I don’t know which there are more of at Whole Foods, pigeons scavenging for scraps or petitioners seeking signatures. The difference between them is that the pigeons are cute, while the petitioners are scungy.
Yes, we live in a so-called “democracy” where citizens have the right, in California, to put initiatives on the ballot if they can gather enough signatures. That law was part of the progressive reform movement of the early 20th century, which sought to limit the power of rich people and powerful interests, such as banks, oil companies, and railroads. It worked for many decades, but has now been hijacked by a pernicious political class, led as usual by leftist employee unions.
Here’s how it works: The unions decide which cause to back—let’s say, more healthcare benefits for their members. Then they hire paid signature-gatherers to stand outside busy areas, like supermarkets and BART stations. They train the signature-gatherers to say things that will appeal to progressive voters in Alameda County, such as “Support healthcare for working people!” They reckon that very few people will ask detailed questions, like “Where would the employers get the money to pay for their employees’ healthcare?” And very few people do. With their Oakland mentality, they figure, “Oh, healthcare for working people! Who could be against that?” And so they sign the petition, and the gatherer makes $4 or $5 for each signature. Not bad pay for a druggie who doesn’t want to get an honest job.
But it’s a horrible way for democracy to function. True democracy requires an educated populace, which is why the Founders limited voting to men of means who owned land. It was assumed that men such as George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were familiar with the great writers and philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to John Locke and Voltaire; our nation’s Founders realized that creating and then running an important country was no business for the ignorant.
How far we’ve strayed from that simple but accurate premise. Now, we have uneducated signature gatherers, who may know plenty about music videos and basketball but practically nothing of how to run a city, asking uneducated passersby, usually younger people who have little interest in or knowledge of local politics, to make decisions about important subjects of which they are almost entirely ignorant. That is not democracy, it’s dumb-ocracy.
If Oakland were serious about things like elections and an informed electorate, they would make paid signature-gathering for petitions illegal. If citizens wish to have the right to vote, they should be required to prove a basic level of political and governmental literacy. If they can’t demonstrate, for example, that they know the name of their Council member, California Assembly person, and U.S. representative, they ought not have the right to vote. Why wouldn’t we want thoughtful, educated people to vote, instead of imbeciles who salivate, Pavlov-style, at the sound of “free housing for all”?
It’s necessary for voters to have an understanding of how government, taxes and benefits work. Everything is connected. When the progressives assert they want free housing for everyone, they should be confronted with debate. Exactly how would that work? Who will build this housing? Do you know how much it costs to build a single unit of housing in the Bay Area? If the people to whom we give free housing are so poor, how can they afford the upkeep of their homes and grounds? Are we just going to build a lot of Cabrini-Greens and watch them turn into slums of crime and degradation? In other words, these voters should be challenged to prove they have the intellectual capacity to understand the impact of the things they claim to support.
Sadly, this is not the case now, nor is it likely to be in the future. It’s in the interests of the powerful unions that run Oakland to keep voters ignorant. If the voters were truly informed, they would never vote for the candidates the unions come up with. What can you, the average citizen, do about it? Never, ever sign one of these petitions, unless you truly understand everything about it. (There are some good petitions, like the ones that got Pamela Price and Sheng Thao recalled.) But any cause that raises our taxes in order to give people things they can’t afford on their own should be firmly rejected.
Steve Heimoff