> You know, it's always nice to run into a guy who
> shares the same critical opinions of stupid
> policies. By the way, if you haven't already,
> vote no on propositions 21 and 22.

You should know that those are California-only initiatives (and to my understanding we are one of the few states to have the idiotic initiative system). So Howard can't vote no on them..

> Basically what I'm trying to say is that
> it disgusts me that such a proposition would even
> be pushed as far as being written up, and the fact
> that it even became a proposition instead of being
> shredded and forgetten about really gets to me.
>
> Finchplucker, going off on tangents again......
>

There is pretty much no such thing as a good proposition. The reason is simple: the way our government is set up, laws are created by a legislature. The public does not get to vote for laws. The initiative system in California was brought about by a Progressive-controlled Legislature in 1911 due to the fact that before that our state legislature was completely corrupt. The reasoning behind them is that it gives the public a way to get around a corrupt legislature (for those that don't know, anyone who can get a certain number of signatures can get an initiative put on the ballot to be voted into law by the public).

The problem with the system is that 1) we got rid of our corrupt legislature in 1911 when we made the stupid law, and 2) no citizen has any chance of ever getting the number of signatures needed. It takes roughly 10 million registered voters to sign a petition to get it on the ballot. That's a lot of signatures. If you're a citizen and want a law passed, you're better off talking to your local Assemblyman, and using the system the way it's intended to.

The people that use the initiative system are large corporations or crazies with an agenda that bring about a concept so nuts no legislator will touch it. They hire a firm to get the number of signatures (there are two in Orange County that do nothing but this and charge about $1 per sig), and they've got a nutso thing for us to vote on. An interesting result is that virtually none of these ever pass. In the 89 years that we've had this system, something like 23 have passed. Of those, I think only 5 have not been later overturned. It's obviously a broken system, and we should probably get of rid of it (but we never will). The real solution to the problem is to just not get corrupt legislatures.

Ste "At least voting on props is easy: just check no on all of them" phen