Political / Judicial / Media Commentary

While some tallying is still going on in some places, yesterday's elections are over as far as I'm concerned.

I wish to briefly point out the inconsistency of having the Electoral College. Obama has 65% of the Electoral College votes. Yet he only got 53% of the popular vote. That's still enough for him to win, but I think it's obvious that not every vote is equal to one vote. Some votes count more than others, depending on where you live. I have a great deal more commentary on this issue, however, I wish to comment on a different issue.

Proposition 8 in California has passed, or at least there should be nothing that prevents it from passing now. There may be a re-count or something, but the current statistics have it passing by 4.4%. That's a pretty slim margin, but still enough that it's near impossible to overturn that, when 96.4% of the precincts have reported. It's passed.

California's official results site is now just showing raw text, but earlier in the day (before their servers were getting slammed) they had a nice map where you could see what counties voted what way, and hover over them to see the statistics for each individual county. It was interesting that the Opposition to Proposition 8 was strongly centered around the San Francisco Bay area. That's no surprise. What took be by surprise (pleasingly) was that Los Angeles County was in favor of Proposition 8, if only by a small percentage. It really was just the cities of the Bay area and some of the surrounding counties that were strongly opposed to Proposition 8. That group lost narrowly.

If they had just a few more on their side, Proposition 8 would have failed. That would have set up other measures to fail in other areas of the country as well. That small liberal group of Californians would have had such a great influence on the rest of the country's court systems. It's not right. The nation, as a whole, is opposed to allowing same sex couples to have the distinction of an official Marriage. Not because we "hate" them, as they claim, but because that's not what Marriage is.

What if California had a system similar to the electoral college for their voting? It's been my observation that areas with big cities are awarded more "Votes that Count". Would proposition 8 have passed? I think not. The group that was opposed to it is in some of the more populated areas of California. It's a good thing that Garlic Farmer Joe's vote counts as much as the Mayor of San Francisco.

On a slightly related subject, I was disappointed with how obviously biased the mainstream media was during this election season. They're always biased, but I feel they went beyond biases and were flat out pushing their own agendas during this election. Obama won fairly; I don't dispute that. I do think the media helped him a great deal though. I was also very disappointed with how CNN is currently portraying the passing of Proposition 8: "If passed, the measure would trump a May 2008 ruling by the California Supreme Court that legalized same-sex marriage." They don't mention that it was the Supreme Court of California that overturned an earlier vote by the people of that state. The wording is such to make it sound like Proposition 8 is taking away from something that is legal. Which is technically true, but only because the Supreme Court of California re-wrote the law according to how 5 of the 9 judges saw fit. This IS how the system is supposed to work. People ask their lawmakers to pass laws. Sometimes those laws go to public vote. Assuming they pass public vote, those laws can be contested in court, and the Supreme Court can overrule them, IF it is based on constitutional rights. When that happens, the recourse for the people is to modify the constitution. This is the check and balance system. This is what currently exists to prevent the judicial system from being all-powerful. It's difficult (and thus rare) for people to pass a constitutional amendment to force the courts to interpret the constitution the way the people want, but that is what happened today. The courts cannot overturn their constitutions. They have to base their decisions on the constitution. Proposition 8 is a victory of the people over their government. That is what the founding fathers had in mind when they built it into the system. That is freedom prevailing. Proposition 8 should be celebrated by the media as democracy in action - Where people have the power, not the government. But no, our mainstream media does not want people to have control, even if they publicly state otherwise. They want their agendas pushed. Right now those agendas are socialist agendas, and who knows what else.

I congratulate the people of California for their victory.

Comments

Cambrienelson said…
true, true, and true. I'm glad that prop 8 passed... the LDS folks around here sure put a lot of time and effort and $ into helping it pass. I've never seen so much support on an issue and never been so involved in an issue before.
Steve tells me that on monday a new commercial was shown on TV (and youtube) that showed LDS missionaries knocking on a gay couples door and then trashing their home saying "we are here to take away your rights". I can't believe how over-the-top they have gone!
Chad said…
KSL reported on that commercial. The church put out a statement on it. They overstepped the line with that commercial. They overstepped a lot of lines - protesting at the LDS Temple, preventing people from getting in... Publishing a list of LDS people who contributed to proposition 8 and the amount, and encouraging their neighbors to retaliate against them (and it did happen a lot in the bay area)... They were acting out of hate, the same hate they claimed that Proposition 8 was all about.

BTW, with 99.5% reporting, proposition 8 is now passing by a full 5%.
Gramps said…
The electoral college isn't a perfect system, but neither is direct vote. There were two reasons the electoral college was created. First, so large states couldn't dominate small states in an election which is important. (If not for the electoral college, Al Gore would have been our current president, not Bush) Second was so there was a buffer...a check and balance system...so no person or government could dupe the citizens. (Look at Hitler and Germany to see how this can happen). On Prop 8, it passed now, but I see the writing on the wall. I've been around long enough to see the movement of the US from a conservative nation to a liberal nation I predict that sooner or later, gay marriage will be sanctioned by the entire country. 20 years ago nobody would have considered it a possibility. 40 years ago it would have been absurd to even have it on a ballot. Today it's close to passing. You younger generation need to continue to fight for what you believe is right as long as you can....and even after bad things happen, be a voice of opposition. Don't give up.
Erica said…
I have a smart husband. I'm just praying for our country. I know we can make it through. We're strong and resilient.
Marilyn said…
Keep the prayers going...we are going to need em!

Popular posts from this blog

A tale of two Brians

Common Answers: November Results