Opinion

The writers at Independent Sources take great effort to avoid extensive editorializing and instead of ranting we simply present carefully selected facts (or omit non-conforming ones as the case may be) to support our personal positions–if this method is good enough for the LA Times it’s certainly good enough for us. More importantly, we never, ever assume that readers are the unintelligent, illiterate, and ill-informed who can be swayed by irrelevant and baseless statements. Imagine our surprise when we saw the latest No on 75 advertisement that is so far off of the mark that the only possible conclusion is that they have an extremely low opinion of the cognitive abilities of California’s voters.

California’s Proposition 75 is pretty simple. To take money from someone’s paycheck for political purposes, you need their permission. Since this practice is one way that unions build their large war chests, it is not surprising that they are against the measure. In response they have ponied up tens of millions of dollars (not ironically by taking money from union members without getting their permission) and are running TV spots attacking it.

The latest “No on 75″ TV spot takes the cake for misinformation and moving the debate away from “paycheck protection” to the unrelated topic of whether or not we like firefighters and their kids. The spot talks about the “hidden agenda” of prop 75 which they say is “to hurt firefighters and their families.” Do they really think people are that stupid and will will buy this line of (non) reasoning? It appears so. The spot continues with:

“Prop 75 would make it HARDER for firefighters to be heard.” I’m surprised the spot didn’t go further and also say if Prop 75 passes everyone will die of Swine Flu or that the “hidden agenda” of Prop 75 is to kill orphans or that a vote for 75 is a vote against small cuddly animals. I could go on but you get the point.

The fact is that public unions control California’s state legislature as well as local politics in most cities because of their ability to tap into the pockets of 100% of their members. This control has allowed them to build one of the most bloated public service systems outside of France. Our prison guards have work rules that rival pampered actors on the set. It is understandable that the unions are a little frustrated that this measure is being decided by voters instead of the officials that they have invested so much money getting elected, but that is no excuse for such ridiculous misinformation.

Independent Sources is decidedly Yes on 75 and we really hope that no orphans or animals are killed because of it.

technorati: prop 75 schwarzenegger

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2005 at 10:53 am by Insider and is filed under 2005 Initiatives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.