[US Patriot]

Today (2001/03/01) I had the pleasure to take my wife and son to the California state capital. We accompanied a group of homeschooling families that are in Sacramento for the next couple days on group field trips. We took the capital tour together and had the opportunity to watch a session of the state assembly. Though, admittedly, I am not very familiar with our states laws, I am a self-declared minimalist - I believe less government is better in almost every regard.

I had the 'pleasure' all right. There were at least two bills on the table for vote today. One of which specified March second as the 'Nationwide Reading Day' (or something to that effect). Nationwide? From a bill in CA? Amazing. I didn't know we had that authority. What's more, I was impressed to see the number of 'co-authors' for the bill. The total number was in the realm of seventy. Yes seventy. No, you're not reading that incorrectly, and yes, we only have seventy-nine assembly 'persons'. You'll have to excuse those three or four that did not coauthor - I'm sure it wasn't by design. I think they were all deathly ill, attending to funerals or otherwise incapable of being there for the opportunity to co-sponsor such important legislation. Yes, that was sarcasm; but unfortunately, no, I'm not making it up.

It's important legislation like this that keeps me up at night. And rightfully so.

And that's not all. Special consideration was made for the individuals (and families of) that lost their lives in the driving incident in Santa Barbara last week. With all due respects, the respect and 'moment of silence' are perfectly satisfactory, but it should be understood that it is little more than political posturing - of course. Especially when this 'moment of silence' was followed quickly by statements about how we need to work harder on handgun regulation - where did that come from? It was an AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT. No weapons of any kind were involved. But some politicians obviously felt it necessary to take that opportunity to speak out about their need to stifle your second ammendment rights: over an auto accident.

After some more ludicrous discussion, the assembly came to a discussion about colon cancer being the second largest cause of death nationally - or something to that extent. I wasn't sure exactly what the point of this discussion was, since they brought up several means of detecting colon cancer and how 'simple' it was to remove, if found in time. Great. There was discussion about how the legislators should have an 'awareness campaign' within their districts, but I don't think there was any political force behind it. If people don't want to go to doctors are they going to force them? Does the assembly hope to author a bill that would require Californians to get a rectal exam ever year? What was the point of this?

My concern in this is that within the short session today (it couldn't have been more than an hour and ten minutes) they managed to bring up both firearm legislation and something to do with people dying from colon cancer. Why? I think they should instead spend their time and energy fighting the greater evil of our state: stupidity. I think that if you look back at each murder, accidental death and 'near death experience' throughout the world, much less the country or 'tiny' state of California, you'll find that the number one cause of death and accidents is *stupidity*. Where is the drive to educate people on common sense, or to eliminate the widespread following that stupidity claims? In fact, stupidity is so abundant that several of the assembly 'persons' were obviously infected. Where is the call to arms against it now? I think you'll hold your breath a long time if you wait for it.

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Regards,

Shawn K. Hall

Labels: California, legislation