About to cry...

[devogue]

This episode reminds me of when I stood as the Labour Party candidate in our school mini-election in 1992 ( a Protestant school in Northern Ireland) - I was trouncing the Conservative candidate on all the issues but I ended up getting hammered in the vote because the Tories scaremongered the school in to believing that Labour would push for a United Ireland, a lie which wiped the floor with my rational, carefully thought out campaign.

When I read the following dirt I couldn't help but smile ruefully...

If the gay marriage law takes effect, teachers could have little choice but to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage and parents could lose control over what their kids learn in school about marriage. Parker vs. Hurley

We should not accept a legislative decision that results in a wholesale abandonment of Maine policy that promotes marriage for the benefit of families and children, or that will result in public school teachers teaching our kids that gay marriage is the equivalent of traditional marriage.

That is an issue for parents to discuss with their children according to their own values and beliefs.

http://www.standformarriagemaine.com/?page_id=271

The implication is that the precious children will be subverted, stained by a perversion, their innocence stripped, there's a whiff of the fear of paedophilia - it's not said, but it's definitely there. There's enough nudge-nudge-wink-winking going on that they can't be sued or censured for hateful scaremongering, but people will get the point. Shocking.

[Ian]

I still firmly believe that you should have to pass an IQ test before you get a vote!

I'm proud to say that I'm firmly in favor of restricting voting rights based on education and intelligence. Every election cycle I want to pull my hair out over the LIVs - the Low Information Voters. The people who, last year, didn't bother watching the debates but heard that Obama did well in them, thought that he might be a muslim, knew that McCain was a "maverick" but couldn't articulately talk about any of his politics, etc., yet still bother to vote. And these are the "undecided" idiots to whom politicians pander in the closing few weeks of a campaign!

I say, start by excluding anyone without a high school diploma. Then institute some very simple, generalized national tests to assess whether someone has even a basic level of knowledge to construct an informed opinion.

Incidentally, this will cause the entire US electorate to shift towards the left. Have you ever seen those graphs of average state IQs and education levels and then seen the list colored in by which way they vote in presidential elections? Blue at the top, red at the bottom.

Of course, the problem is deciding where to set the standards and then keeping them basic enough to allow for broad participation. You don't want to adjust the standards so much that only people with a Bachelors degree in government are able to vote.

[JimC]

Marriage is for suckers anyway.

Who wants to sign my petition to ban marriage of any kind due to its repressive and slavish nature?

FFFFFRRRRRREEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOMMMMMMM.

I asked Bron, but she said I wasn't allowed to sign it...

[Animavore]

Marriage is for suckers anyway.

Who wants to sign my petition to ban marriage of any kind due to its repressive and slavish nature?

FFFFFRRRRRREEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOMMMMMMM.

I asked Bron, but she said I wasn't allowed to sign it...

Who...?

[JimC]

Marriage is for suckers anyway.

Who wants to sign my petition to ban marriage of any kind due to its repressive and slavish nature?

FFFFFRRRRRREEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOMMMMMMM.

I asked Bron, but she said I wasn't allowed to sign it...

Who...?

My wife...

(I was making a teensy little joke... )