It seems Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has followed lead of SCOTUS Chief Justice Humpty Dumpty* Roberts and declared himself “Master of Words”. (SCOTUS = Supreme Court of the United States)
SOS Mark Humpty Dumpty Ritchie will no longer allow his status to be relegated to that of a slave to words. SOS Ritchie has declared war against tyranny of the meaning of words. Who do these words think they are to command any elected official to use them in the commonly accepted manner which these words have unilaterally declared themselves to mean?
Why should politicians or judges have to abide by the commonly accepted plain meaning of English words when it is politically expedient to not be confined by their meaning?
Therefore, SOS Humpty Dumpty Ritchie will also will create his own dialect of English just like SCOTUS did. (eg Penalty equals Taxes, the words in the constitution and Bill of Rights don't mean what they say, Corporations are People, etc)
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words
Sam Adams Letter to John Pitts Jan 21 1776 http://bit.ly/nKg6YT
This fall Minnesota Voters will see two questions on their Minnesota Ballots which may amend the Minnesota Constitution::
They involve VoterID and anti- gay marriage position.
In the first one, the Minnesota Legislature designated the short title:
“Photo Identification Required for Voting.”
Secretary of State Ritchie proposes:
“Changes to In-Person & Absentee Voting & Voter Registration; Provisional Ballots”
In the second one, the MN Legislature put forward the short title:
"Recognition of Marriage Solely Between One Man and One Woman."
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie Proposes
“Limiting the Status of Marriage to Opposite Sex Couples.”
This writer notes SOS Ritchie's reference to the long tradition of the Secretary of State choosing the wording of the title of these ballot based initiatives.
In response, this writer is reminded a Minnesota ballot initiative short titled something to the effect "toward improving the conditions of our prisons" in the early 1900's. This ballot initiative actually took aware the right of WE THE PEOPLE to have direct access to State Grand Juries. (Too many convictions for government corruption, so the Minnesota Politicians killed it) The point being that this writer is all to keenly aware of misuses of the power in titling ballot based initiatives.
And this writer asserts that the overwhelming majority of the Minnesota general public believes, regardless of their political stripe, these titles should be clear, concise, accurate and not written to be deceptive.
It is with this in mind that this writer criticizes SOS Ritchie's proposed “Humpty Dumpty” titles.
This writer asserts that the Minnesota Legislature's proposed short title for Voter ID is the most clear, concise and accurate. Further, is not written to be deceptive. 1st, it contains the "Key word" used by the Minnesota Major Media and Internet Social Media to report and comment on the proposed "VoterID" measure. It concisely states the most important effect of the proposed Amendment. SOS Ritchie does not even include the term Voter ID in his proposed Title. Can we not all agree that the Title should include the simple mnemonic trigger phrase “Voter ID” so voters can easily access their memories of the debate in casting their vote? Finally, to this writer, it is ironic and irritating that many of the provisions that were included to address the concerns of the opponents of Voter ID are now apparently going to be used to confuse and obfuscate the issue. (This writer has been an election judge for several elections)
With regard to anti gay marriage proposal, the Minnesota Legislature's Title again appears to be more clear, concise, accurate short tile without intention to be deceptive. The same is not true of SOS Ritchie's proposed short title. 1st, Mr. Ritchie's proposed title is not clear nor accurate. It does not state that marriage is limited to only 2 persons of the opposite sex. And, it does not discern marriage between, for example, a person and an animal.
In the interest of full disclosure, this writer strongly supports the VoterID amendment.
With regard to the gay marriage issue, this heterosexual writer has no strong feelings one way or another. With regard to gay marriage this writer supports civil unions to address the legitimate concerns of gay couples. [(Some of those issues being, inheritance, medical privacy and end of life decisions) See “If I were running for President Part 3 of 3”, Item 96, Civil Unions http://bit.ly/QoRCqr ] In this writer’s opinion, rather than try to unconstitutionally force established religions to perform gay marriages, if gay couples want to be married, let them seek out any church or religious organization willing to do so. And if none can be found, let them found a church or religion of their own. To this writer’s mind, problem solved.
Going back to the Voter ID Constitutional Amendment proposal, this writer again reminds the reader that he has been an election judge for several elections. The simple equation is this: To Vote, you must sign for a ballot’ Therefore the number of signatures for ballots should equal to the number of ballots cast. Even allowing for human error, how does the discrepancy between the Minnesota ballots signed for consistently differ from the number of Minnesota Ballots Cast, by hundreds and even thousands (depending on the scope of election). And how does the Minnesota Supreme Court resolve elections like Dayton v Emmer and/or Franken v ColemanXX without first resolving the ballots signed for v the ballots cast discrepancy. (Especially when said discrepancy exceeds the margin of victory)
This is this writer’s reason for strongly supporting the Voter ID measure and strongly encouraging his fellow Minnesotans to vote in favor of it. At the same time, if this is passed and someone can prove they were denied the opportunity vote as a result, contact this writer and he will as vigorously condemn that action and press for the reform necessary to ensure it will not occur again.
And, by the way, why can’t a large 1 paragraph summary of each proposal be posted at the polling places with handouts of the actual legislation available for voters so predisposed?
Finally, my fellow Americans, please join me in demanding that our politicians and judges not bastardize our English language. WE THE PEOPLE must not allow the incumbent ruling class elite to bastardize our language for the dubious agenda of managing and manipulating WE THE PEOPLE like cattle and for the purposes of forcing agenda and rulings upon us. WE THE PEOPLE are more alike than we are different:
How the ruling class elite beat the bell curve http://bit.ly/IomEMZ
WE are the 66% http://bit.ly/WeAreThe66
This writer sincerely hopes that his synopsis of the “short title” issue finds acceptance among his fellow Minnesotan’s regardless of political stripe.
The true battle is not Republican v Democrat, Conservative v Liberal,
White v Color, nor educated v uneducated;
The true battle is WE THE PEOPLE v the corrupt, incumbent, ruling class elite.
Those were my thoughts.
(See *Footnotes at very bottom of this article)
In Closing:
Thank you, my fellow citizens, for taking your valuable time to read and reflect upon what is written here.
Please join with me in mutually pledging to each other and our fellow citizens our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to our mutual endeavors of restoring liberty and economic opportunity to WE THE PEOPLE as our Founding Fathers envisioned and intended. [Last Paragraph, Declaration of Independence http://bit.ly/ruPE7z ]
This article is written with the same intentions as Thomas Paine http://ushistory.org/paine. I seek no leadership role. I seek only to help the American People find their own way using their own “Common Sense” http://amzn.to/kbRuar
TellMyPolitician http://goo.gl/1FWfz
Keep Fighting the Good Fight!
In Liberty,
Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot
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End the Fed(eral Reserve Bank System) #ETF
National http://bit.ly/ta3Rju Minneapolis http://bit.ly/tjZJKF
Lawless America #LawlessAmerica
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Justice in Minnesota #JIM
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Bring Home the Politicians #BHTP
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Get out of our House #GOOOH
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Critical Thinking Notice - This author advises you as no politician would dare. Exercise Critical Thinking (http://bit.ly/ubI6ve) in determining the truthfulness of anything you read or hear. Do not passively accept nor believe anything anyone tells you, including this author... unless and until you verify it yourself with sources you trust and could actively defend your perspective to anyone who might debate you to the contrary of your perspective.
FOOTNOTES
*Humpty Dumpty appears in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1872), where he discusses semantics and pragmatics with Alice:
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master… that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
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