grove had to flee Syracuse to escape charges related to financial fraud.) His son Hiram was born in Sacramento in 1866. They battled through Hiram's childhood (son found father overbearing) and into adulthood, when Hiram worked for reformist candidates in Sacramento city elections and his dad, who served in Congress and the Legislature, backed the establishment.
Things got so bad in 1902 that Hiram and a brother broke up the family law practice and left for San Francisco. There, Hiram became a celebrated attorney and emerged as a leading contender for governor in 1910. But one of his biggest political problems was his dad.
Hiram was running for governor as an anti-railroad, anti-corruption candidate. Grove was a state legislator who defended the railroad at every turn and made little secret of his opposition to the election of his son. Hiram was attacked from two sides. One set of enemies were his father's allies, who said that the opposition of Grove, who would know the shortcomings his son, was decisive. Another set of enemies were the Grove-haters, who suggested that Grove's opposition was a ruse and that Hiram was a phony reformer who was just as corrupt as his dad.
When Hiram was elected governor, he moved to within blocks of his father's home in Sacramento - but the two did not see each other. In a December 1912 letter to his father, Hiram accused Grove of "a hatred the parallel of which we have never seen in sane human beings." A 1915 birthday telegram from father to son, an attempt at peace, read: "I am still lambasting your policies but glorying in your ability to put them into effect."
As with so many fathers and sons who quarrel, the real problem was that the men were alike in too many ways.
Hiram's biographer Richard Coke Lower wrote that Hiram Johnson "shared with his father not only a fighter's determination and an eagerness to personalize political contests and call into question the character of his foes, but also a jealous nature, a mercurial temperament, petulance, insensitivity to others, and self-absorption in any campaign he waged."
That petulance and personalization defined Johnson's creation of the initiative. Every other U.S. state that adopted the process before 1911, and every state and every single country on Earth that has adopted it since, has created an initiative with certain checks and balances. Specifically, legislative bodies have been empowered to fix or amend laws passed by initiative.
But not California.
Johnson's initiative process made plain that once the people had made law at the ballot box, such laws could not be changed except by another vote of the people. That's one reason California is so hard to govern. Once the voters have done something, undoing it is extraordinarily difficult.
This was intentional. Hiram did not trust politicians backed by powerful interest groups - people like his father - to have any role in the initiative process. Indeed, they were to be cut out of the process all together, just as Hiram had cut his father out of his life.
One result: We are governed by ghosts. The errors and decisions of voters long dead linger in statutes unamended for decades, creating all sorts of unintended consequences.
It's why, to name just one small example, California can't make big changes to its 1922 ballot initiative authorizing chiropractors without another ballot measure.
As he left the governorship for the U.S. Senate in 1917, Hiram Johnson made wary peace with his father.
But their rift remains embodied in the state Constitution and in our initiative process. On Father's Day, we should take careful note of the real history of the initiative and recognize that, after 100 years, we owe ourselves a reconciliation.
Syndicated by Zocalo Public Square
evince
Truthmatters
cawacko
Well-known member
No, I didn't understand the point you were making or what you were referencing.
When I saw this thread, I just had to look - sort of like when you see a traffic accident.
I voted for Obama, so if I decided to start a petition to allow space aliens US citizenship or if someone that voted for (whatever that other guy's name is) decided to start a petition to secede from the union, will someone else start a forum thread making it sound like the people we voted for are somehow at fault for what WE do? In today's world - probably. But somebody/everybody really should apply a little critical thinking and point out how stupid it is to try to actually listen and believe such stories.
Now, if anyone wanted to say, "Joe Blow, who voted for Madam X for president, started a petition to burn down the White House" AND if it were true, then that would be a valid story. At least it wouldn't imply Madam X agreed with him.
I voted for Obama, so if I decided to start a petition to allow space aliens US citizenship or if someone that voted for (whatever that other guy's name is) decided to start a petition to secede from the union, will someone else start a forum thread making it sound like the people we voted for are somehow at fault for what WE do? In today's world - probably. But somebody/everybody really should apply a little critical thinking and point out how stupid it is to try to actually listen and believe such stories.
Now, if anyone wanted to say, "Joe Blow, who voted for Madam X for president, started a petition to burn down the White House" AND if it were true, then that would be a valid story. At least it wouldn't imply Madam X agreed with him.
tekkychick
New member
Cawacko, thanks for the article - this part sure shows the problem!
tekkychick
New member
Actually, Red Mule, this thread is pretty good! after the initial bs, evince, cawacko & I are having a good discussion.
evince
Truthmatters
when people approach me with a petition I nearly always sign it.
I believe in the voter getting their vote on an issue that people are up enough about to stand around and ask people to sign a petition.
I have told the people as I sign it that I don't like the idea and will vote against it but am willing to help them put it to the voters.
That my friend is because I LOVE democracy.
what doe the right think of democracy?
they fucking try to claim we are not even a democracy
cawacko
Well-known member
To my understanding many of the people gathering signatures are paid by the number of signatures they can get so them it's about the money they can make not the principle of the idea (it's possible they do support the idea to but money is what most are after). So it's possible to looks on the faces of people you sign for are more of a 'hey lady, why are you lecturing me as I just want your signature I don't care about the issue.'
Desh, I've never understood your almost obsession with your we are a democracy not a constitutional republic argument.