It’s Monday, January 31, 2011 and my my truck was clean for almost 2 days.
I wonder. I wonder how complete crackpots and idiots get elected to anything.
According to Viginia Congressman Jim Moran, his party’s losses last November are largely due to voters who “don’t want to be governed by an African-American.”
Really? I consider myself to be a fairly well-informed and observant voter, so you can imagine my surprise to find that A) Obama was on the ballot and I somehow missed it and B) there was something on the ballot about the president being black.
I really need to start paying more attention when I vote.
But it’s not just in DC that we got people calling racism on everything.
Montana state representative Carolyn Pease-Lopez is playing the race card too.
Apparently, a bill to allow voting by mail is racist against Indians. Pease-Lopez told a group of republican lawmakers “I feel so much hatred from your caucus. I feel like if it was up to you, we’d all be dead! But we’re going to keep having babies and continue to live and thrive … no matter how much you try to oppress us.”
Is that some kind of Jedi power? She can feel their hatred? She can tell they wish her and her kind all dead? I knew Pease-Lopez from back when she was at Rocky Mountain College, so I can’t say I’m at all surprised by her outburst.
The Gazoo article is sketchy at best, which also doesn’t surprise me, but near as I can tell, the republicans opposed part of the bill that would have created a special outreach program for Indians and college students. It sounds to me like the republicans saw yet another government bureaucracy in the making and moved to kill it. Yeah, that’s some oppression you got there, Carolyn.
Come on! Do Indians really need a special outreach program to help them vote by mail? I’ve voted by mail a few times now and while I’m opposed to it in its entirety, I didn’t find it in any way difficult. You have to put your ballot into one envelop, then into another, but this wasn’t prohibitively complex. Oh, and you had to affix a postage stamp to it. Again, not a terribly arduous undertaking.
From what I gather, Indians don’t stay in one place for very long. They move back and forth, on and off the reservation, sometimes several times during a year. Given just that, it would probably make sense that we’d need some way to hunt these people down and get their ballot to them.
Except for two things.
First, the US Postal Service has this thing called a “Change of Address Form.” I know it works, because I’ve used it. It’s not tricky at all. You fill it out with your previous and then new address and the post office will stop delivering your mail to your old address and automatically forward it to your new one. Works like a charm and there’s no “special outreach” needed.
Secondly, voting isn’t merely a right. It’s not just a privilege. It’s an obligation, a duty incumbent upon every citizen of this land. Why is is then necessary to seek people out to get them their ballots? If you want to vote by mail, it’s not at all difficult to obtain and absentee ballot. If you’re illegible to vote, it’s not difficult to register and show up at your polling place on the designated date. Again, if you can’t do this, absentee ballots are a snap to get.
No, Carolyn, I don’t wish you and your people were dead. I wish however that some people would get up off their asses and do their duty where voting is concerned. No one should be sought out in order to get their vote. Hell’s bells, people in Iraq braved gunfire and terrorist bombs to cast their votes.
People like Pease-Lopez and Moran just plain disgust me. If you go around looking for ways to be offended, you will find them. Calling something like this racism is a craven attempt to further an agenda that lacks substance otherwise. Calling this “racism” diminishes the significance of genuine instances of racism in ways I can’t begin to describe.
But that’s the way it is, isn’t it? Repeat the same lie enough times and it’ll eventually be believed.
That’s it for today. Have a pleasant and productive Monday. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for another ripping yarn from my past.