Saturday 16 August 2014

A Bonus to Vote

Having been in the Air Force for twenty-two years and crossed around America....I came to note at some point that some significant cities or urban areas have multiple elections....something that doesn't happen in Bama.  In Bama, we have a full-up election every two years, and a presidential election once every four years.  There are primary elections.....but that's generally it.

If you live in an area like DC, Philly, or Atlanta.....there are occasional municipal elections....just to vote on the city council, the DA, etc.  From my experience of living around Arlington, VA.....I came to realize that few residents show up for a municipal election.  Maybe out of a hundred registered voters....if you were lucky....maybe twenty-five folks would show.

Low municipal voting tends to lead to odd scenarios.  A key city council or county commission job might have six people running, and with 100,000 registered voters....there's only twenty-five thousand votes to play with on six candidates.

This all leads to a scenario where "Freaky Karl" shows up as one of the six....wearing a weird purple suit....talking about space aliens, sparking discussion over lifestyles, and pushing weird agendas....then accidentally getting four thousand votes.  Toss in ''Marvelous May" who allures men voters with some black leather outfit and six-inch heels....getting three thousand votes.  Suddenly, a legit candidate is screwed because seven thousand votes are cast for nut-cases.

The Arlington city council always had to worry that their primary democrat candidate might accidentally lose the election to the Green Party candidate or the libertarian guy....simply because not enough people were going to vote.

Well....this week out in L A.....there's a curious story.  It won't be on CNN or Fox, or get printed in USA Today.....but there's talk of offering a bonus or cash prize for folks who come out to a municipal election.

There's a panel deal created now, and they will examine the idea of offering a cash prize for municipal elections....to entice people to just show up.  The amount?  Not really in focus yet....but they are suggesting $25,000 to $50,000 as the necessary amount to make this gimmick work.  Where would the money come from?  Your property and local sales taxes.

Personally, I think it's a lousy idea that you want democracy and republic values to work....with one vote per person....and the only way to get effect evidence of such is to offer a bonus.

Would it change anything?  I'm taking a guess that for folks who make over $50,000 a year and have a full work schedule.....it won't change anything.  You got a guy on a pension or welfare.....it will absolutely entice them to show up to vote.

The better answer here?  Open up voting two weeks prior at the county court house, and allow people to show up Monday through Sunday....from 0700 to 1900....maybe even open up the voting deal at 5AM on some days to get guys going to work.

As for the bonus deal?  What they suggest is simply a drawing of the people who showed up to vote.  You'd probably pull ten names.  Five would get $500 each (my humble guess), four would get $1000 each, and one guy would walk away with $25,000.  Taxable?  Oh YEAH.  It'd have to be taxable.

If you had suggested this gimmick to Thomas Jefferson....I suspect he would have started laughing, and tears flowing down his cheeks.....amused at the necessity of fixing democracy in this way.  Just having the right to vote....sometimes is not enough for democracy to exist, and that should draw everyone to question where exactly we are going with this current line of thinking.

The Zombie Gay Subject

There is this odd suggestion going on with the AMC Network show.....The Walking Dead.  Some folks have suggested that since they don't have any real gay characters.....they need to identify one of the primary characters as such.  The suggestion?  Daryl, the bow-hunter.

Yeah, the character of Daryl has become the hero of sorts for the zombie series.  There are two hero characters on the show....Rick (the cop) and Daryl (the bow-hunter).

The necessity of having a gay character?  Well....some people just watch the series and kinda note after a while that everyone seems to have regular sexual lifestyles....no one is gay, lesbian, bisexual, into bondage, a toy-freak, cross-dressing, or into dressing up as German Nazi Gestapo type people for bedroom fun.  In the midst of all the zombie attacks and revolutionary wars going on within the script.....I have to admit I hadn't really thought much about lack of lesbians or cross-dressing lifestyles or transexuals not being around in this fantasy of zombies attacking society.

The fact that we've cross over fifty episodes now, and Daryl's lifestyle hasn't been even marginally discussed?  Well....it'd seem awful hard to suddenly come up into the fifth season and suggest Daryl was a closet-gay-guy for this entire period of zombie attacks.  You might as well suggest that Rick was a member of the KKK or a life-long member of the Democratic Party....as if it matters in the zombie era.

This all brings me to the discussion of older series that were successful and how we'd have to accomodate certain things in 2014 with certain characters.

Boneza?  Hoss would have had to have been gay.

Gilligan's Island?  Mary Ann and Ginger would have some type of bisexual relationship going on, between them, the professor and maybe Gilligan.

Edith from All in the Family would have some relationship on the side with her beautician friend.....a black gal in her forties.

Kitty from Gunsmoke would have some lesbian girlfriend.

John-boy from the Waltons would have had some hot lusty affair with a traveling male shoe salesman from Baltimore.  

Mr Ed (the horse) would have had a secretive gay affair with another gay horse from the local riding club.

All the sailor guys on McHale's Navy would have been gay or bisexual.

It's an indication of where society has gone over the past twenty years.....just unable to accept a plain regular story anymore.....demanding that there is some lusty sex, and something of a raw nature challenging their fantasy world.  I'm not even sure that Sanford and Son could survive today....without Fred waking up from a hard night of drinking....to find both his cousin Ester and some other gal in bed with him, and discussing the idea of the three getting married in Utah over the weekend.