Voltaire (Supposedly) Was Right

Voltaire supposedly said, "Show me who you can't criticize, and I'll show you who rules you." While I'm not enough of a French Enlightenment scholar to tell you if he actually did say that, I do believe that's generally true.

Which brings me to HB1523, the favorite whipping boy of the state press. Remember that the bill carved out religious beliefs that were to be respected by the state, and could be used as a defense?  And that the press got the vapors from the mere idea that people might need protections from the government telling their churches what they could and could not preach and believe in?

(Never mind that the federal government has a similar law.  I can hear them now-"But it wasn't meant to protect Christians!" they cry.  Yeah, wipe your tears with the 14th Amendment.)

*AHEM*

This is where they're going.  You didn't really think it was all about who could use which toilet, did you?

I See the 42 Narrative Forming

See, people wanted to vote for 42.  After all, it got 58% of the votes!

Except...

It got 58% of the votes actually cast between the two amendments, which, as I write this is about 35K votes less than the vote to not amend the state constitution.  What they won't tell you is about 50K that voted not to amend at all didn't bother to vote for either (because if you don't want to amend the constitution, why vote for the lesser of two evils option? This question will not be answered, except perhaps in a brief, small paragraph at the end of stories).

It's confusing, and the Clarion-Ledger and its fellow travelers in the media/lawyer caucus will use that to muddy the waters in the coming years.  I imagine there were a lot of people who were intent on voting for 42, but took one look at the sticker price ($201 million), and put it back on the shelf.

Always remember the truth of this issue:  The Little Guy won, because all of the trial lawyers, education consulting firms, Gannet Media, and out of state money couldn't buy an election in Mississippi.  Even with an endorsement of the New York Times this morning (helpfully retweeted by a CL writer as a "workaround for Red-State Dems"), the underfunded Little Guy kept the trial lawyers out of education.

There's still more work to be done, for sure-Hood, it appears, will remain in his post for four more maddening years, in which the politically connected will get away with anything short of murder-but the tide was held back today.

A Final 42 Thought

Exactly how many Mississippians is 200,000?

It's 6.8% of Mississippi's approximate population.

It's fewer people than voted for Johnny Dupree in 2011 in the general, and slightly more than voted for either he or Bill Luckett in the 2011 Democrat Primary or Runoff.

It's smaller than the population of Hinds County, and slightly more than the population of Harrison County.

It's roughly the number of Methodists in the state.  There are about a million Baptists, by the way.

So when they tell you it's a big number, it is.  It's just not as big a number as you think.  It's an old advertising trick, and a good one.  Plus I doubt many of them signed anything more deeply described than "More Money For Education!"

I Would Be Remiss If I Didn't Do This

Happy birthday, 21st Amendment. On this day in 1933, the efforts of busybody do-gooders to control the lives of everyday people crashed and burned. Here's hoping that there's a similar crash-and-burn coming with cap-and-tax and health care takeover.

I shall drink to your existence this very evening!