Category: politics

From a Washington Post article from October 21st (their online links only go back two weeks), William Raspberry writes:

“We invoke the public health as the reason we make certain substances illegal, but then we allow our policy to be driven by the illegality rather than by health considerations. If the illegality is the main consideration, then maybe it makes sense that Strawberry is behind bars. And if health is?”

Hmm, I hadn’t thought about it that way before.

In my last post, I lamented the lack of a civil-liberties based voting guide. Well, a quick search on Google lead me to the ACLU Scorecard.

Of course, like any voting guide, it has the deficiency in that it can only rate the incumbents (since, by definition, most challengers don’t have a voting record).

Still, even this voters’ guide is not infallible. For instance, they list the results of a vote on school vouchers (so far, so good). However, they note that “The ACLU opposed the amendment”, which seemed a bit odd to me since vouchers would only offer parents more choices in the education options of their children :-/.

Leave a comment below if you have any other voters guides to recommend.

If, like me, you’re having trouble deciding who to vote for, ITIC has a High Tech Voting Guide. There, they list whether Senators and Representatives voted “pro-IT”.

According to a C|Net article on the voting guide, apparently Republicans are generally more pro-IT than Democrats (which surprised me a bit).

The trade association released only a list of how individual politicians voted, but an analysis performed by CNET News.com shows that House Republicans voted in accordance with the tech industry's views 89 percent of the time, compared with just 43 percent of the time for Democrats. […]

But then, I came across this bit which explained how the (sometimes) freedom-restricting Republicans ended up with such a pro-IT rating. Essentially, the guide ends up being pro-IT business, and not necessarily pro-technology:

Two votes that ITIC liked—on a computer crime bill and on an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—were controversial among civil liberties and privacy groups.

In July, the House voted for a computer crime bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers and expand police ability to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without obtaining a court order first. The liberal Electronic Privacy Information Center and the conservative Free Congress Foundation both opposed it, but ITIC and other business groups lobbied for the measure.

Hmm, maybe this particular “high-tech guide” isn’t so great after all... Now, if only I could find a freedom-based voting guide :-/.

Tuesday is voting day. And, being relatively new to the area, I haven’t yet made up my mind about who I’m going to vote for. So, if you feel strongly about a particular candidiate, please add a comment below. Even a one-line comment along the lines of “Please vote for candidate xx because he feels yy about issue zz” would be fine.

I’ve already found a few voters’s guides, and those do help a bit:

• The WFAA comparison of political races includes US House of Representatives, Senator, Governor, and Attorney General.
• And, Issues 2002 lists “Every Political Leader on Every Political Leader”.

One issue that interests me is each candidate’s stance on the War on Drugs. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find much in that regard.

According the Dallas Morning News’ “how to read your voter card”, I believe I’m in Congressional District 32, State Senate District 16, State House District 108, Justice of the Peace / Constable District 3, School District DA02, and City District DA13 (if any of that helps).

I’m also in precinct number 1210, so I’ll have to find out where the polling place is for that. Oh, here we go — Election Day Locations.