summercomfort | local politics?

local politics?

self:
things going well, on a roll
got Making Comics on Jono's pimping. Love it so far.

family:
things moving along. Moving to new house tomorrow
brother internet use limited, which means my internet use is also limited. But it's generally good for me.

STEP:
went to a very laid back and personal Halloween party tonight. Very cute. Note to self to try to hang out with STEP people more.

election:
still going through the ballots, etc, but tentatively voting no to transportation, no to highway safety, yes to shelters, no to 1D education bond, no to 1E flood prevention bond. No to tighter sex offender tracking, yes to water quality, no to parental notification for abortion, no to cigarette tax, yes to alternative energy, yes? on education parcel tax?, yes? on campaign reform?, and totally confused on government land thingie.

Local politics people should argue/enlighten me.

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Sushu--good luck with your move! I hope everything goes well!

Yay local politics! I am excited to be able to talk about this stuff.

OK, I don't know about the 1 propositions. They're all bond measures, and I think that means CA is gonna go into debt hard core. I will pro'ly vote yes to A,B,C, and no to D,E, but I don't have a strong reason one way or the other. I'm really big on transportation, because I believe a strong transportation system can make (seemingly unrelated) things run smoother and more profitably and more happily. But then again, we're talking borrowing tens of billions of dollars, so...

83 will make sex offenders have to wear GPS monitoring systems. That creeps me the fuck out. I understand the reason behind these kinds of laws, but I think there are better ways to protect children and our civil liberties at the same time. Even sex offenders should have (some) civil liberties...

I dunno about water quality (84)... The "arguments against" section seemed to paint this as a real possible pork barrel bond measure, so...

Totally with you on abortion notifications (85). I'm with you on the $2.60 cigarette tax increase too (86), but there are good reasons to increase the taxes. $3 seems like a humongous increase, though.

Yay alternative energy (87)!

I don't know about education parcel tax (88). I want to vote no, because property taxes/costs are already really fucking high, but I could see some good coming from it. I'll pro'ly vote yes to campaign finance reform (89), but I'm not decided. The Green party points out (http://cagreens.org/sclara/ballotmeas2006.shtml) there are good and bad things about this measure for minority parties, so I don't know if the good outweighs the bad... Note that I haven't followed their ballot suggestions very closely...

And finally, (90) Eminent Domain. I think this is really important. From what I understand, it means that, if passed, the government can't forcibly buy your property unless it really is going to be used by the community. So, for things like schools and highways and parks and shit, the government will still be able to forcibly buy from you. But it can't buy your land from you, sans consent, just to build a fucking shopping mall. There are places in the country where the government will do this. And that sucks.

So those are my ideas. We differ on 1A, 1B, and 84, and I agree with your question marks, except for eminent domain. Ummm, I don't feel too strongly about those, so if you make a good argument, I'd totally change my mind.

I can't say I understand the abortion parental notification thing. What exactly does this law state? I'm actually a bit torn on the idea in general - on the one hand, kids cannot get tattoos or buy alcohol. On the other hand, they are able to conceive, so they should be able to make decisions on what to do afterward. Then again, kids that are able to conceive cannot give consent to have sex OR get married! So you're saying that you can abort a child without parental permission but you can't get married or conceive that child.

On the other hand, counselors and doctors have patient confidentiality: if you see a psychiatrist and tell them things, they can't turn around and tell your parents. Then again, it's not like the decision to see a counselor is even the same kind of decision. When do children's bodies (and unborn children/fetuses) become their own?

Tough decision, and will it really make young girls endanger themselves rather than having their parents informed? Kids are stupid, true, but kids may harm themselves anyway in that situation.

I'm leaning towards "no notifications", but it's a tricky issue...

When I think of this issue I think of a hypothetical 16-year-old who got knocked up and is going to get beaten/disowned/kicked out if her parents find out she's getting an abortion. Given the field of candidates for teen pregnancy she probably represents a significant portion of those folks who would be affected by the bill.

Age of consent laws are pretty complex. They vary from state to state, but often they allow minors to have sex, as long as the person they're having sex with is within four years of their own age. So, in some states a 13 year old can legally have sex with a 16 year old, but not with an 18 year old.

Also, marriage laws vary significantly. Sometimes young people need parental permission to get married, other times they can just do it. And sometimes people can be married when they wouldn't legally be allowed to have non-married sex... I think the whole system is pretty fucked up, but I don't have a brilliant way to make it better and still "protect the children".

"When do children's bodies (and unborn children/fetuses) become their own?"

That's a really interesting question. In a sense, our bodies are never truly our own. The government still, in some sense, determines what we can and cannot do with our bodies, even for adults. There are certain foods we're not allowed to eat, certain drugs we're not allowed to imbibe, certain places we aren't allowed to walk.

But adults should definitely have some control over the bodies of their children, I just don't know to what degree and how quickly that control should move over to the children themselves as they age. I think 15-16 years old is a pretty significant time for most people, but I'm not really sure...

I don't know if I agree with Isaac above me. I've only known two people who got "teen pregnant", and they both had really supportive mothers (and neither got abortions, maybe that's why I knew about their situation). In fact, I think one mother was creepily supportive, like she was extremely happy and expected her daughter to get pregnant at 17. But still, the people Isaac talks about probably do exist, and these are the exact people this measure would hurt.

I knew a handful of girls in my high school who got pregnant, some through birth-control errors and a couple through rape. All of them told their parents, even those who had somewhat strained relationships with them. Some girls aborted and some didn't but they told their parents, except the girl who'd been raped by her brother's best friend because she knew her mother wouldn't believe her. My guess is that the majority of pregnant teenagers who get pregnant will tell their parents. For one thing, abortions cost money, though most clinics have sliding-scale systems. But if a girl's relationship with her parents is so dysfunctional that she doesn't feel safe telling her parents that she's pregnant, there's probably a good reason for it. Girls from religious households that forbid abortion (and pre-marital sex), girls from abusive households (like in Isaac's example), and girls whose babies are the product of incest are not going to be able to go to their parents for help.

I think your observations are right on the mark!

And I think your observations make a very strong argument for this measure only hurting people---the girls who wouldn't tell their parents are the ones in the most dangerous situation to begin with, and are the ones that have the fewest number of options available to them...

Oh good, the eminent domain thing is on California's ballot too? An almost identical initiative is on the Florida ballot.

The Fifth Amendment specifically says that eminent domain, the government's power to seize private land, can only be exercised if the land is to be put to public use. (If they want to build an interstate through where my house is, that's fine as long as they give me "just compensation.") But the Supreme Court has upheld transferring this land to private companies, on the theory that the companies will generate more tax revenue which can then be put to public use. On California's Prop 90, "yes" means that the government can't use eminent domain to transfer privately owned land to new private owners. "No" means it's okay.

I'm firmly with Jeremy on this one; to me, it's the most important thing on my ballot except who gets to be senator. In a heavily publicized 2005 Supreme Court case, the Connecticut government seized the entire neighborhood of Fort Trumbull in New London to let a drug company and resort hotel build facilities there. The government's logic boiled down to "Fort Trumbull wasn't a very nice neighborhood anyway." The Supreme Court decided 5-4 for the Connecticut government. I'll grudgingly admit that the government shouldn't let individuals singlehandedly block important government projects like interstates, but I'm very upset that the government can tear down my parents' house whenever they want to and give the land to the Hilton.

(...If the Hilton wants my parents' land so badly, they can damn well buy it at what we, not the government, consider a fair price.)

Very well put Brian! That's what I wanted to say, but you put it more eloquantly than I could ever have! And I agree with your views as well.

Yaaayyyyy Making Comics!

And very much agree with Brian about the eminent domain thing.

Sushu, this post reminded me to check up on the referenda on the Chicago ballot. There are three across Cook County, and a few local ones.
One is banning assault weapons, two is raising the minimum wage to $7.50, and the third is immediately pulling our troops out of Iraq starting with the national guard.

My reaction to the "assault weapons" ban was, "But my Missle Pods and Burst Cannons are Assault weapons! Well at least I'll still have my Railguns and Plasma Rifles..."

Gonna have to vote No to the pull-out-the-troops suggestion, too. I fail to see how removing the troops would make the current situation any better, and it could make it a lot worse. What I'd rather see is a complete change of strategy that leads to us winning the war, but that's not going to happen because of any ballot referendum.

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(Jono here)