Here in South Dakota

I thought I should post something, just to keep my hand in, so to speak. We're in South Dakota and doing touristy things like taking pictures in the Badlands and visiting Wall Drug. Oh yes, Wall Drug. So, not much to report but a few observations, nevertheless:

We are happy to be away from Washington's political ads, tired as we are of hearing about how awful and how wonderful candidate Darcy Burner is. South Dakota has its own political ads, of course, but we clearly don't care about them. SD also has an amendment on its ballot to allow people to sue judges and juries when they don't like the outcome of their cases. The interesting thing about this amendment is that it is retroactive. If judges or jury members are still alive, they could now be sued for a decision they made at any point in their lifetime. Fortunately, the description of the proposal for the voters also acknowledges that this is likely to be challenged in court if it passes, costing South Dakotans millions in other court and lawyer fees to argue the challenge. Ex post facto laws are not allowed by the Constitution, even though we have a bunch of them. But we don't care in South Dakota.

South Dakota is also pondering abortion. Who isn't these days? And here is my objection about that. Too many people vote to protect a single issue - abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage - without thinking about what their preferred candidate's position might be on all the other things that actually are likely to come up to a vote during their term in office. How many times, after all, do they actually vote on the Big Issue? Mostly they vote to increase your taxes or pay themselves more or establish new 'awareness' months or remedy their brother-in-law's current cash flow crisis with a contract to repair a road somewhere.

Who was it who said, about voting, that "if it made a difference, you don't really think they'd let you do it, do you?"