Mentally impaired voters, stem-cell research, and medical marijuana
November 4th, 2008I already voiced my opinion on unintelligent voters in a half-joking way. That opinion really hit home for me today as I stood in line behind a mentally challenged voter. At first I didn’t realize she had a condition. She looked about 18 or 20 and seemed to have bed-head, and was waddling around after someone I assume was her father or brother in an overly clingy way, but what do I know, maybe she’s not a morning person.
I overhear her ask the guy what Proposal 1 is. He says he doesn’t know, all he hears about is Proposal 2 (embryo research) but he hasn’t heard about Proposal 1. Being the good samaritan I am I chime in “Proposal 1 is for Medical Marijuana”. She glances back and forth from me to the guy she’s with and says “What’s medical mari-na-na?” at which point I notice she’s a little cross-eyed and vacant. Medical mari-na-na? That’s just cute any way you look at it and I can’t help smiling at her. She gushes to the guy “he smiled at me!”.
This is where it gets very ugly. Don’t get me wrong, this is a cute kid and it brightened my day to run into her, she even offered me a (very carefully explained) piece of candy later. I don’t just hate slow kids or anything, I would have loved to sit her down and carefully explain what medical marijuana is so she could make an informed vote. No the scary part was this guys answer to her question (”What’s medical mari-na-na?”). “No!” he barked. “Say no on both…” (Proposal 1 and Proposal 2).
That is unthinkable in my book. He’s just telling her how to vote, and she’s doing it, even though she has absolutely no idea what medical marijuana is. This totally reinforces my offhand remark about requiring an IQ test to vote. Even when someone is borderline and could make an informed decision if things were carefully explained to them, we can’t trust their caregivers to explain anything carefully to them. Instead he just drags her around so he gets to vote twice.
At first I was a little pissed that the girl ahead of me “cancelled out” my vote with hers on Proposal 1, when she didn’t even know what it was. I prefer to look on the bright side however, and realize I cancelled out HER vote on Proposal 1. Yay me!
Also newsworthy is the typical crazy-old-homeless-guy I saw on the way out squawking “I voted” maniacally, over-and-over, to everyone he saw while shaking and wobbling. Wtf man. Why even have a vote?
Now I’ve said my peice on “special” voters, but this also got me thinking about Proposal 1 and Proposal 2.
Proposal 1 is a no-brainer in my book, and I am greatly saddened to think that anyone is against it. The only ad I’ve seen running about it features a store-front with the logo “Canabis Company” and a ton of smoke literally rolling out of the door. A voice over tells you that after California adopted the use of medical marijuana “clubs” like this started popping up in strip-malls, where “they” grow it, sell it, and smoke it, just blocks away from schools. The obvious implication is that it’s just an “excuse” to get high, and that kids could breeze through and pick up a bag of weed on the way to school. The bias knee-jerking and conditioning here simply astounds me.
First off, you need a prescription to get medical marijuana. Not just an easily forged doctors note, but a document issued by the state (like a drivers license) that shows you have the right to buy and use it. It is policed far more than alchohol, and there is absolutely no way a kid is going to walk into one of these “clubs” on the way to school and walk out with weed…
Besides how strongly it is monitored and enforced, a perscription serves another purpose which I would think should be the bottom line. A DOCTOR thinks it is appropriate for that patient. A medical doctor, having taken a hypocratic oath, with his whole career on the line, perscribed it with a straight face. If you think there is some kind of conspiracy involving stoner-doctors, you are an idiot.
About the portrayal of these places as hives or nests for drug users. Think about it. If it’s available, surely there is a place to get it. They set up their own state regulated facilities so you don’t have to see it flying around your local pharmacy, and of course they provide you a place to smoke it which is just courteous if you think about it. What would the alternative be? You want people filling up their homes with the smoke? Smoking it around their kids, or in public? Maybe next to you on the bus?
The government has done such a fabulous job with their propaganda that most old and out-of-touch people simply think it’s “drugs” and “always bad”. People in extreme chronic pain are forced to simply live with it because there are people in the world dumb enough to think a doctor prescribing a drug to someone is just a facade, and all these scientists are part of a conspiracy to legalize “getting high”. People are so very stupid I should be allowed to shoot them…
Propsal 2 is a whole other can of worms. Frankly if you are for or against this it’s your call. Unlike Proposal 1, I think either way is valid and neither makes you automatically stupid. I do take particular issue with the way it’s being spun however. 90% of comercials I’ve seen say it will cost us in raised taxes. The same comercials usually reference right in the comercial that “they” say it won’t cost us, but “they” are lying…
Without doing any research on the subject at all, I know spin-doctoring when I see it.
You don’t point out in an ANTI Proposal 2 ad that as written it’s free, and then imply that “but maybe it’s not” unless it really doesn’t have a built in cost. That’s hurting your own point. No reason to say it unless it’s true and saying the opposite would be illegal. One ad even went so far as to take a quote where someone said it “should be publicly funded” and compare that to the statement that it’s no cost, as proof that it’s “bull”. Of course the words “should be” quickly disappeared so you were only looking at “publicly funded” and not the fact that it was an opinion.
I think at the end of the day, the only reason you would launch an entire anti-prop2 campaign based on a hypothetical (”maybe” there is a cost) is because it’s much less convincing to say “Vote no on proposal 2, because my priest says so”.
Vote however you want man, just don’t give me your shitty logic.
“Proposal 2 is free, but,, IS IT REALLY? *dramatic music*”
The answer is probably “yes” or they wouldn’t be telling us facts about it’s freeness, and opinions about it’s expense (in a ANTI-prop2 ad no less). I don’t evenhave to research this. The anti-prop2ads have for me if you posess critical thinking skills and can read between the lines.