Yuck.
It is the 4-times annually day I call Hold-Yer-Nose-and-Vote Day, also called Election Day. The last time we had an election, I was apparently one of 38 people in Jefferson County who voted a straight Libertarian ticket. This year, they've abolished straight-party voting, so I will actually have to go and dig up the candidates, because I don't want to get into the middle of the whole Jim Talent / Claire McCaskill senate thing and get something on my shoe.
We also get to vote on, well, I don't know what the hell we're voting on, and by the sound of it the proponents and opponents don't really seem to know either. It's called Amendment 2, and it's become the target of a fair amount of national debate. Amendment 2 *claims* to protect stem cell research in Missouri. I'm not sure why it's necessary, to tell you the truth, and it's filled enough with weasel words that who the hell knows what it will really end up doing.
The proponents of Amendment 2 say it will ensure that Missourians get access to the same cures (that word comes up a lot in their speeches) as other Americans if they come from stem cell research. This has me scratching my head, seeing as a state cannot regulate medical practices. The regulation of medical treatments is regulated by the FDA, and so it appears to be an empty gesture in this regard. The proponents have been saying the fundie wacko wingnuts have been trying to ban those cures in Missouri. But even if they managed to do that, it would be unconstitutional, albeit only after a huge legal row where it would be challenged and have to go through the Federal court system.
Problem is, there are no cures. We're talking about being able to do stem cell research. Ain't no treatments or cures even in existence yet, but the rhetoric from that side seems to be as strident as if the fundie wacko wingnuts had proposed to ban aspirin or something.
The proponents of Amendment 2 also say that the measure would, at the same time, ban cloning. Well, I'm not against cloning. Maybe that puts me in the minority, but from a legal perspective I'm not sure why banning cloning is so damned important.
The opponents of Amendment 2, the aforementioned fundie wacko wingnuts, swear up and down that it really actually enshrined cloning in the state constitution, explicit wording to the contrary. They claim that the scientific name of the procedure is protected, but "cloning" -- which does not have a set defined medical or scientific definition -- is banned. So they say that down the road, the "real" cloning technique name will be protected, and they'll turn around and say "well, the ban on cloning actually isn't enforceable because nobody can agree on what cloning is, so it's so vague as to have no meaning". Ironically, having seen some of the governmental clusterf8cks of legislation in the past, I can see how this complaint might actually have merit. One thing I've learned about government is that what the law says isn't always what the law says, and usually the outcome is not what was intended.
With this whole Senate thing, man what an ugly campaign. They've stopped slinging mud long ago and have been chucking cowpies for some time now. Jim Talent is the incumbent Republican, and while I'm not too keen on Republicans, he doesn't appear to be a total lying sack of dren. He says in a letter back to me that he thinks current anti-trust regulations will preserve network neutrality on the Internet. I think he's wrong, and terribly naive, about that. That or he's a lying sack of dren and he's on the take from the telcos. Claire McCaskill has her own problem: She married someone in an industry she is charged with regulating. As Secretary of State she regulates nursing homes in Missouri. Then she married the biggest nursing home operator in the state. Shortly after that, audits of nursing homes came to a screeching halt. Can you say "blatant conflict of interest"? The rest of the mud being slung, I really don't care much about, as it's the same crap Republicans do anyway. I don't care about her vacation house and whether or not she paid taxes on it, because Republicans typically have good enough tax lawyers that they don't either, especially if they're savvy or wicked enough to gain national public office. But the nursing home conflict of interest thing does bother me. Please, please let there be a Libertarian candidate for the Senate race, or I might actually have to write myself in.
Amendment 3 is a massive increase in the cigarette tax. I oppose this, even though I am a non-smoker. I experienced what happens with this sort of thing out in Oregon. Out there in 1998, Proposition 44 jacked up cigarette taxes, with the proceeds to go into the Oregon Health Plan, a relatively new plan for people in the gap between health insurance and Medicaid. They said it would cut medical costs long-term by making people quit smoking to avoid the tax, and it would raise money for the OHP so they could expand service.
The problem was, it worked too well. People quit smoking in the *short-term*, while it was supposed to cut health care costs in the *long-term*. Do you see where this is going? The OHP expanded but the cigarette tax money never came in because -- doh! -- people quit smoking!!!! So the folks who run the OHP declared a funding emergency! They need more tax money to replace the money that they thought they would get from (their assumption) knuckleheaded, addicted smokers who would pay the tax because they were knuckleheaded and addicted. They didn't count on people ACTUALLY QUITTING SMOKING!!!!!
So, Amendment 3. They're claiming that the money is going to campaigns against smoking. Well, that's okay....if people quit smoking because of it, they won't need as much money for quitting-smoking campaigns. Kind of a self-contained thing. Problem is, I've also heard rumblings that it will go to help poor Missourians who don't have health insurance. Doh! Right now, it's just mentioned as "oh by the way it will also do this", but rest assured if it passes, the new Missouri Health Plan will suddenly spring to the forefront of the discussion. If the same things happens and what did in Oregon, people in Missouri *will* quit smoking. Will there then be an outcry for more money to support the suddenly flagging Missouri Health Plan, just as what happened in Oregon? They say only cigarette smokers will pay the proposed tax, but if history repeats itself, the smokers will have the last laugh as we all end up paying more.
And by the way, what the heck happened with all that money from the big Federal tobacco settlement?
I will be so happy when tomorrow gets here.
