Why I do this, I don't quite know. Perhaps the many times I dropped on my head as a child (I was fond of climbing trees, but not that coordinated)? Underlying love of being tortured?
Whatever.
I spent over an HOUR that I will never get back trying to explain that, no, Trump shows no signs of being either a tyrant or a Nazi, and, no, being a big poopyhead and a pig is not an impeachable offense.
No matter - she was outraged at the poor example Trump set for children, like her son.
My reaction was THIS epic.
Dear God. After DECADES of working VERY hard to prove myself in STEM careers, and function on the rational level you might THINK should be standard in an educated person,
WHY THE HELL DO SO MANY WOMEN WORK SO HARD TO MAKE MEN THINK THAT THE 19TH AMENDMENT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE?
OK. Rant over. I'm calm (sort of) again.
Linda, my secret love, the 19th Amendment was a huge mistake -- but not because women shouldn't have the vote. Rather, it was a huge mistake because the vote properly belongs to the family.
ReplyDeleteA co-located family -- i.e., one whose members share a single domicile -- has a single set of defensible political interests. The number of its members should not matter. What should matter is whether it owns land and pays property taxes on it.
The original Constitutional agreement about taxation was that direct taxes should not be allowed except "in proportion to the population." Behind that was a fairly clear sense of what taxation should and should not support. The Republic's original revenue stream was almost entirely import and excise taxes -- indirect taxes one could contrive to avoid without breaking the law -- and from the Jackson Administration to the Civil War, it ran a surplus rather than a deficit. Property taxes funded the state and local governments. And as I'm sure you recall, there was no redistribution, no subsidies to favored constituents and their businesses, and precious little interference with individuals' lives.
Quite a lot of that changed with the 16th, 17th, and 19th Amendments. Coupled to the Progressive Movement, they bear a great part of the odium for the mess we're in today.