Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!tellab5!chinet!patrick From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Amendments Message-ID: <1991Apr29.234221.15210@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 29 Apr 91 23:42:21 GMT References: <1991Apr26.141044.7544@alphalpha.com> <1991Apr28.061119.18402@eecs.nwu.edu> <1991Apr28.225438.16387@milton.u.washington.edu> Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX Lines: 83 In article <1991Apr28.225438.16387@milton.u.washington.edu> cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes: >It's a little idiotic to expect that "the people" will be the ones >represented at a Constitutional Convention, don't you think? When >fewer than half even turn out to vote at a presidential election, >what makes you think more would attend a CC (particularly if it >meant missing work and getting paid)? And why would the elites >permit this participation, if the stakes were so high? The reason so few people bother to vote these days is because they realize full well that their vote doesn't mean anything. Being allowed to vote in this country is purely a way to appease and humor the masses. Do you really think that there is any difference between one Demopublican and some other Republicrat? Demopublicans and Republicrats get on the ballot each time no questions asked. But let a Libertarian try to get on ... or a Socialist ... or any independent third party. *They* have to go through all sorts of gyrations just to get on the ballot, inclding a huge number of petitions to be signed which the 'regulars' always fuss over, trying to get them disqualified. The reason folks don't bother to vote is because their vote never has anything to do with how their lives turn out afterward. If they were to vote the full ticket in every election, they'd still wind up voting for less than 1% of the oppressive SOB's who regulate their lives everywhere they go. Millions of bureaucrats, accountable to no one ... it is rare when the people you *can* vote for have the authority to get the bureaucrats tamed, or better still, fired. The reason folks don't bother to vote is because on the whim of a judge somewhere, the election might not be held at all ... or if it is, the results voided and someone else appointed more suitable to the lawyers. Please don't say this cannot happen ... it has happened at least twice here in Chicago: Election time is approaching, and Candidate A is opposing Candidate B. The ACLU looks at both, dislikes both, and convinces a federal judge that if the political boundaries, or voting districts could be gerrymandered around a little, the results could be tipped in a different way, but the gerrymandering itself takes time and can't get done before the election ... viola! the judge kills the election. People get tired of that sort of thing. They get tired of working hard in their neighborhood canvassing the voters, getting the required signatures to put their person on the ballot and then having the 'regulars' get scared of potential defeat and get the new guy off the ballot. They don't address his/her ability. They don't address his/her beliefs or actions. What they *do* address -- and are bold enough to admit -- is that the presence of the third person will 'split the vote' and make it harder for their crony to win ... How do you think about half the black population in Chicago felt last year when a black independent candidate for mayor was summarily tossed off the ballot by a black 'machine' (i.e. part of the white Democratic party here) judge who ruled his credentials were out of order? The Democrats would never have dared to get a white judge to rule in that way, so they found a black judge who was beholden to the white guys for having given him his job. And this year, when only 40 percent of the *registered* voters (in effect about ten percent of the total population) in Chicago bothered to vote, Lois Wille, the lilly-white liberal lady who runs the editorial page at the {Chicago Tribune} couldn't understand why no one voted ... I haven't voted in an election -- federal, state, municipal, school board, whatever -- for almost 30 years. I voted in one election; being the one primarily held for President Johnson in 1964, but it included a bunch of local politicos as I recall ... I've never bothered since. *If* there were a CC, provided the hotshots would let it happen without a lot of harassment of the attendees, you are damn right I would attend, as would large numbers of people who really care, but refuse to play along with the establishment. A CC would create some major changes in this country; the kind of changes we've needed for about a century now. -- Patrick Townson patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) / MCI Mail: 222-4956