FeedsMichigan Voting Info and Proposals
Oct/21/2008 09:48 AM
Since that time is coming up for the election, I want to share some voting info that is relevant to people that live in Michigan. This is probably the biggest election of my lifetime, so I hope that good information gets out there. One thing that is really important is that people simply get out to vote. I haven't voted yet since I've lived at my apartment and I bet for a lot of people, this may be their first time voting. So, I had no idea where I needed to go on election day. Thankfully, the State of Michigan has a Web Voter Information Center where you can make sure that you are in fact registered and it will show you where to go. You can also see exactly what the ballot will look like ahead of time so there are no surprises when you show up on election day.
Also, I want to skip any talk about the presidential election in this post. Though it's going to make a big difference on who is chosen, I think there has been enough talk about that on the news already. I do want to get into the statewide ballot proposals though. There are two proposals this year and both deal with health issues. The complete proposals are a good idea to read, but I will go over some key points.
Proposal 1 is trying to legalize medical marijuana. Essentially, this is a humanitarian law that will give people that are suffering from illnesses another choice of a way to relieve their pain. I would find it hard to justify a good reason to deny people in pain a way to assist themselves. But, beyond that, I also believe this is a good stepping stone around the country to fully legalizing the use of marijuana. Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Washington all already have similar laws and I think eventually people will realize that this drug is way less harmless than other legally available drugs. I would imagine that there are already close to the same number of people that smoke marijuana that drink alcohol. When is the last time you heard of someone getting into an accident after "smoking and driving", or abusing their spouse or kids after smoking. There is so many reasons why full legalization makes sense, I don't want to get into all of it. At the same time, this proposal is in no way a full legalization and has a lot of controls to make sure only certain people have access to it. Even if you don't think full legalization is the way to go, at least think about the people that would benefit from this and think how you can help them.
Proposal 2 is expanding legalization of stem cell research. I don't really know the history of this proposal, and I initially thought that it was going to be like proposal 1 where it was trying to super-cede federal law, but after reading it, it simply makes Michigan law closer to federal law, but will additional restrictions. This seems like a win for everyone, as the federal laws are already pretty strict. I am really curious about the signs that say "2 goes 2 far". I don't really know how it goes far at all. So, in addition to being restricted to current federal law, the Michigan law will also now allow stem cells to be taken from embryos more than 14 days old, and can only be taken from embryos that were already being created anyway and were going to be destroyed. I don't want to get into an argument here about "when life begins", but, in all these cases, the embryos are already being created under current practices and then being destroyed. So, if you feel it begins the second the sperm joins the egg, the current system is already destroying that life. It might at least make sense to save another life before destroying that one.
Anyhow, that is all I have for now. I'm sure it's obvious that I will be voting for both of these proposals. Please feel free to leave comments to further the discussion.
. (And no, Neil, I didn't vote for Badnarik either).