Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Online polls - What are they good for?



Polls yeah
Online polls
What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again
Online polls
What are they good for?


With apologies to Mr. Starr there is a point.  Online polls do nothing to show evidence of what the populace is thinking.  In the case of liquor privatization the union representatives will tell their people to vote it thereby skewing the results well beyond what they would be without their meddling.  Scientific poll after poll for decades have been fairly consistent that 60-65% of the citizens want the freedom of choice that an open market system brings.

While it is nice that politicians want some input I would hope that they knew their constituents well enough to have a fairly good idea what the people want.  After 40+ years of almost every scientific poll ever taken that shows the citizens don't want the state store system I would think that they should already have a pretty firm grasp on the subject.

What people should be asking is why their representatives vote the way they do. What special interest or ideological bent prevents them from doing what the majority of citizens want them to do.  While they, the politicians, may have answers they certainly can't have any reasons that hold up as to why they aren't doing what they were elected to do - represent what the people want.

It isn't that difficult, Washington did it in 11 months, Alberta Canada did it in 6 months. We are not reinventing the wheel here.  Look and take the best of what the rest of the states are doing, put regulations in place to prevent the worst and move forward.  The convoluted and ridiculous limits and restrictions of some of the proposals make our already horrid liquor laws even worse.

The requirement is that change has to benefit the society as a whole not store clerks, not beer distributors, not tavern owners but what makes things better for the populace. Making grocery stores have cafes to sell a six pack or wine doesn't do that.  Not allowing a beer distributor to sell a mixed case doesn't do that and not allowing a bar to sell a case of beer doesn't do that.  If you are willing to pay the bar price for a case then you should know the old saying about a fool and his money.

We have one of the largest and most highly paid legislatures in the country.  Make them do something to earn that pay, make them vote the way we, the majority of the people, want them to vote or put somebody in place who will.  You know if they are ignoring us on this issue they are ignoring us on other issues too. Is that why we elected them?

Privatization IS Modernization.  Accept nothing less.

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