Bleeding heart Spork

I worked eleven hours today and I am still not caught up. I am less behind, so that is something. Anyway, some of the ecstasy of finishing the first draft has been worn off, but then it comes back to me. Still, I am feeling a little more serious now, so it seemed natural to turn to politics.

I voted last week, the same day the ballot came. It was just such a beautiful thing to only have two measures, and I already knew what they were about and what I was going to do and I could just go for it. With regard to signature gatherers, I know a lot of people feel like why not sign? Just put it before the people and let them decide. I disagree.

It is not merely that people are often stupid, greedy, and shortsighted (though when you work in customer service, the stupid part keeps coming back to haunt you). I understand that human frailty is just a part of democracy. However, when you have twenty-eight ballot measures plus candidates, it is really hard to put in enough time to understand each issue and make good decisions. If the issue on the petition looks at all evil, stupid, or unnecessary, I don’t sign, and I feel good about that.

For this election we have two distinct ballot measures with strong opinions on either side, and I like the clarity. No one should be terribly surprised that I voted yes on both, but I will go over my reasons.

I think of Measure 49 as an attempt to establish some middle ground between the extremes of Measure 37. Granted, the people who wanted 37 passed are for the most part disagreeing that 49 will help them at all, but I believe that it can. First off, one thing that 37 did not take into account was that allowing one person to develop the full value of their land could reduce the value of their neighbor’s land, leading to an endless cycle of law suits. That would not be good.

Secondly, the opponents are being pretty disingenuous. There are elderly couples saying they will lose everything if 49 passes. No, you will still have your land, and I bet you can still sell it for significantly more than you paid forty years ago. There is no inherent right to become wealthy from land sales. For the ones saying that yes, they filed to build 115 homes, but they are only going to build 3, rii-iiiight. Okay, you are not lying, you were just advised to file for the maximum amount. That makes me feel so much better.

We have some amazing land in the Willamette Valley—fertile and beautiful. Once you pave it over, you can’t get that back. As oil prices continue to rise, increasing the cost of transporting everything, we are going to be increasingly grateful that we have agriculture nearby. As for the concerns about water supply, that is only going to become more of a concern in the future. This is something worth protecting.

For Measure 50, okay, I know the stereotype that a liberal never meets a tax that he doesn’t like, and that it is totally cliché to hate the tobacco industries just because they make a product that is addictive and fatal, and they market it to kids and teenagers because hey, very few people make it to adulthood without smoking and suddenly decide to start so you need to get them young, and that’s not evil—that’s just capitalism.

That being said, I think there are some very good points in favor of 50, not the least of which is that it will act as a deterrent to youth smoking because one of the things that really has an impact (and that you can control) is cost. I guess it was a cute idea to have the tobacco industry fund anti-smoking ads for youth, but oddly enough, their ads make me want to smoke (perhaps their heart wasn’t really in it), so we will have to look for other deterrents.

The arguments against it are that it is writing a tax into the constitution, and that it is not fair or sensible to put the cost of children’s health care on smokers. Well, I would totally have been for the expansion of SCHIP, or probably even for socialized health care (that’s a more complicated topic), but this is what we have to work with, and it still makes sense. Smoking has a deleterious effect on the health of the general population, so putting the tax here provides some recompense. If the extra expense encourages some people to quit smoking—great, there won’t need to be as much health funding. It isn’t just the smokers. There is second-hand smoke too.

For the constitution part, okay, the Oregon constitution is not quite the sacred document that the United States Constitution is, nor should it be. Not only is there a long history of putting various things in there, it is absolutely necessary now. Our gutless state legislature won’t do it. The Oregonian charted it all out a while back that you can’t even get your issue on the main floor for a vote if you are not a political contributor. They ought to raise some of the alcohol taxes too, actually, because they are ridiculously low, and alcohol will see tobacco’s health problems and raise it traffic problems and domestic problems. But you know what industries donate a lot of political money? The Oregon initiative process isn’t perfect, but it is necessary, especially now.

Anyway, that’s how I voted and why. Now I have six minutes left to post and still have it count as today. See you tomorrow.