By Senator Dennis Linthicum
September 7, 2024
Vote – NO on Oregon’s Ballot Measures: 115, 116, 117, 118, 119.
Vote – NO on #115 – The Impeachment Measure – Voters are likely to fall for this one in the same way they were badgered into supporting the 10-day limit on Quorum Denials. Recall the lingo then was accountability. Today it’s the same, the question was, and still is, accountable to whom and for what?
Impeachment has devolved into a political weapon instead of a tool for keeping office-holders accountable. The majority party always adores the absolute power that “Our Democracy” lavishes on the smallest of their number. The party already in power will only wield the power of impeachment to advance their standing in the public mind and further their own creaturely ambitions.
As can be seen with recent impeachment hearings (Myorkas, Trump, Biden) these events were never about providing justice, accountability, or honesty. This measure would simply give more power to the powerful– an experience the good people in Oregon will get to see first-hand if Republicans lose any legislative seats during the November election.
Vote – NO on #116 – The Legislator Payroll Equity Measure – This measure is nothing but a shield for the legislature. It provides the big-spending elites with political cover, “I never voted to give myself a raise!”
Don’t help them mask their greed or ambition by giving them a free pass. Make them step up to the plate and act responsibly. Don’t give your legislator a way out of the mess they have created. Make them bear the responsibility for their failures and make them take the hard vote if they choose to oppose the best interest of the public.
Vote – NO on #117 – The Ranked Choices Measure – This is one of the worst ideas, ever. I mean ever. Our modern political class doesn’t like to make bold statements and there is no way to measure or rank the unquantifiable. Which do you prefer jicama, pork chops or evergreen trees? Your answer will depend on what is missing from the equation, so there is no meaningful choice.
Rank-Choice voting scenarios are meaningless mathematical algorithms that can’t make choices between appropriate and inappropriate, right and wrong, or the lesser of two evils. So, let’s not justify the absurd by leaping off the cliff.
Vote – NO on #118 – The 3% Gross Sales Tax – Wait, I was wrong. This is the worst idea ever. How did this get onto the ballot?
This measure essentially steals $7,000,000,000 from the public without even attempting anything big, beautiful or wonderful. The gimmick here is it looks like a 3% tax on sales for big corporations. These costs will be cumulative across all players in all sectors. Large raw material producers will get taxed and pass that along. Everyone in like-industries will also raise their prices by 3%, knowing the legislature can move down the earnings tree after a simple majority vote. All added labor, innovation, and value will also get taxed. Inflation will continue to sky-rocket. The transportation industries, packaging, distribution and retail shelf-space will all get taxed too.
If you think Oregon’s economy is becoming less attractive, this measure will surely put our economy in the ugly bucket and you will pay the price.
Vote – NO on #119 – The Union Labor – Owner Silencing Measure – I think this Measure is an attempt to create a legal approach to what would otherwise be known as “labor racketeering.” Racketeering is typically an organized criminal effort in which the perpetrators set up coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordination of schemes (or “rackets”) to consistently collect unwarranted profits.
If the voters make silencing business owners “legal” then there will never be any opposition. However, it is necessarily immoral because it violates the free-speech, free-association and free-assembly rights of businesses in Oregon.
These measures are just a few of the problems we face during this contentious election year. While many of us are trying to figure out how to steer the ship back toward constitutional governance other schemers would just as soon tear-up our constitutional rulebook.
Remember, our constitutions are supposed to define the narrow pathway for government actors. The Bill of Rights for example, tells us what government cannot do. The notion was that the people shall remain free while the government will be bound with constitutional shackles to protect our freedom.
In fact, every elected officer is bound by a pledge to uphold these original documents. Supposedly, they agree and have committed to these rules and we have been assured that they will abide by them. Why then, are most political players willing to shred them?
For some, once in power they get teased into thinking they know best. After-all, a well-timed social media onslaught can build momentum for things that are clearly wrong, untrue, and dangerous. Look at some of the click-bait marketing schemes which lurk behind every attractive image.
People can be sucked into fantasizing that our constitutional old-timers only existed, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” Almost, like they were aliens from the Star Wars bar scene. Their world was one most cannot grasp today; a world where everyone knew the difference between men and women; a world where goodness, mercy and justice meant something larger than political power and will.
In the modern era of big-time marketing schemes, we continually face rapacious strivers, peddling their false hopes for a better life, health and safety, like gossips at the corner Bazaar. I am constantly amazed that people still fall for things like rank-choice voting, silencing of business owners and needlessly promoting more taxes.
Thankfully, the covers have been pulled back on these nakedly unconstitutional and egregious policy stunts and they are being exposed.
One of the better-known revolutionary era essayists was the Centinel, whose essays appeared in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer and the Philadelphia Freeman’s Journal. His essays were widely re-printed throughout the colonies.
During the ratification years, Centinel asked his readers to “recollect the strenuous and un-remitting exertions” of those who had pushed for a more consolidated form of federal authoritarianism. Centinel suggested that “our admirable constitution”, which was formulated “to secure equal liberty and advantages to all” was the ultimate target of their ambitious schemes.
In 1787, he admonished his readers to stand fast and wonder, then answer, “whether these apprehensions are chimerical; whether such characters will be less ambitious, less avaricious, more moderate, when the privileges, property, and every concern of the people of the United States shall lie at their mercy and when they shall be in possession of absolute sway?”
The same query belongs to you and I. Let us –– Keep Steady, Stand Firm and Stay True.
Given our founders’ wisdom and these overarching concerns: Vote NO on Ballot Measures 115, 116, 117, 118, 119.
© 2024 Dennis Linthicum – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Dennis Linthicum: sen.DennisLinthicum@gmail.com
