Those progressive Europeans.
 

Hehehe.

No comments on the Swiss banning minarets? I understand other European countries will be following their example and bring this ban to the ballot.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/...nd_minaret_ban

Pete

I heard about that yesterday. That's really sad.

And that's the problem with referenda. Direct democracy produces chaotic results like this and like Prop. 8 in California. We're served best by representative democracy where a legislature can serve to protect citizens from the "tyranny of the majority".

Very sad indeed!

John

Well look at it in light of what the muslim countries do as regards even building a Christian church. If they want to keep their burkas and Sharia then why in hell are they emigrating to western countries? When in Rome do as the Romans do.

If you believe that religious freedom means you can drive a car wearing a f**king tent (she - at least we think it is a she- has a drivers licences here in MD) stay home. Of course at home not only would they not let her drive a car, she can't even leave the house without a male family member in tow.

Sorry but I do believe it is an attempt to turn the whole world into one big caliphate and this cannot happen. I do not fault the Swiss one bit.

We have TABOR here in Colorado so they can't raise taxes. We love our state so much we've tied the hands of our elected officials and want to vote directly on everything. I still don't understand how such things are Constitutional. They pretty clearly laid out how laws are to be passed. I don't recall them saying anything about eveyone voting directly on everything. If that was the intent, why mess about with a Congress?

In the People's Republic of California it takes a 2/3 majority of the Leguislature to pass any budgetary legislation. With a closely divided body, that makes passing anything nigh on to impossible.

Also in the PRC, we get around that one by being able to amend the State Constitution with a simple majority vote of the electorate on a ballot initiative which is placed on the ballot by petition. In the case of a regular initiative, like a transportation bond issue or removing a governor, 433,971 petition signatures are needed. For a Constitutional amendment it's higher at 694,354 signatures. This is in a state with a population of around 40,000,000.

Ed,

Speaking of California and Colorado, when I lived there in the '70s I often saw a bumper sticker which read "Don't Californicate Colorado". Looks like in some ways they did.

John

Nor I, although I an a bit uncomfortable with it, we just don't have the same problems Europe does with Muslims.

Doesn't matter though, Europes' "High Court of We Know Better Than You" will strike it down. Democracy? Or rule by judicial fiat?

Pete

I used to live in San Francisco. California politics is unique. Colorado is moving quickly from a very right leaning state to a more left leaning state. Pockets like Boulder are off the charts- very much like Berkley. Rural areas are dominated by charismatic lead myth-driven belief systems. Hell, Colorado Springs is the home of Focus on the Family.

In a lot of ways, Colorado is representative of the country as a whole. Right wing nut jobs on one side. We have Tom Tancredo, you know. On the other side, well meaning, but often ineffective progressives. And the “X Factor” of recent American immigrants who react negatively to suggestions that we should put them all on a bus and ship them to Mexico. The backlash of that along with the California exodus is moving the state to the left. Though now that the rhetoric has died down a bit I’m not sure they’ll all get to the polls in the numbers they did.

The myth-based bunch is tenacious about getting out the vote. As if their eternal salvation depended on it, which, of course, is exactly what they’ve been lead to believe.

I would need to research that one a bit. I think there was a recent case here where the father murdered his daughter because she 'embarassed' the family's honour. According to their misbegotten Sharia law he felt he was allowed to do this.