A Skowhegan, Maine Trump voter.
The quiz itself has little to do with the fact that Michael Turner is the kind of bad American, bad neighbor, bad community member and jerk who makes Ebenezer Scrooge seem like a mensch, but ponder on his conduct anyway. If you are one of the residents in Skowhegan, Maine and you call Turner LP Gas in Skowhegan, Maine to buy propane to heat your home, you get this message from the owner:
“If you voted for Donald Trump for president, I will no longer be delivering your gas. Please find someone else.”
No, it’s not a hate crime, it’s just hate. It gets cold in Maine, and Skowhegan, like the rest of the state, has a lot of poor people among it’s 8500 or so residents. It also has many who are elderly and poor, for whom having to find another propane supplier may be not just inconvenient, but life-threatening. This is why we have public accommodation laws: To protect us, especially the vulnerable among us, from bigots and bullies like Michael Turner.
He is no different in his lack of decency and the void of ethical values in his soul than the racists who refused to allow black citizens to frequent their establishments before the Civil Rights Act, bridal shop owners who won’t sell wedding dresses to same-sex couples, and the innkeepers who turned away a pregnant woman and her husband long ago, on a night we celebrate soon.
Ethics Alarms has discussed this ugly phenomenon many times. The Bush administration tried to validate it by approving the so called “workers’ right of conscience, ” that permitted a wide variety of health care workers to refuse to administer treatments they found morally repugnant. President Obama, to his credit, restricted that wide-open door to division and bigotry, then allowed the rest of his years in office to exacerbate societal schisms to the point that we have large numbers of a political party trying to overturn a legal election while calling Americans who dared to vote differently than they did racists, sexists and fascists.
A recent Ethics Alarms post titled, “Americans: End This Slippery Slope Now, Before It’s Too Late,” about a Washington, D.C. restaurant that publicly apologized for letting an alt-right group to eat there, asked,
Are all groups, families and individuals now going to be required to declare their political and ideological positions before being allowed to order a lasagna? What is an acceptable group? If there is a protest over a Black Lives Matter dinner, will Maggiano’s apologize? If Mike Pence and his family eats there and the “Hamilton” cast protests, does that mean they will refuse to serve cannoli members of the Trump administration? Despite the fact that the protests came from progressives, the attack on the restaurant is totalitarian in substance. What is being commanded is conformity of thought.
Ah, but the persecutors are the good guys, don’t you understand? They know they are right, so they can rationalize hurting anyone who isn’t like them. Michael Turner is this breed of citizen. I must admit, when I warned that electing Donald Trump would turn the U.S. into a nation of assholes, I didn’t anticipate that it would be assholes like Michael Turner.
There’s no quiz on this topic, for it is settled ethics that his practice of punishing neighbors for their political views stinks. No, the quiz involves the conduct of Turner’s customers:
Today’s Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is this…
If Turner required customers to state that they voted against Donald Trump in order to buy propane from him, would it be unethical for Trump voters to lie?
Some additional facts of varying relevance:
1. Undoubtedly because Skowhegan is overwhelmingly Republican and conservative, Turner told reporters that “It’s just a statement. If you voted for Trump, don’t tell me and I wouldn’t cut anyone off that was freezing.” In other words, he is grandstanding. He’s telling people that their business isn’t welcome, but giving them leave to ignore his announcement. BOY, is he a jerk!
2. The Maine Human Rights Act bans discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry or national origin, but has not (yet) added political beliefs to the law, as Washington, D.C.and Seattle have. Writes a Maine blogger, “So while it may not be good public relations, Turner’s move is legal.” Legal but wrong: I guess they don’t teach ethics in Maine.
3. Like so many others, including a large swathe of the Democratic Party, Turner appears to not comprehend the election principle. He says Trump is “despicable” and “the Antichrist,” much as Wendell Wilkie supporters described Franklin Delano Roosevelt, much as Walter Mondale voters felt about Ronald Reagan, and Bob Dole voters regarded Bill Clinton. Since John Adams, however, Americans have accepted that someone has to lose in free elections, and united as a people behind the elected President no matter how fervently or justly they opposed him. Democracy doesn’t work any other way.
Ethics Alarms 
“The Maine Human Rights Act bans discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry or national origin, but has not (yet) added political beliefs to the law”
I think this, sadly, defines many people’s definition of “diversity” in the workplace and on college campuses. Looking different, being from a different locale, having a different kind of faith (the approved kind of different), acting different (ditto) are all celebrated and championed….but THINKING different isn’t really the kind of diversity that is sought out in most places.
And gosh, I’d like to think that if I lived in this town, I’d take some of my time off over the next few weeks, to publicize and town that I would help anyone who is unable to find an alternative dealer of propane, and encourage other volunteers to help out as well, so that people aren’t politically shamed into lying, just to stay warm. Make him put his money where his mouth is, if enough people say, “to hell with him, I’ll go elsewhere, and help everyone else who wants to, to do the same”.
Coming from someone who despises Donald Trump, but despises a**holes a thousand times more.
Would a boycott be ethical? Not that electing to go somewhere else rather than having to pass through the star chamber just to get gas would be a boycott. Good thing voting is anonymous. At least so far.
Nope, not a boycott…just helping the residents prepare for the honest declaration of their vote (if they choose), and the subsequent removal of services, as stated by the provider.
Ok, I lied. It’d be a boycott…and it would feel gooooood.
Hah.
Jack, I believe that there is some problems with your analysis where you draw parallels between a total asshole like Turner who initially left the impression that he would cut off poor people’s propane since they voted wrong and health care workers who as a matter of conscience, won’t perform late term abortions. Btw, Bob Dole voters turned out to be right in their feelings about slick Willy and his despicable conduct toward women.
1. The point was that Republicans didn’t try to punish Clinton voters or deny that it was a legitimate election. Who was right or wrong about Clinton is no more relevant than whether Trump turns out a bad as this guy expects. This kind of statement just confuses the ethical issue. Don’t do that.
2. A procedure that is legal and that a citizen has a right to have provided must not be withheld on conscience or whim. A medical worker who won’t perform legal procedures approved by a physician needs to find another profession where he or she can apply “conscience” without harming citizens and rights.
Medical workers who oppose late-term abortions would not train in the procedure. Requiring them to perform such procedures would not end well for anyone.
I haven’t read how Obama changed the law but initially it included physicians. Thus your point about health care workers refusing to perform a proceedure that a physician ordered muddies the issue.
That’s disingenuous bullshit.
Late-term abortions are a specialized procedure. No one learns how to preform them unwillingly just to complete the standard medical education.
Bush wanted to let health care workers refuse to provide birth control with the potential-but-as-yet-unrealized possibility of refusing to treat HIV positive people because they’re probably teh gay or something. And these things are mostly a problem with pharmacists, not doctors. I’m in a city, if someone refuses my perspiration, I go a mile down the road to the next CVS or Walgreens and i’m good. Out in the middle of nowhere it might be possible to get meds elsewhere without it taking a long time and refusing someone their refill or their plan-b can have consequences.*
*Be responsible and carry extra med right? There’s a lot of ways someone can lose their pills by accident or malice.
I’d refuse your perspiration.
eep bad spellcheck, no cookie.
I’ve been betrayed by autocorrect.
Sometimes Steve Job’s treachery is humorous.
He strikes at us from beyond the grave. This is why I always double-check anything I post, even in IMs, before clicking ‘Send’.
He was merely following the law.
https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/10-22-15b.cfm
Whether one’s religious beliefs lead one to refuse to transport alcohol, or provide contraception, the law is the law.
Turner isn’t just an asshole and a jerk. He’s also an idiot. Skowhegan as a town went for Trump over Clinton by a 20+ percent margin, and is also in the Second District, which went for Trump (the Second District is that area of the state north of what’s known as the Volvo Line, which more or less delineates the border between the First and Second districts). See: http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/maine/
More to point, Skowhegan is a fairly large town for Maine (population ~8600) but any fuel delivery business must also reach out into surrounding communities in order to keep the doors open. And it’s not like there isn’t plenty of competition in the area operated by people smart enough to know you shouldn’t piss more than half off your current or potential clientele.
By the way, the word “Skowhegan” is reported to be an Abenaki word meaning “good place to watch the fish.” Draw whatever conclusions you wish from that.
The Volvo Line. Made my day. Thanks.
IS it a good place to watch fish? I am always on the lookout for promising fish-watching venues.
Based upon experience, I actually view it as a good place to observe the speed limit and leave as quickly as possible. Given these two parameters, I have no idea about the fish.
I submit that a Trump voter is necessarily against public accommodation laws and thus while legally entitled to protection under them, morally is a fucking hypocritical…. to quote the bard, poisonous bunch-back’d toad.
Boy, is THAT an ethics black hole. Let’s see:
1. The assumption that a Trump voter is necessarily against public accommodation laws is unfair and incompetent.
2. There is noting at all hypocritical about expecting equal treatment under the laws, whether one agrees with the law or not.
3. The only result from your non-logic would be that nobody would be safe from such bigotry, and
4. You don’t know the difference between morality and ethics, though neither applies to a vote in a free election.
You might be able to make a more ridiculous and ethically bonkers comment, but don’t try. This is bad enough.
Is someone who protests, stating that all current police officers be fired, and replaced, hypocritical for still accepting the protection of those same officers from those who vehemently disagree?
I know my answer, just curious what yours is…
Define accepting protection?
The police will claim they’re providing it right now with me doing nothing. Since i have no control over whether they’re there or not, am I accepting or am I being coerced?
In times past, before my feelings hardened, I went to them and got no help. In times past before my feelings hardened, I went to them to complain about the actions of specific officers, I got no help, I got a phone conversation with the shift commander who took the time to tell me what he considered a funny story.*
Why would I go to them for protection when I’ve been burned in the past.
*That wasn’t funny. It was about how he as a teenager used to get pulled over all the time because cops see a teen and think trouble and that’s just how it is, ha ha ha, civil rights abuses are so amusing. The moral of the story was the nail that stands tallest, get pounded the most. If you don’t conform, it sucks to be you.
I guess if you’re against the death penalty, you have no right to insist that it be carried out humanely as possible. The same with abortion….
Absurd. Idiotic.
Using a law you don’t approve of for your personal benefit is hypocritical.
Wishing executions to be humane grants you nothing.
This is the kind of opinion that people can only hold if they haven’t thought about it. If you think the home interest deduction is too generous, it’s hypocritical to take it? If you think the tax rate for your bracket is two low, you are ethically obligated to pay more? Just as individuals can’t ignore laws they disapprove of, they are ethically and legally as fair and honest if they take advantage of their rights. I think the drinking age should be 21, not 18, but I’m not the underage drinker I worry about. I think means testing social security is necessary to keep it solvent, but it won’t help for just me to be the one who’s means tested. If I think the speed limit should be 55, not 65 on a stretch of highway, should I be the slowest driver on the highway?
It’s a ridiculous concept.
wishing executions to be humane grants you nothing? Tell that to the peope who protest, rightly, when an execution is botched. I guess we tell them to stay home next time. Sheesh.
I agree, I hate how the Canadian (And American) systems apply welfare in such a way that it becomes a trap, but I can’t find it in myself to even dislike the people taking the payments on the basis of their acceptance, and if I were destitute, I wouldn’t be so proud as to not accept them.
Heck, ratchet that up to something ridiculously frivolous and offensive to progressives. About ten years ago, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein found that Alberta was in such a glut of cash that not only was the budget balanced, and the debt erased, but they had an ungodly sum of cash in the bank. What was his response? The Alberta government wrote a $400 cheque to every man, woman and child who filed a tax return in Alberta, along with an apology for overtaxing in fiscal year 2005, which will forever be known as “Ralph Bucks”. This was absolutely abhorrent to the Alberta NDP, who thought that the extra money should go to the poor or to social programs (because of course they do). Now, I’m not going to tell you exactly what I thought about this, but that’s not important. The important thing is the “hypocrisy” How many NDP voters and proponents do you think refused their Ralph Bucks? Sure, some of them donated their money to charities, some Conservative voters did as well. It was a good year to be a charity. 2006.
So, valky, was it hypocritical for people to cash thier cheques?
Back in May I sent you this, you didn’t respond:
“I am on a search for a chiropractor to see one of my new rescue dogs. The little guy can’t walk or stand or pee and is having difficulty eating and opening his mouth.
The vet ran full blood and urine panels, x-rays and we performed an echocardiogram and abdominal ultrasound which all came back normal with the exception of the x-ray which showed arthritis in the neck and back.
I am seeking a chiropractor to attempt to get this little guy comfortable and functioning again.
The first I call is booked out 2 months. He’d be dead by then, so I keep looking. The only other with good recommendations is a Dr. Adrienne Moore, so I call her at the following number: (760) 723-6633. I get the answering machine which contains one of the strangest messages I have ever heard form a professional dedicated to relieving the pain and suffering of animals. She basically said that if you voted for Obama she feels you voted against god and country and to call someone else. Really? Has our political divide gotten that bad that a vet won’t help a dog who’s caretakers don’t agree with her politics?! I would have been happy both not knowing hers and not sharing mine, but this floored me.
And I am still left with a little dog with big problems that needs help fast.”
The dog was unable to find help in time and had to be euthanized. To the end he never expressed a political opinion.
Then there was the tow truck driver who left a disabled woman stranded because she had a Bernie sticker on her car.
There are bullies on both sides that feel they have a right to refuse service to anyone.
As for the attempt to encourage electoral college voters to change their vote: Who cares? It isn’t going to work, for one thing. There is nothing illegal about it. It doesn’t matter how many millions of signatures are on a petition. If an electoral voter changes their vote, they take whatever sanctions their particular state has. It’s an option in some states. It has happened in the past, and only once had an even slight effect. It won’t overturn the election. By submitting a petition those people have chosen a lawful and peaceful way to express their frustration with a controversial system and a president elect who, most would admit, has some serious issues (both candidates did). They are not leaving people to freeze, be stranded alone on the road or refusing innocent animals needed care.
I won’t even get into the bullying, intimidation and occasional violence that has been happening ever since Roe v Wade took effect by those determined to do away with it. It might be nice if they signed petitions instead….
There is overt and concealed hate and deeply entrenched beliefs on both sides which have just grown further apart over the past 20 years and we are hard-pressed to find a way to unify. Because politicians are elected by and answer to this extremely partisan populace, they are discouraged from compromising and coming together in their work. If one side seizes enough control, they may push through policy – only to have it torn apart when the other side seizes power. It seems no “regime” is ready to build on the foundational work of the previous. They all want to dismantle it and erect their own in its place. It’s a shame. No, it’s shameful.
What IS this world coming to? How and/or who will bridge the gap?
I’m sorry I missed your original comment about your dog: I would have replied if I had seen it. I posted about the tow-truck driver.
People can sign petitions about the electors until the cows come home, but they are also misrepresenting what electors are there for, and that is NOT ethics; plus some of those petitioners are also sending death threats.
Obviously death threats are wrong, no matter who sends them and far too many get away with making them, especially to public figures, without consequence. Even violence and property damage are often overlooked. This is no liberal or conservative phenomena, it has and does happen on both sides. The greatest leaders advocate change through peaceful means – by building bridges, not bombs, both literally and metaphorically.
It doesn’t matter what the motivation of the petition signers is, and I doubt they are all of one mind. They are exercising a legal, non-violent means of action. It’s the fanatics, the zealots, the sociopaths, the criminal, the unbalanced and unhinged we have to worry about.
I think most can acknowledge that political partisanship, religious extremism, and even socioeconomic and education disparity have pulled us apart in a rapidly accelerating fashion. It’s like two competing black holes sucking the life out of the country until there is no one left. It’s a problem that won’t be solved by pointing fingers and calling one side worse than the other.
Where are our bridge builders? Who can lead us to balance once more? How do we heal? THAT is what I am interested in.
By the way, in high school (in the late 70’s) I wrote a paper about how the Electoral College should be eliminated. Basically it stated that no person eligible to vote, whether they live in a rural state or a populous one, should have a vote that is more powerful than another. Just because ideas are tenacious doesn’t mean that they’re worthy.
It’s an over-simplified analysis, but then, that was high school.
The Senate is subject to the same complaint. A Republican in DC or in Boston has a vote that is worth exactly nothing. The same people who say the tyranny of the majority is a problem in this country oppose the electoral college, which in the current environment prevents the nation from being ruled by California, whose experiment in extreme liberalism has been a multilateral catastrophe, and whose culture is an anomaly. The idea is for a system to work, and absent the EC, the current system would see democracy warped by illegal immigrants, their relatives, and those who want open borders to enhance their political power at the expense of the rule of law. Which is the most democratic constituency, the one where one large bloc in a few one-party areas dominate everyone else, or a broad-based, diverse and geographically spread-out majority? The answer is not as clear as some make it seem.
Except the geographically spread out aren’t a majority. Presidential elections are essentially gerrymandered.
The real question is do you want rural areas to wield power disproportionate to their population? Right now they do and it changes the focus of campaigns to the detriment of people not in swing states. If you like that idea, well okay, you like it. For me, letting other votes count more than mine brings only disadvantages.
And it makes me resentful. Are we a nation or a confederation? Are the people of Iowa my countrymen and women or are they a competing interest, the enemy, for everything outside of international relations. If common defense is all that binds us, then… then… fuck those Trupkins, let them be a Russian satellite state. And no doubt they feel the same way about me.
It’d be hard to predict what the parties would be i like in a popular vote system. Republicans would have to change their approach to compete in cities and democrats could look for ways to pick up rural votes. Both parties would probably become more diverse in their views. New England republicans would be back, so would Montana Democrats. Or not, maybe communities would become more divided with more neighbor against neighbor and less location against location.
Valkygirl, we are a union of independent states – or, at least, that’s what we’re supposed to be. Hence the name, in case you missed it – the United States.
It was recognized by the Framers that the states would vary in size of population and land area. It was understood that certain areas would concentrate wealth and others would spread it out. It was viewed as a necessity that, if the concept of a stable union of independent states was to survive, each of those states would need equivalent power in determining the direction of the union, regardless of population size.
I’d say that despite its imperfections, history has proven this system works pretty darned well. You want your vote to have more clout? Move to Wyoming. It’s a nice place.
The United States formed under the articles of confederation that didn’t work. I thought after that we were supposed to become a nation rather than a confederation.
If we’re a confederation than, fuck those people, I don’t want them.
If we’re a nation then they’re my neighbors and fellow citizens and I will care for their interests with the understanding that they will care for mine. But I object to their votes having more power than mine own. Geographical aristocracy is not democratic.
Geographical aristocracy is exactly what you’re arguing for, population centers being what they are.
And you seem to have your terms mixed up. The Articles of Confederation were drawn up shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War, lasting until 1787, by which time it was pretty clear that the initial concept really wasn’t working that well.
The Constitution replaced the Confederation by creating a federal government – albeit one with specifically limited powers.
How can it be aristocracy if it isn’t the privileged few? Right now, the few(er) in rural areas carry more power than the many in urban areas.
Revoking that privilege would place rural voters on equal footing with urban voters.
Good luck abolishing the U.S. Senate…
That takes a constitutional amendment, which coukld be blocked by a minority of states.
By the way – you ARE aware, are you not, that you have never had the right to vote for President? Beyond the right given by your own individual state? Because you have NO federal right to do so.
You’re nit-picking. I know I vote for a pledged elector slate. That’s functionally equivalent to making a presidential preference vote for my state, unless you’re one of the people who agrees that electors are free to disregard their oaths and vote their conscience.
It’s hardly nit-picking. You have no federal right to do so. The Constitution merely says:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
As it happens, all 50 of the states have selected a popular vote as the mechanism for appointing electors (there are two states that grant electors based upon popular vote in each of its Congressional districts).
They could change this (which would likely be politically suicidal, but they could).
Although some of the members of the Constitutional Convention supported the idea of direct popular vote – there were even arguments made for a king – they ultimately determined that the STATES THEMSELVES, indirectly representing the views of their citizens, should be the ones determining who won the presidency. And the Constitution leaves it up to the states to figure out how to do that.
The EC still leaves a tyranny of the majority, it is just the tyranny of the majority in each state. The effect is the same, so why have it to begin with? Let each person have an equal vote, no matter their geography.
Val, I think you misunderstand where your food, fuel and military protection come from… hint, they are colored red on many maps shown on the news the past month.
Your attitude reeks of arrogance, like urban opinions are worth more than rural ones, just because there are more of them.
So screw all you country bumkins, you will be ruled by your betters in the cities, huh? Now you see how 30 years of that attitude pays you back.
Still don’t get why we would vote for ANYONE rather than continue to allow elites to dictate our taxes, our healthcare, our bathroom privacy, and how we use our land?
Typical. If you can’t impose, you claim to be imposed on.
Right now rural opinions are worth more. They are granted power disproportionate to their numbers. I’m not asking for a system that grants extra power to cities. I’m not flipping the script and saying my vote should be worth more than theirs.
I’m asking that one vote from me carries the same power as one vote from one of them.
You do not seem to understand that you already have more power. Rural folks ARE ‘imposed’ on. That is a demonstrable fact. The EPA alone (“standing water in ditches are regulated”) imposes big city restrictions into our very houses, telling us how to use land our families have farmed/ranches for centuries without negative consequence. These agencies are run by the president.
I live in an area that could not get electricity or phone until well after WWII, and had to band together in Cooperatives that provide those services to this day. The big city folks and presidents at that time couldn’t care less about us. My in laws faced possible de facto confiscation of their ranch because some Washington agency wanted to protect a useless bird that did not need protection. That land cannot be changed, and therefore cannot be sold or improved for agricultural use, their livelihood, had that happened.
You would never have had a nation without the electoral college in the first place, and I suspect you will not have one if you get rid of it.
Cities (and even mid sized towns) cannot support themselves, having less than two weeks of food at best. The rural peons you so despise provide your entire life and well being. We don’t ask for control, just respect and to be left alone to live our little lives free of tyranny. Since we did not get that, we have used the only method available to us short of armed rebellion and you complain how unfair our legal choices are.
Incredible.
Agencies run by the president that you have more power to choose than I do. Don’t put the blame on me for choices that you have more of a say in than I do.
Where’s my power? In all this shit you’ve decided to blame me for, where’s my ability to do any of it? This year there were three million more of me than you and look what happened. A hate fueled, resentment driven campaign took the biggest prize on the fucking planet and now gets to drive it into the ground.
But I’m the one imposing? Fuck you. Fuck confederations and fuck prince-electors. Give me President Hillary Clinton chosen by the people not Kaisar Donald I.
You want to live free of tyranny? So does the LGBT community, so do women who want to be free to make choices about their own bodies, so do people who aren’t christian, so do people with brown skin, so do people who don’t want to end up a Russian satellite state. But I guess all of us can just go eat a bag of dicks because you want to throw a temper tantrum about some birds.
As for your armed rebellion, you know how that worked out for the slavers.
So does the LGBT community, so do women who want to be free to make choices about their own bodies, so do people who aren’t christian, so do people with brown skin, so do people who don’t want to end up a Russian satellite state. But I guess all of us can just go eat a bag of dicks because you want to throw a temper tantrum about some birds.
And what do you know about those people? It is not as if you are one of them.
Clinton pushed Australian-style gun control. See this link for whast gun control leads to.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/22/shaneen-allen-race-and-gun-control/
valkygrrl wrote,“Where’s my power? In all this shit you’ve decided to blame me for, where’s my ability to do any of it? This year there were three million more of me than you and look what happened. A hate fueled, resentment driven campaign took the biggest prize on the fucking planet and now gets to drive it into the ground.
But I’m the one imposing? Fuck you. Fuck confederations and fuck prince-electors. Give me President Hillary Clinton chosen by the people not Kaisar Donald I.
You want to live free of tyranny? So does the LGBT community, so do women who want to be free to make choices about their own bodies, so do people who aren’t christian, so do people with brown skin, so do people who don’t want to end up a Russian satellite state. But I guess all of us can just go eat a bag of dicks because you want to throw a temper tantrum about some birds.
As for your armed rebellion, you know how that worked out for the slavers.”
valkygrrl,
That my coddled little Political Hack was a huge pile of hyperpartisan Histrionic Malevolence Syndrome BULL SHIT! That’s exactly what Projectile Blogging of a Vomit Comment looks like.
You have completely lost it!
For your information Little Miss Sasquatch Brain
Here’s the vote distribution by Counties…
This verifies that the Electoral College does the job of balancing out what the “majority” of the country wanted and not let the few densely populated bastions of Liberal dominance rule the entire country.
As everyone around here knows that I don’t like Trump and I didn’t vote for the man; however, I not like other brain damaged partisan hacks spewing hyper partiusan bull shit, the system works and you need to shut the fuck up your hateful partisan bigoted bull shit.
This does get to be dismissal by label after a while. A tool that is diminished by over-use.
This graphic representation shows an interesting fact; there are bastions of unbalanced hive-minded Liberal thinking compressed primarily into the densely populated areas of the United States and that the rest of the nation is relatively balanced in their political division. Why do these hive-minded Liberal in the big cities think they should rule over the rest.
https://blueshift.io/election-2016-county-map.html
Jack Marshall wrote, “A tool that is diminished by over-use.”
Understood.
So what Zoltar? Now it’s votes by acreage rather than by people? A county in Nevada of 783 people (Esmeralda County) and a whole lot of rocks and playa should carry as much vote power as the county of five million people I live in?
763, that’s one of your precious red patches.
So who is bullshitting who?
valkygrrl wrote, “So what Zoltar? Now it’s votes by acreage rather than by people? A county in Nevada of 783 people (Esmeralda County) and a whole lot of rocks and playa should carry as much vote power as the county of five million people I live in?”
Are you really that ignorant?
That’s a perfect example of an off the scale Cranial Power Generation Potential.
valkygrrl said, “that’s one of your precious red patches.”
My red patches, are you so partisan blind that you simply refuse to read what is written. I did not vote for Trump, I’m just not full of hateful bull shit innuendo like you.
valkygrrl said, “So who is bullshitting who?”
I’m glad you asked but I (as a reasonably intelligent person) am surprised you bothered to ask especially after reading your comment December 18, 2016 at 8:53 am, asking that question seems to show how intellectually dishonest you really are and how consumed by hyper-partisan bull shit you are.
valkygrrl said, “In all this shit you’ve decided to blame me for” That’s BULL SHIT! YOU were not blamed for a damn thing.
valkygrrl said, “President Hillary Clinton” That’s BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “Kaisar Donald” That’s BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “You want to live free of tyranny?” The innuendo contained within that is BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “You want to live free of tyranny?… so does the LGBT community” The innuendo contained within that is BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “You want to live free of tyranny?… so do women who want to be free to make choices about their own bodies” The innuendo contained within that is BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “You want to live free of tyranny?… so do people who aren’t christian” The innuendo contained within that is BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “You want to live free of tyranny?… so do people with brown skin” The innuendo contained within that is BULL SHIT!
valkygrrl said, “You want to live free of tyranny?… so do people who don’t want to end up a Russian satellite state” The innuendo contained within that is BULL SHIT!
Yes valkygrrl, someone is trying to bullshit others, that someone is YOU with your hyper-partisan bull shit. Yes valkygrrl you’re full of partisan shit.
Thanks for asking that question.
Wow, Val is truly vile. It cannot be healthy to carry that much hate around. I hope she gets help
“But I’m the one imposing? Fuck you. Fuck confederations and fuck prince-electors. Give me President Hillary Clinton chosen by the people not Kaisar Donald I.”
It’s Kaiser, from “Caesar,” and we’re a LONG way from Trump being anything like the Kaiser, who was one of the most powerful modern monarchs under a Constitution (had the power to appoint the prime minister who was the head of government, conclude treaties, declare a defensive war etc. all without any legislative input) , but that’s the least of problems with this string of vile bile.
Every so often V-girl’s posting starts to sound like her 12-year-old got a hold of her password and is just posting in a way to convey the maximum amount of anger, hate, and bitterness, and get everyone else upset. This latest string is putting her closer and closer to being a female Scott Jacobs. Jack never put Scott in timeout, and I won’t second-guess his decisions, since it’s his blog, but he is not required to cut her the same slack he cut Scott, or myself, or more than a few other posters who have let anger, hate, and bitterness take over our minds and spewed either cold hate or hot venom onto this blog.
There’s a place for anger, obviously, but eventually the feeling passes and then you still have to decide what to do. Decisions made while angry or on the basis of hate or vengefulness rarely are good ones. Ranting creates a lot of heat, but very little light.
The obvious problem here is that we have, for the sixth time in our history, someone winning the presidency by the electoral vote without also winning the popular vote. There is no precedent for reversing the electoral vote, as anyone who knows the history of the presidency knows. The presidency was never intended to be a direct popular vote, for a number of reasons, least of which that the founders did not want a few large cities imposing their rule on the rest of the nation, nor did they want to create a state in which 49% of the population could and would be at the mercy of 51%. I believe most of them would BLANCH at the idea of one huge liberal state, dominated by fewer than a dozen very large cities and including one county that has a population bigger than 42 STATES, which is where Hilary ran up the popular vote score, imposing its choices on the other 49. A prospect like that is the very reason that we have a bicameral legislature with only one house involving representation by population.
I have to say I think they would blanch only slightly less at the arrogance, indifference, and abuse of discretion that has become the hallmark of the last eight years and the way deliberate divisiveness and setting American against American has become the coin of governmental trade.
The problem here is that a lot of folks on the left, and more than a few on the right, including myself, bought into what appeared to be the credible narrative that this nation was changing, that the electorate was getting younger, browner, gayer, and less religious, and that the time of the values represented by the GOP was ending. Many more, mostly on the left, bought into the less credible narrative that a. this was a good change and b. now was the time for the left to “go nuts.” As such, we on the right should just sit down and shut up. Maybe our new betters would leave us alone IF we were good boys, but, if not, we had to just take our medicine and punishment in silence, for everything that people who look or love or believe like us did to those who were like them in the past.
Unsurprisingly we older, whiter, straighter, more believing folks said no, we’re not just going to kowtow to those who accuse us of every wrong under the sun and a few that never happened under the sun. No, we will not bow to kiss the ring of a black man simply because of something that others did a century and a half ago. No, we will not drop back and allow every woman to precede us down the street because of what happened two and three generations ago. No, we will not hide our beliefs in the basement like this in the Roman Empire. We worked the system and won, and turned this ridiculous narrative on its ear, and not a damn thing we did was illegal, or without precedent, or even a little bit outside the lines.
Now the other side faces being at the mercy of a new majority who understandably remember them with small kindness. It’s not a nice place to be, but, it’s in a lot of ways a place of their own making. Do they even take one look inward? Do they ask even once where did they go wrong? Do they even accept that they MIGHT have gone wrong somewhere along the line?
No, instead they say the system is outmoded, or wrong, or interfered with simply because it didn’t go their way. They say the electorate is stupid or ignorant or hateful because more of it voted the wrong way almost everywhere. They say the victorious candidates are hateful or racist or evil because they don’t represent their values. What’s more they say we should defy the system or ignore the system or change the system in the middle, all because they didn’t win. And they leaven this with a generous amount of profanity and insult, in the hopes that it will somehow beat us into going along with them just to stop this torrent of hostility and contempt.
Here’s the thing: All of these tactics were used during the election, and they didn’t prevail. Now the election’s over, and they’re doubling down on the same tactics. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I haven’t taken part in this discussion until now because I was playing host to a friend from out of town, but I have to say this last string of hatred went on way too long. In real life we’ve all walked away from conversations, lines of discussion, and even people after a discussion has covered every angle and there’s nothing more to say, or someone has abandoned reasoned discussion for rant, or someone has started substituting name-calling for substance.
Seriously, V-girl, this latest line of venom, some of which a whole lot of anger and not a whole lot of thought went into, is a damned disgrace, and you should be ashamed that you wrote some of it. I know I am ashamed of some things I wrote here in the heat of anger, I know I’m not too proud of some things I’ve both said and done in the past in the heat of anger, but then again, I am still capable of feeling shame. I don’t think you are, any more than some Brooklyn brownstone dweller whose browser clicks back and forth between Huffpo and Daily Kos when she’s home from yet another hipster discussion trading decade-old jokes about John Ashcroft over coffee that costs eight dollars a cup, or some junior social justice studies major in a Che Guevara shirt who’s regressed eighteen years in three and now has the entitlement mentality of a toddler, or some welfare mom on her fourth boyfriend and sixth pregnancy, paying for food with food stamps, clothing with public assistance, and cigarettes and condoms with whatever money her baby daddies give her, living in Section 8 housing and seeing not a damn thing wrong with this picture, is.
I’ve been there. Hills and sheep and snow drifts 15 feet deep, 150 miles from anywhere to anywhere and just driving past Laramie makes me twitchy even though rationally it shouldn’t.
So in other words, you have made a personal lifestyle decision that precludes your ability to make your vote count as much as theirs. And because of your decision, that means its okay to diminish THEIR rights as a state. Got it. Thanks for playing.
Condescending much?
In other words the people of Wyoming and other mostly rural states are so downtrodden that they require affirmative action to grant them more power than other people.
Completely incorrect, and reflective of a serious lack of understanding of how the federal government was designed. Really, valky, you should study history sometime. It’s fascinating stuff.
First, the idea of “affirmative action” is risible on its face. If you’d used that term with the men who set up the system, they’d have looked at you as though you had three eyes, and not because the term didn’t even exist back then. They established the system so that large states like Virginia and New York wouldn’t have control over smaller states like Connecticut and Rhode Island.
If direct popular vote elected the president, roughly 15 of the nation’s metropolitan areas could decide what happens in the rest of the country.
Your arguments increasingly remind me of someone who buys a house near an international airport and then starts complaining about the noise. But hey, if direct democracy is your thing, why not take a vacation in Venezuela this year?
To wit:http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/its-official-clintons-popular-vote-win-came-entirely-from-california/
Sorry, triple post.
For the record, I have never visited either Dakota, either Carolina, Nevada, Montana, Alaska or Hawaii. I have visited the other states and DC plus British Columbia and Ontario, some of those were only for a few hours, if I pass through, I like to at least eat a meal and see a local something or other. Missed Mexico, intened to pop across the border for lunch but the timing didn’t work out so I’ve only seen Mexico from across the fence near El Paso. That’s it for North America.
They are self-gerrymandered. You can live and vote where you choose.
I live in California. Say what you will about it, but all in all, it’s a pretty nice place to live. We have it pretty good here. And there is plenty of diversity of thought and politics throughout the state. Unfortunately anyone in California who would vote for a Republican president is going to cast a valueless ballot. Same for the Democrat in Montana. No one should cast a worthless ballot. It discourages voter turnout and creates a disenfranchised minority party voter in those states. It is true that the tyranny of the majority is a real possibility, but the bigger question is how do you discern a tyranny of the majority versus a will of the people? It’s a subjective and slippery slope. Let one person have a vote that means as much wherever they live in this country.
Besides, the EC only votes for president and VP, so they don’t help rural states where they really need the voting clout when it comes to federal lawmaking, federal taxes and policies, etc.
Lisa Weber wrote, “Unfortunately anyone in California who would vote for a Republican president is going to cast a valueless ballot. Same for the Democrat in Montana. No one should cast a worthless ballot.”
This argument is a propaganda bull shit argument and USED by Political Hack to “suppress” voter turnout of the political minority!
Every vote has value!
Every Vote Matters!!
Does this refer to abortion?
Tangentially perhaps, as I commented above, it was directed at birth control. Or, at least, the rhetoric at the time was directed at providing birth control. I’m not personally aware of any case of anyone being made to preform an abortion. Hypothetically, it could happen in a life-or-death emergency situation but I have trouble believing that a person who thinks a fetus is a person preferring two dead people to one dead person.
Abortions in the US tend to be preformed in gynecologist offices or in clinics, medical students tend to get their hands-on training in hospitals.
The pay-wall link didn’t help clarify things–sorry. Fixed.
The controversy was originally over birth control, indeed, and pharmacists who didn’t want to allow unmarried women to have sex. There has never been a requirement for a doctor to perform abortions against his beliefs, because the belief that it is a medical ethics breach is respected. When Obama changed Bush’s rule, abortion was still a procedure that a medical worker could refuse, and still is.
apparently, Obama changed his mind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/23/240000-jury-award-to-muslim-truck-drivers-who-were-fired-for-refusing-to-transport-alcohol/
I fail to see how religious accommodation laws apply to refusing to transport alcohol, but not to refusing to administer birth control.
I’m sorry, but your attempt to drag the Nativity story into this is a schmaltzy fail. Mary and Joseph were turned away by innkeepers not because of who or what they were, or anything they believed or had done, but because there was no room left. In fact, since the reason they (and everyone else that day) were traveling in the first place had to do with a law requiring everyone to return to his family’s place of origin to be counted in a census, the people who did get to stay at the inn were overwhelmingly of the same ethnicity as the young couple, the same religion, the same basic kind of lifestyle. The only difference is that they got there first. Unless you believe “NO VACANCY” signs are inherently unethical, you’re off-base here. I suppose we could have a discussion about whether there’s an ethical mandate for a paying customer at the inn in such a case to give up his place to someone in obvious need, and if so, whether the innkeeper has the right or responsibility to force the issue, but that’s starting to get off-topic, and anyway, I seem to recall (correct me if I’m wrong) that that question has come to your attention before in connection with evacuees fleeing a natural disaster, and your answer was “no.” Mary ended up giving birth in a stable not because she was a victim of bigotry, but because someone who had every right to say “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do” kindly offered her the only place of shelter he had left.
Bite me. Try another tangential nit-pick. For all you know, they were turned away because they didn’t vote for Herod. It’s Christmastime, see, and the refusal to sell heating to people because of their opinion or votes is as contrary to the spirit of Christmas as I can imagine. Moreover, an Innkeeper can always find room, if he wants too, and when a woman is pregnant and ready to deliver, if he doesn’t want to, he’s a heartless jerk. he should have given her his OWN room.
Applying modern ethics to an ancient dilemma. Men and first born male children got the first and the best, whether it be food resources or rooms at the inn back in the day and place. Pregnant women were not given special consideration. Women were property, to be used and treated as their fathers and husbands pleased, pregnant or not.
Wow. First of all, I didn’t defend Michael Turner in any way, shape or form, nor would I. I *agree* with you about him, and my *only* reason for “nitpicking” has to do with my assumption, apparently incorrect, that if you undermined an otherwise sound argument by tossing in something jarring and erroneous, you would want to know. Second of all, of course we don’t know exactly why Mary and Joseph weren’t turned away because we weren’t there, but the ONLY account we have of what happened (whether it’s literally true, wholly fiction, or anything in between) explicitly states that “there was no room for them in the [main area of the] inn.” (The original Greek doesn’t actually say that they were turned away altogether, only that there was no room in the area where guests usually stayed.) I’m not saying either that the innkeeper couldn’t have come up with a better solution, only that, based on the information we actually have, he was at least trying to do the right thing, however incompetently or selfishly. Worst case scenario, he’s George Zimmerman: sure he’s an asshole whose bad decisions led to Trayvon Martin’s death, but that doesn’t mean he’s a racist or that he didn’t have a valid claim of self-defense, because the evidence just isn’t there. Likewise, there’s NO evidence that justifies putting the innkeeper on a list of bigots who refuse to do legitimate business with people they don’t like. (And yes … I *do* know they weren’t turned away for “not voting for Herod.” No one voted for Herod. Yes, I know you were being sarcastic, but I promise you that I know the Nativity story at least as well as you do.)
I’m not sure of your beef. It seems perfectly acceptable to have the Innkeeper portrayed as a jerk rejecting the vessel through which God chose to Incarnate his Son. It seems manifestly appropriate to the story that God made Flesh would be wholly rejected by Mankind and forced into abjectly humble origins in completely contrast to the significance of what the Incarnation meant—that God’s infinite Glory was initiating the Invasion of the World in Rebellion…a type of D-Day.
Michael Turner is an unethical bigot, he’s a Political Hack.
I don’t give a shit who he voted for; his unethical conduct against people (his customers) simply because they think differently than he does warrants a very public boycott of his business and daily picketing in front of his business from every single voter in the vicinity regardless of who they voted for.
This is local, regional, and national news worthy.
Valkygrrl writes:
Where’s my power? In all this shit you’ve decided to blame me for, where’s my ability to do any of it? This year there were three million more of me than you and look what happened. A hate fueled, resentment driven campaign took the biggest prize on the fucking planet and now gets to drive it into the ground.
But I’m the one imposing? Fuck you. Fuck confederations and fuck prince-electors. Give me President Hillary Clinton chosen by the people not Kaisar Donald I.
And thus we get to the heart of Valky’s protestations. Tell me, Valky… had Clinton won the EC vote and Trump had won the popular vote by the same margins – exactly the opposite of what occurred – would you be as vigorous in protesting the Electoral College structure and the apportionment of Electors?
Ghu help us all, yes.
I don’t like caucuses during primary season either, in case you’re curious and I’d like to get some voting representatives for DC.
Based on your other comments in this thread, I’m having a little trouble believing that. But I shall accept your word as sincere, and that warrants my respect, even if we disagree on the basic premise.
For their vote to be proportional, that would require about a third of a Representative and no Senator.
So like Wyoming? It’s like 700k to the rep right now, yes? And DC has about half a million?
One is a city, the other is a state.
If you want to play it as a confederation then we’re emulating the germanies. There’s no reason why Illinois shouldn’t just absorb Iowa and it’s prince-electors. There no more reason to give a shit about them than Saxony ever cared about Thuringia.
It *is* a Confederation…
You got hung up on terminology earlier making your Articles of Confederation argument. Confederations exist on a continuum, you have looser examples, of which the Articles represented, then you have tighter more “Federal” examples of which the Constitution represents.
And thank God the Founders designed it that way. Trying to organize the nation as a single unitary entity flies in the face of the reality that no culture is ever that homogeneous over a vast geographic area like the United State. Thank God they gave MOST lawmaking power to those distinct cultural entities we call States.
Your beef, like most people’s nowadays, is we’ve placed TOO much power at the national level and we’ve convinced ourselves the President’s role is more legislative than Executive…but I blame the left-dominated education system and pop-culture machine for that mis-education.
Fix that premise and people would be a lot more calm.
No, if there are any problems with our Federal *arrangement*…its that we actually have too FEW representatives, and too FEW states to actually represent the DIVERSE cultural zones of our nation.
The problem with D.C. is it never was intended to be a typical permanent residence. It was meant to be the federal city stocked with people working for the government…in which case their representation would work much like the military’s: individual soldiers still vote in their stated home of record. In D.C.’s case it ought be Maryland or Virginia.
Impractical and impossible. Those people working for the government need places to live near work and places to buy food and gas. And the people working in those places need… The capital, especially in the 21’st century needs a city if only to supply all the services people working in and visiting the capital need.
Your military example forgets the camp followers.
Not to mention we’re under no obligation to follow the intent of the founders, they didn’t give us a perfect system for the 21’st century. They didn’t even give us a perfect system for the 18’th century, they gave us what little they could manage to get New Englanders and southron slavers to agree on.
We can decide to give representation to DC and Thomas Jefferson won’t feel a thing. He didn’t come back to haunt us after we changed to direct election of senators. No ghosts when women got to vote. No fire from the heavens over income tax.
Nothing impractical or impossible about having people working and living in DC declare as residents of Maryland or Virginia, depending on which side of the Potomac they are on…
“He didn’t come back to haunt us after we changed to direct election of senators.”
No, but the slow lingering problems of undermining this aspect of Federalism do haunt us.
“No ghosts when women got to vote.”
Not a constitutional issue. It modified nothing about the existing constitution, merely compelled the States on how they limited the franchise.
“No fire from the heavens over income tax.”
Given the myriad complications following the income tax… fire from heavens may be hyperbole…but it’s long term affects have not been good.
“We can decide to give representation to DC and Thomas Jefferson won’t feel a thing. He didn’t come back to haunt us after we changed to direct election of senators. No ghosts when women got to vote. No fire from the heavens over income tax.”
Somehow I don’t think a haunting was first on everyone’s minds when any of those things passed. But, I think it’s been established by this thread that with you it’s not the facts, nor the law, but the perpetually angry and snarky attitude that counts.
Your respect for the Constitution obviously continually grows. Thankfully, I don’t think there’s much support in 3/4 of the states or over 2/3 of Congress for your blithe attitude toward creating a system aimed at creating a system in which serfdom would be imposed on most of the country from a few elite liberals living in Brooklyns with bubbles over them.
What color is the sky in your world?
Pot.. Kettle… Cunt.
That was a line I first heard on “Cheers.”
The color most of the electoral map wasn’t this time out. What color is it in your world, fantasist?
Fantacist is a gentile name, but let’s try to cool it with the name-calling all ’round, shall we? Be kind: V is upset today, because Hitler is going to be elected President, and he’s pro-Russian this time.
Only for your sake, Jack. I hate V-girl with a passion, and I’ve been very upset with the past 8 years. This thread has been particularly vile, and it’s time to put her in her place. Again, I don’t second-guess your decisions, but I am particularly disgusted by what I read here.
Maryland should take back the District. Simple. Problem solved.
That works for me. The people would have representation and as a bonus, the city could control its own budget.
Well, that’s right. Or a Constitutional amendment that acknowledged the anomaly and gave the city at least a voting rep.
Let’s not be stingy, we can give them a senator too. Hell, they somehow got three prince-electors, after that a senator is nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector
Not even close as to what a prince-elector was. You sound like a complete idiot every time you post that. Then again, you were the one who wanted to pull a Bridgegate in Kentucky and grind McConnell’s (that’s Majority Leader McConnell to you, the man who stopped the SCOTUS’s leftward tilt COLD) balls into a paste. Your final gambit failed yesterday in the Electoral College, and in fact more electors broke with the Hildebeest than the President-elect. Call the waaaaaahbulance!
The valkygrrl that occupies quite a bit of real estate in your head is quite the interesting person. Since I don’t truck with oathbreaking, I’m clearly not her, but I do look forward to the day she pushes you completely off the deep end.
Hahahahahahahaha! Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve met some interesting people, WW2 vets, current fighters in the GWOT (including some MOH winners), other lawyers, judges, and last night one of the four or five most beautiful classical singers in the world. Knee-jerk, strident, vicious liberal feminists are not that interesting. In fact they are boring because they are kind of predictable and differ only in degree. If you are interesting you are only interesting the same way that an uglier warthog or lobster or spider might be when measured against others – ugly, but so ugly it stands out in a field of ugliness, or a supremely ugly monster from mythology like the catoblepas or the medusa might be – hideous, but so much so it grabs your attention. You haven’t got a prayer in the world of driving me nuts, and if I look forward to a day, it’s the day you either give up and disappear from this site, Jack throws you out the door, or some illness puts you in a hospital bed, waiting for death while in constant pain, with tubes sticking out at every angle, unable to relieve yourself in a dignified manner.
Maybe the last bit…the hospital bit… was a bit much?
My patience is ended, Tex. Like the rest of the whiter, straighter, older believing victorious electorate, I’ve had all I can take of these vicious, vile attempts to ape Dan Savage and Sarah Silverman couples with this proto-tyrannical attitude that no matter what happens the liberal always wins because they’re smarter, cooler, and right.
I’d submit in the calculus of Law-making, a Senator actually is more important than an elector. And as D.C. isn’t a State and therefore possesses no state interests or authority, it has no reason to have a Senator.
And I’ve already demonstrated how it’s individual citizens ought be granted Representation within the anomaly that is the federal district.
They have to live under the laws passed by congress, the only person there to represent their interests has no vote. Their budget requires congressional approval, but again the only person there to represent their interests has no vote.
My fellow citizens, the ones who happen to live in D.C., don’t have anyone who’s job it is to vote their interests. I intend to keep arguing for that to change.
““To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district
(not exceeding ten miles square) as may by cession of particular states,
and the acceptance of congress, become the seat of the government of the
United States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the
consent of the legislature of the state, in which the same shall be, for the erection
of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings.”
The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government,
carries its own evidence with it. It is a power exercised by every legis-
No. 43
223
lature of the union, I might say of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy.
Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted, and its
proceedings be interrupted with impunity, but a dependence of the members
of the general government on the state comprehending the seat of the government,
for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national
councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonourable to
the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the confederacy.
This consideration has the more weight, as the gradual accumulation of
public improvements at the stationary residence of the government, would
be both too great a public pledge to be left in the hands of a single state, and
would create so many obstacles to a removal of the government, as still further
to abridge its necessary independence. The extent of this federal district,
is sufficiently circumscribed to satisfy every jealousy of an opposite nature.
And as it is to be appropriated to this use, with the consent of the state ceding
it: as the state will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights, and the
consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducements
of interest, to become willing parties to the cession; as they will
have had their voice in the election of the government, which is to exercise
authority over them; as a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived
from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; and as the authority
of the legislature of the state, and of the inhabitants of the ceded part of it,
to concur in the cession, will be derived from the whole people of the state,
in their adoption of the constitution, every imaginable objection seems to be
obviated.”
No.
The press coverage has caught up with the dealer; it turns out that he didn’t have a business license to sell propane.
http://www.pressherald.com/2016/12/21/skowhegan-propane-dealer-with-anti-trump-message-is-not-licensed-to-sell-fuel/