You guys, wasn’t this latest Republican walkout THE BEST?
I mean, we’ve been waiting a long time to do away with that pesky thing we call democracy, haven’t we?
We may routinely tell minorities in society that they should just buck up and assimilate… that they should just adhere to the melting-pot theory and lie down in the face of majority rule… but when it comes to an all-white Republican caucus in the Oregon Legislature, we obviously couldn’t continue to let them be beleaguered by things like compromise, by concessions that had been already afforded to their constituents, by voluntary emissions standards opt-ins for rural counties, or any of that other stuff! No way—they had to Get. Their. Way. Or else! Or else, by god, get off our lawns, because the rest of Oregon was going to pay!
No, this time, we finally got the chance to flout that democracy crap and say what we’ve all been wanting to say: That when it comes down to it, the majority doesn’t rule, and we’ve never wanted it that way. When it comes down to it, we were all secretly hoping to get some of that nationally-tweeted, autocratic “Dear Leader” flavor over here in Ory-gun, by allowing the majority of the Oregon Legislative Assembly’s business to be conducted by executive order and emergency committee instead of by the greater legislative body. That’s what I’m talking about, baby! No more deliberations, no more quorums intended to ensure a majority is there to vote… no more dumb committee meetings where legislators can bring their concerns, and where the public can have the chance to speak their minds—all of that goes out the window when you simply don’t show up to work. Isn’t it refreshing?! Vegas, baby!
Heck, maybe this is going to cause those young, forward-thinking people who want to move to Oregon for its natural beauty and environmental advocacy to think twice about moving here in the first place. Good riddance—we don’t need your innovations, your research, your brain trust of any kind. On behalf of us “native Oregonians” (who possess not an ounce of indigenous blood), we say we don’t need you. Our way of life was fine before you came here and started postulating about “the planet,” trying to further your “worldview” that Oregon is indeed part of the world and thus has an environmental impact upon it. If it came down to it, we’d put a wall not just around Oregon’s borders, but around Oregon’s skies too—and of course, we’d get California to pay for it!
Seeing as how walkouts have been super successful in the Legislature, how about this? Maybe we end voting too—since it’s clear that our votes, either for Democrat or Republican, in state legislative races don’t add up to a hill of beans. What’s the point, right? With voter apathy at an all-time high (or low?), we’re more than ready to let autocracy run wild.
Oh, wait, though—we should probably keep voting around long enough to vote in the autocrat we’ve always wanted.
The only problem is, no one has yet been able to devise a system that lets the candidate with fewer votes WIN AN ELECTION. Or have they?
Editor’s note: This is satire, people. Satire!! The Republican walkout did not, in fact, rule.
This article appears in Mar 11-18, 2020.
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Y’know, Snarky McSnarkington… maybe you missed the whole point. Packing the most warm bodies in the smallest space (as opposed to the will of the entire parking lot in toto) doesn’t make you the “will of the people” there, English Major. Woot, lookit ’em sling dem dere wurds ’round, hoo doggies. The walkout was regrettable, and was mourned by even those who had to do it; but do it they had to, not only because their constituents demanded it, but because the super majority– a super majority attained because somehow the most clowns in the smallest car(s) get more districts (and hence more power) than the majority voters of the rest of the state– gave them no other choice. Y’know, just like you mockingly alluded to in your ever-so-clever article above: “…no one has yet been able to devise a system that lets the candidate with fewer votes WIN AN ELECTION. Or have they?” You can be fully behind this debacle and still call out a pop-vote quip? You’re very hip, Mr. (or non-gender-specific-title) Pocrisy. 27 or so counties out of the 36 proclaimed that this boondoggle was not to their liking, and Republicans begged (ad infinitum) for lawmakers to refer it to the voters; you seem so confident of the majority, Snarks…why the hesitation and outright refusal? Oh, yeah, I know… like Burdick said, “The public just doesn’t have the tools to understand it.” Of course, since it was perfectly wonderful to trot anyone under the age of 12 to support the bill “for their future,” what she (and you, for all I know) REALLY meant to say is, “You hillbillies can’t understand what our kindergarteners easily do.” I DID read SB 1530 (and other identical attempts to slip it through) AND HB 2020 the year before, and I’m pretty confident I understood it better than, say…YOU, based on your big ‘ol words above. Any incarnation of these proposed bills would have simply allowed those who can afford it to continue polluting away– in forseeable scenarios even producing more than they do now. Hey, I agree it’s rude to pollute. I’d like to see it reduced, stopped even. These scraps of legal toilet paper (just like the Gov’s executive “Up Yours” order, which I doubt will stand a judge’s consideration, as it’s quite clear all of this could have been avoided by referring the vote to the people) wouldn’t (and won’t) help. They might make pompous idiots feel better about themselves while they dance for sandwiches (or write snarky anti-conservative articles), but that’s all they would do. I think this: “We’ve got to DO something!” not “We’ve got to do SOMEthing.” Satire indeed. It might have been funny… if it weren’t so sadly indicative of what you think of us.
Bill: I think I spy another English major among us. While our editorial board may not agree with your position about… well, much of any of this, we have to thank you for the humor! Also, we did read the bills. We get paid to do that kind of stuff! It rulz!