Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

How We Vote on the Questions

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  1. but am not a MA voter so can;t be put in the grid.  But fwiw, I’m a N-Y-Y sympathizer.

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    p>The big items on the WA ballot (in my view, anyway) are a new mass transit expansion package and the Death with Dignity initiative.  I voted YES on both.

  2. It looks like all the cool kids are voting “NYY”.

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    p>Are you sure the rest of you don’t want to change your minds? C’mon…everybody is doin’ it! It’ll make you feel good. It will make you look more sophisticated.  

  3. I’m concerned, as a public high school teacher, about the implications of Question 2.  I’ve been deluged with mail from local law enforcement as well as other educators arguing that Question 2 poses a problem in public high schools, and I tend to agree.  I don’t think a YES vote on Question 2 is the way to address the criminalization issue, and I say that as  formal correctional educator who has seen far too many young (and older) men wastefully incarcerated with lengthy sentences for marijuana offenses.  (As a personal aside, one of the high points of my teaching career was  the day a developmentally disabled middle-aged man serving a 20-year MANDATORY sentence for pot-related offenses passed [after three tries] his GED under my tutelage.)  I think the marijuana laws in this state need reform, but I’m not sure the mob is the right place to start.  

    • How question 2 poses a problem in public high schools.  Considering that DAs are swearing up and down that nobody is arrested only for violating marijuana possession laws, we’d be dealing with kids already doing other mistakes.

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      p>Frankly, if cops enforce a fine more assertively than they are enforcing the criminal ban — which they possibly would — that would have a bigger impact on marijuana usage.  What’s scarier to you: a law that nobody ever applies, or a $150 fine that is often levied?

    • I agree that the current laws regulating marijuana are entirely disproportionate to the “crime,” and I’m curious what kinds of reform lightiris would suggest instead. I’ve heard a lot (not least from the DAs) concerning the supposed threats of passing question 2, and so I’m curious to hear more specifics of what opponents think will come to pass.

  4. PP, aren’t you employed by the state? If Q1 were to pass, aren’t you afraid that would have potential severe implications for your employment and the employment of your colleagues?

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    p>Just wonderin’.  

    • Can’t speak for PP, but sentiment among some is perhaps that if Beacon Hill wouldn’t honor the plausible move of lowering tax to 5%, they certainly wouldn’t actually honor a referendum eliminating income tax.  

      • who when asked by WUML what the first thing she would cut from the state budget said “The tax rollback”  her first cut would be a tax increase.  Do you guys see why we feel we can’t trust progressives with our money.  Y’all seem to just want more and more of it.  

          • Democrats have more credibility, for now, on this issue that Republicans.

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            p>But that is damning with faint praise, and it won’t take much for that situation to reverse itself.

        • … as always…

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          p>

          who when asked by WUML what the first thing she would cut from the state budget said “The tax rollback”  her first cut would be a tax increase.  Do you guys see why we feel we can’t trust progressives with our money.  Y’all seem to just want more and more of it.  

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          p>When you take something away, and then put it back… You don’t have “more”…

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          p>… you have the same amount.  

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          p>This is both an sterling example of elementary algebra and good reason to make certain we adequately fund public schools…

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          p>…sigh.  

            • *[new] No we’ve rolled back from 5.95 to 5.3 % (0.00 / 0)

              she wants to go back to the 5.95% that’s a tax increase.

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              p>But then roll that back to say they’re willfully being stupid…

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              p>But then go back to saying they’re merely an idiot… has their intelligence increased?

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              p>

      • Yes Yankees are Yucky

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        p>Ill admit its not as good as No New York Yankees but its also the right way to vote đŸ˜‰

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        p>And also one of the big reasons why Im voting yes on 1 is because even though Im doubtful it will pass or even be enforced if it is, maybe, just maybe my protest vote will empower the leg to actually face down the public service unions and cut spending, though Im doubtful 1 will pass since fear campaigns typically win out over reason, and if it does Im doubtful the leg will enforce it, and even if they enforce it Im sure they’ll save the fat instead of the meat, intentionally cut schools and healthcare and then blame it on the “selfish voters” who voted yes on 1. Anyway its a shot in the dark for fiscal sanity, but unless the progressive wing starts throwing out the pork addicted DINOs (unlikely seeing that every major prog from Patrick to Wolfe to Tolman sucks up to Lord Sal) OR until a fiscally conservative socially moderate GOP becomes a viable alternative in the leg (also unlikely, Brown, their likely gov nominee is a theocrat and the rest of their party is a joke) its the only tool we humble voters have to send a message though I have the utmost respect for those that disagreed on this one and honestly wrestled with this question for days myself before finally sending in my absentee ballot.

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        p>Also I think Yes on 2 and 3 are just simply sensible votes for true liberals to make. A liberal society should allow its citizens to make free choices regarding their bodies, we already have legalized things that are far more harmful than pot like alcohol, cigarettes, gambling (the lottery at least), abortion, sex change operations, body piercing and tatoos (very easy ways to spread HIV and other infections), and our state taxes and profits off of things that harm its citizens so why not make money off of fines instead of wasting it on incarcerating non violent offenders, who are mostly black, and filling our prisons up? It seems almost tautological.

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        p>Similarly a liberal society as it progresses over time has recognized more and more of its members as deserving of special protection and equal rights. Just as we have eliminated the barbaric death penalty, cockfighting, and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment for both man and beast its high time we do the same for dogfighting, a “sport” that only gambling addicts and Michael Vick would appreciate and we are only subsidizing not only a cruel industry but a dying one as well so none of the economic arguments are valid, put it out of its misery for good.

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        p>Oh and I am surprised your voting against 2 David. I am sure you have stated your reasons elsewhere but is it because you support full legalization and feel that decriminalization will be viewed as the final step and not an intermediary? I can’t think of any other reason to oppose it you don’t seem like the drug war type.  

        • I’m just wondering what you base that on.  Is it that he’s married to a TV reporter and his daughter was on American Idol?  I guess name recognition trumps all.

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          p>Funny, I have not seen his name mentioned at all on potential 2010 gubernatorial candidate depth charts through PolitickerMA and other public sources.  On PolitickerMA, I saw informal polls of RNC delegates from the Commonwealth.  The two potential candidates I have seen mentioned the most are:

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          p>–Charlie Baker, CEO of Harvard Pilgrim
          –Bob Hedlund, who is higher than Brown on the MassGOP Senate depth chart (Hedlund is minority whip, Brown is assistant minority whip)

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          p>Thus, I would like to know how you arrived at that conclusion.  

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          p>

          • I don’t think anyone knows who Bob Hedlund is outside of a few circles, also PolitickerMA is a national website so they typically make a few errors and are simply presuming that Hedlund is the most prominent. Baker would be interesting but I take it he is too socially liberal for most Mass GOPers. Brown has stood with them against abortion and gay marriage and reactionary anti-tax campaigns so it makes the most sense that he would be the frontrunner. Look over at RMG, those guys favor orthodoxy over electability. That said if Patrick is particularly vulnerable, and I would argue he has rebounded significantly since a year ago, then Baker would be a smarter choice but we will see.

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            p>Also I think it is more likely that Brown will run than Hedlund. It will be Brown and Baker and since Brown is more telegenic and has better name recognition Id pick him over Baker.

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            p>On the other hand if Orozco pulls an upset than Brown won’t run.  

    • NNY

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      p>I think question 1 is a good example of this.  It allows uniformed voters to vote, “Yes, I’d like to do away with the income tax,” without understanding or caring about the consequences of their vote.  It’s prop 2 1/2-like in it’s ignorance of what it will do.  I tend to vote no on all of this nonsense.  The dogs, however, as David pointed out earlier do not get to vote.  So I’m voting for them.

      • I say that because that’s where I grew up — my very first vote at age 18 (in the community center of St. Alfred the Great Church, Palo Alto) was against Prop 18 and for whatever Democrats were running that year.

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        p>The idea of government by initiative goes back to Hiram Johnson, a progressive Republican governor pre-WWI. The theory was to remove decision-making from the “corrupt” influences in Sacramento and return the power to the people. Of course, if you’ve been in California at all in the past 40 years, you know what a joke that turned into. The initiative process has devolved into a battle over what groups can afford to blast their messages the loudest.

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        p>BTW — I voted absentee on Friday — NNY. Off to New Hampshire shortly for what I’ve decided to call the Studs Terkel Memorial GOTV.

      • It allows uniformed voters to vote…without understanding or caring about the consequences of their vote.

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        p>One could say the same about voting for a presidential candidate, regardless of their party affiliation.  

        • which is why the voters don’t directly vote for the presidential candidate but instead elect a slate of electors that will do the voting for them. We are a republic and not a democracy and a direct democracy is either dictatorship of the majority which is not democratic in the liberal sense or anarchy which is barely a government in any sense-so a democratic republic it is!

      • know what it takes to get in Initiative on the ballot.  (something to look up at some time after the election).   The fact that something as ridiculous as question 1   got on the ballot makes me think it is too easy.     Speaking for myself dog track vote,  I find that there are too many major issues out there this year to spend time finding out what the real pros and cons are re how cruel this is to dogs and how much job loss would result.       I tend to reflexively either vote no or blank issues that could result in job loss.   I probably could have been convinced to vote yes, but I would only pay attention to it in a less busy political year.  

        • I am incredibly insulted by the job loss argument. Should we bring back the death penalty because it would put executioners back to work? If an institution is immoral and cruel than it does not matter how many jobs it provides it shouldn’t exist. Furthermore the government has no business ensuring full employment anyway, some unemployment is good for the economy since it makes business creation easier, and artificial employment like that at the dog races which are no longer profitable on their own but depend on legislation protecting and subsidizing them to save all these precious ‘jobs’ is simply bad for the state.

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          p>First off Im sure most of these jobs are low skilled and could be found elsewhere. The waitresses, bartenders, and cooks at the tracks can easily find work at restaurants and bars that don’t revolve around the barbarism of an inhumane sport. The veterinarians can actually care for the dogs whose lives they destroyed by injecting steroids into them and perhaps can redeem themselves as healers as opposed to enablers. And the clerks can easily get jobs as tellers at banks or perhaps can ask their good pal Sal for some toolbooth jobs that pay much better and have better pensions anyway.

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          p>No the economic argument simply is a wash.  

  10. I thought it was interesting that some of the DA’s who are opposed to question 2 admitted to the Boston Globe that they smoked pot when they were younger. They just did not get caught…  And that is why it is possible for them to be DAs today.  

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