Election 2008: Aftermath
I actually voted this year for the first time. Was it worth it? I dunno; define "worth." On the one hand, my vote was absolutely and completely irrelevant. On the other hand, it was also free. So I would say voting was worth exactly as much as it cost.
For every office on the ballot, I voted Libertarian if possible, and Republican if not, with one position that I wrote-in my brother for — the state ended up going Democratic in every single slot, as expected. I voted against the final tally on two out of three ballot questions — we still have state income tax, which I voted against (only a churl would suggest that perhaps the money collected by the state income tax was used to campaign in favour of maintaining it), and we banned dog racing for no particular reason, which I also voted against. On the other hand, we decriminalised marijuana, which I am overwhelmingly in favour of — I’ve never smoked pot in my life and have no plans to do so, but, seriously, it is completely fucking absurd to send people to jail for it. I’m not a big fan of civil penalties and would rather it were completely legal, but, hey, baby steps. Civil offense is better than criminal offense, and it’s a step toward finally ending the stupid war on drugs.
We also had a non-binding referendum to declare health insurance a "human right." That’s completely fucking insane, but I’m sure it passed; I haven’t actually checked, of course, because "non-binding referendum" is functionally equivalent to "meaningless box to tick."
All in all, this election season was an overwhelming win for the forces of goodness and justice if only because Hillary Clinton is not president-elect. That’s worth the price of admission right there.
We did in fact pass that non-binding question, for all the good it will do. I hated it because of its annoying two-parted-ness: the first bit about health insurance being a “right” was bullshit, but the second bit about opposing penalties for not carrying health insurance (since I do not, and will probably actually have to pay the penalty this year) was not. Unfortunately they don’t let you vote for just half of the question. But of course none of that matters because we *knew* it was going to pass and passing it doesn’t mean a damn thing anyhow.
Comment by Ama | 6 November 2008