#124 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday August 23)
Good morning!
Time to talk about the dangers of recalling the governor of California…
WHAT’S AT STAKE
I’ve wrote last week to discourage voting to recall Governor Newsom. My primary arguments were on two grounds. First, we have elections every four years and that is when we should decide whether to continue the tenure of elected officials. Even if we think they have done a less than adequate job, an election is just around the corner. Second, recall should be reserved for only the most egregious malfeasance in office and not for a “do-over.” Plus there is a third reason: It is a non-democratic means of circumventing an election result with high turnout, substituting in its stead a low-turn-out recall ballot without initiatives and other “down ballot” initiatives and offices that would draw higher turnout. This is pernicious for reasons everyone’s been reading about. Newsome may get a 49% vote to beat back recall but then one person among a field of over 40 candidates can find themselves governor with no more than 20% of the vote (in a low-turnout election!).
But there is another reason to vote no, even if you can’t stand anything about the Governor. And it is this…this really is an election to determine who will be our next governor. And the leading candidate to replace the Governor, should the recall be approved by a majority of the voters in this low-turnout election is Larry Elder.
And Mr. Elder doesn’t have to win a majority of the votes. He merely has to achieve a plurality within a crowded field. How many people have checked-in on what Mr. Elder believes?
Well:
He will never approve a mask or vaccine mandate and will fight against any mandate and will work to eliminate any existing mandates in the state at any level of government.
He has stated he considers human contribution to climate change “a hoax.” [He since has back-pedaled on this assertion]
He believes abortion is “murder”
He said he would have voted against requiring unpaid leave for workers to bond with new children or to care for family members with medical emergencies.
He has stated he’s “not sure” whether climate change has contributed to our spate of wildfires.
He believes FEMA should be eliminated.
He is against an assault weapons ban.
He believes there should not be a corporate tax.
He believes there should be no minimum wage.
CALIFORNIA CAN BECOME LIKE TEXAS
This is serious stuff. It’s crazy in states currently governed by mask-denying Republican governors. Some thoughts from a friend who is a transplant to Texas:
“Feeling unsafe down here in Texas, and pretty disheartened at the state of things. We are at the highest "Stage 5" level, yet much of the population is out and about as if nothing is out of the ordinary. It is simply surreal. I'm still ordering all my groceries online, and am again pretty much staying home. It's much more wearing this time around............keep your Musings coming :)
Lost my mom to COVID-19 December 2020 - just a few weeks before the vaccine was available. Gov. Abbot opened up nursing homes/senior facilities to visits with meaningless "every two week test screening" and her Memory Care floor had a major outbreak with half the residents plus several staff infected. The governor's positions are continuing to kill people here; I'll never feel like a Texan.”
While many in other less rational states with governors pandering to nonsense about “individual rights” and the “right to choose” whether to wear a mask (which strikes me as ironic—these are the same folks who don’t want a woman to have the right to choose) while people are dying and being hospitalized, here in California we are on the cusp of electing someone with these same dangerous views…
Every registered voter received a ballot in the mail. Don’t throw yours away. It takes less than a minute to vote “no.”
A COUPLE OF GOOD BOOKS
It’s been a while since I recommended a few books, so here come a couple (with more to come in coming weeks):
Should We Stay or Should We Go, by Lionel Shriver. Ms. Shriver again ponders a fascinating topic through multiple perspectives. The basic conceit of this fiction is a middle-aged couple making a pledge to end their lives at age 80, after having witnessed the decline of their parents in old age. The philosophical questions abound…
Is long life the objective? What role does quality of life play?
Is it selfish/unreasonable not to experience older age?
Should euthanasia be condoned—or even encouraged—by society?
What happens when everyone lives healthy and long lives? And is it good for the economy or families?
What does it mean to live a “good life”?
The best part of the book is how the original story unfolds and is followed by multiple “alternative time lines” of what might have happened in the story (someone gets cold feet, the kids find out, cryogenics becomes a possibility, they “go through with it,” they don’t and live their lives).
Shriver is a great author. Her The Mandibles: A Family 2029-2047 was a great imagining of the economic collapse of American society. Her familiarity with the finance industry and economics made this a great pondering of the possible. It is a society in distress (and, indeed, failure) as a result of economics gone awry (a different sort of “pandemic”).
Shriver is brilliant. These serious matters are interspersed with humor and wry social commentary. In Should I Stay… Shriver makes a good natured self-referential self-deprecating reference when least expected. Both Shriver novels speak to profound issues in entertaining ways.
Have a great day,
Glenn
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