Ballot Initiatives

While we're on the subject of ballot initiatives, I want to state that my hate for T. Boone Pickens is boundless.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't think it's any worse for a Religious group to oppose a measure than for any other group to lobby in favour of it. To criticize a church for voicing it's position while allowing other, non religious groups to voice their position because it's a church is hypoctirical.

I've been following releases from the Church on Prop 8, and they say nothing about marriage equality, but the sacred nature of Marriage. The Church believes that Gay Rights can be satisfied without requiring that marriage be extended to gays and lesbians. But then again, Gays are told that they can't marry those of the same gender, and the Mormons were told that they are limited to one wife. The same law applies equally.

You forget that many Catholics would listen to the Vatican, who used very strong language to denounce politicians in Canada who supported Same Sex Marriage. Would that make up a difference?

WEll said! And I fear that when we, the religious try to stand up for our rights, we'll be shouted down as hatemongers...

But the article cited specific demographics that supported Obama and Prop 8.

Who is he?

 

You can challenge an amendment to a constitution in court. For example, what if there was a ballot initiative that said whether gays should be allowed to get drivers licenses? And what if a majority of people thought they shouldn't be allowed to get drivers licenses? You would say "tough luck" and conclude that gays would have no legal recourse?

One of the basic principles of a democratic government is that the rights of a minority cannot be taken away by the voice of the majority.

That appears to be true for gay marriage, although I don't think we have enough information to determine whether or not it is true for abortion. Since evangelical chirstians (ECs) do not represent a majority in either California or South Dakota, there's no way an initiative would pass if it was only the ECs who lent thier voice to it. So the ban on gay marriage had to have support from more than just the ECs, and it therefore stands to reason that there's a lot more than just ECs behind this measure.

However, the initiative that would restrict access to an abortion in South Dakota failed. Since a majority of South Dakotans were against this measure, I cannot see evidence to support the notion that there are a lot of people beyond ECs to be against access to an abortion. In fact, there's not even enough evidence to say that ECs are against it.

The only problem with arguing that point from a historical perspective is that you can use that reasoning to argue against anything that has changed throughout our nation's history. For example, you could say that when the initial voting laws were written, there wasn't even the possibility that those laws would apply to blacks or women.

The article cited which demographic groups supported passage of Prop 8, some of which did support Obama (such as blacks), and others which did not support Obama (such as senior citizens). However, that wasn't my entire point. I was simply observing that since both Obama and the ban on gay marriage both won significant majoirities in the voting booth, that there had to be a decent amount of overlap in Obama supporters and those who supported banning gay marriage. Both measures could not have passed otherwise. I then applied the same logic to the proposition in South Dakota. Since both McCain and not restricting abortion won significant majorities in the voting booth, there had to be a decent amount of overlap between McCain supporters and those who thought we should not restrict access to an abortion.

He is an oil tycoon, who has recently paid for a bunch of TV commercials that push for America to end its dependence on foreign oil by switching over to wind power. It may seem strange to you that an oil tycoon would be out there pimping wind power. However, Mr. Pickens has bought a significant amount of land in wind corridors in the plains states, and is seeking to build windmill farms out there. So he's not just advocating green energy and energy independence out of the goodness of his heart - he also stands to make a whole lot of money out of it.

What I cannot answer is why AMaster had boundless hatred from him. To my knowledge, the only place where a ballot initiative for more green energy passed was in Missouri, and I was not aware that Pickens had any role in its passage.

 

Pickens bankrolled the notorious "Swiftboat" ads that ran during the 2004 election. Afterwards, he challenged anyone to prove that they were anything less than he claimed, and put up 1 Million dollars to anyone who could prove that the ads were "less than truthful." Kerry accepted the challenge despite all kinds of additional information that Pickens demanded from Kerry, like all his records from the military and all sorts of tapes and films of about Kerry's service in Vietnam. Nevertherless, Kerry and a group (which I can't remember) accepted, turned over all the documets which proved inaccuracies in the Swiftboat ads. After all that, Pickens claimed that he was not convinced that Kerry had disproved them and kept his money. The guy is less than honest.

 

He attempted to use ballot initiatives to make my state give his company billions of dollars for nothing of use. He didn't succeed, but that doesn't keep me from hating him.

 

Aldeth, actually, the idea of a democratic society is that the majority rules. Luckily, we live in a republic, not a democracy (well, a democratic republic, but a republic anyway). Here, there are rules set up for how rules can be changed. Everything was within the rules so far, but I'm uncertain of these court cases. From what I've heard, they seem to be indicating that this is too drastic of a constitutional change to be done without the legislature. As I understand it, there is a system in the state constitution for drastic changes that require the legislature to approve it, but it was intended for things like major re-writes, not for simple definition additions.

As for the positions on abortion issues, there are groups all across the board that oppose abortions, including women's groups. The only thing you can claim from these ballot initative failures (without in-depth statistics that I don't have) is that there were more in favor of abortions, or in favor of doing nothing, or simply in favor of denying this form of the initiative, than in favor of supporting it. That says very little about what groups took what sides.

 

We live in a representive democracy, or sometimes known as a liberal democracy. But you are right that it is not a direct democracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

 

Ok, Chandos, Wikipedia seems to clasify the US (and about any non-monarchy) in multiple categories at once. We are (according to them) a representative democracy and a federal republic. They seem to believe that a 'democratic republic' is a propaganda term because most of the "Democratic Republic of"s in the past 100 years have been blatantly communist and not democratic at all. If you actually look at the meanings of the terms, though, we are a ... representative democratic federal republic?

That's a long name.

 

Only when it comes to our elected officials. This is a legislative action - something that is usually done by... well the state legislature. If you take a look through the Bill of Rights, those are rights guaranteed to all and not to be taken away by a majority vote, or the legislature or anyone. Would it be OK if a state decided to add to it's constitution an amendment that banned the practice of Islam within its borders? You know there are some states in the deep South where this measure would pass. Should the majority rule in that instance too?

Oh, I definitely agree with that. If you are trying to change the constitution, this is the way to do it. When I questioned the legality of what was taking place it was from the perspective that civil rights may be violated with this change. I was not suggesting that the procedure itself was illegal in any way.

You're pretty much spot on here too. Simple changes to the state's constitution can be done by straight ballot initiatives. Significant changes need a super-majority of the state's legislature to approve it before it ever gets the ballot (it's either a 2/3 or 3/4 majority - I don't remember which off hand).

The gay marriage ban was done as a ballot initiative indicating that it was considered a simple change by the legislature. It is being challenged that it was in fact a major change and therefore it didn't follow all the rules, as it should have been up for a vote in the state legislature first. I do not know whether or not the gay marriage ban should or should not be considered a major change, since the state's constitution is rather vague on what is a simple and what is a major change. That is the precise reason why this issue is almost certain to see its day in court. It's not a simple open and shut case because there is no strict definition in the constitution of simple versus major change.

I mostly agree - although it seems like an obvious and elementary point that you are making there. The only thing I would add to your statement is that all states conduct exit polling (much like The Great Snook cited earlier). Exit polling attempts (usually successfully) to give you a representative sample of which groups took which sides, and it does not require in-depth knowledge of statistics to understand.

 

There is so much out there about this subject. I'm all against bailout banks and individuals who believe they could cheat the system; many of them will thanks to us hard working tax payers.

If the article I read was true $25 billion of the $700 billion provided by the US government will be used to pay, yes pay, bonuses to the executives of these various companies. These bonuses were deferred over the last 2 or 3 years when the company was making good money. I'm against this as these executives are partly responsible for the mess the economy is in today and should pay for it by not receiving a dime from their deferred bonuses.