Prepping to Vote

Last night I read the two ballot measures that are before us Oregonians. Measure 49 is a reworking of Measure 37, and all that land use stuff is a pretty dull, confusing read. I did NOT read the entire measure (49), which is pages and pages and pages, but I did read the important parts of it, and that took about 25 minutes. Then I read the arguments in favor and the arguments opposed. The measure itself sounds like an imperfect fix to an imperfect law already on the books. I'm inclined to vote for it, simply because Measure 37 was a big mistake. But I feel uncomfortable being completely ignorant, so I devoted some time to prepping for the vote.

In the end, though, it's human emotions that carry the day, not Reason. Arguments in Favor were less insane than Arguments Opposed. The latter included several that stated outright untruths, so it was easy to dismiss them. The opposition also included some krazy folks, the kind who put "everything" in quotes so as to "show" that it "really really" means something. That's the kind of thing that tips the scales for me.

As for Measure 50, which would put a cigarette tax into the Oregon Constitution... there again, Reason tells me it's a bad idea to put a tax into the Constitution. But I listen to the radio and have the TV on with the sound down, and all day every day I see/hear commercials against Measure 50, all of them paid for by the cigarette company. I hear-tell they've already spent $10 million in Oregon to defeat the measure. That in itself is enough for me to want to stick it to them, whether the law is good or not.

I suppose that makes me one of those idiot voters who vote with their gut, but the way I see it, that's no less valid. If someone asks, I'll gladly say "I voted for Measure 50 simply because I resent the tobacco industry spending a fortune to tell me not to." Maybe from that the world will learn something. From me!

Another reason to vote for Measure 50 is that in the Arguments in Opposition, there were several repeat-opiners. You pay $500 and you can have your argument printed in the Voter's Pamphlet. Some folks against 50 had two or three *different* $500 ads in there. One guy had seven ads opposed to the measure. Dude spent $3500 to say the same thing seven times! That's just plain suspicious.

Now I'm off to the bank, to report that I accidentally left my bank card in the Automatic Teller Machine (or, as we like to call it, the Automatic Teller Machine machine).