FredHayek wrote: A smart man once told me on amendments that you should only vote yes if you really, really want it to pass and doubt the legislature would pass the measure.
That's good advice too. I always think about unintended consequences and what are in the details, so you need to read a lot first. It's a lot of work for a voter to do it right.
For example, what if I don't agree with the revenue side and mandating that the money be spent in a specific way. If this raises revenue, lets cut the general sales tax rate, or income tax rate to offset.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
One example I like is an amendment that will give more money to Parks with a lottery or something similar. Next legislature session, they cut the funding to Parks because of this new uncertain income stream so the Parks might actually get less money.
One example of this was higher tobacco taxes which actually cut tax receipts.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
RenegadeCJ wrote: Actually, that is more like Libertarian...something that very few Americans are willing to put the effort into. It is interesting that a lot of Liberals I know (in fact, I think all of them) support freedom to do whatever drugs they want...but that is the only freedom they support. They want govt involved in every other facet of their lives.
.....I don't, yet you could hardly call me a conservative. However, isn't it the Republican platform that wants to regulate a woman's right to choose what is best for her? or what a woman can do about a pregnancy that is caused by rape or incest? or decide who a person can marry and who they can't? Isn't that gov't involved in the most intimate facet of our lives?
The language you choose to define the argument isn't, by default, the definition of the argument archer. While I am sure that a "progressive" desires to define regulations regarding access to abortions solely as a woman's rights issue, there is another view which says that it is a human rights issue regarding one's right to life, which is one of the fundamental individual liberties that government is instituted to protect.
Marriage, from the perspective of the government, is a legal attachment, not a spiritual or religious one. In this I am in agreement with Renegade. Government should adopt a more proper definition of what it does and abandon the use of the term marriage in the licenses it issues. Anyone can, and should, be able to form civilly recognized legal contract between them with regards to their assets and progeny.
Whether you want to admit it or not, both sides are seeking to have the government define what a marriage is and that isn't something that falls within the proper role of the government in the lives of the citizens governed by it. Marriage is much more than a legal union, it is an emotional and spiritual bond between the people involved. I'm sorry, but government has no role in these areas and I would guess that you feel the same way. It is not for me to decide whether or not that emotional and spiritual bond exists between two people, nor is it proper for the government to render a decision about the existence of these bonds.
The sole reason to vote for 64 is to set up a fight between the rights of the citizens of the States to institute a government in their State that they feel is most likely to effect their happiness and the federal government that has usurped that power from them. It is high time to put an end to the federal usurpation of power that rightfully belongs to the States regarding the day to day lives of its citizens and this is as good of a place to start as any, with the hope of broadening the effort to eventually include all of the power that the federal government has consolidated into itself by various means over the course of the last century or so that was never delegated to it.
