I Voted Defensively Today

Yeah, 'cause if I was a Michigan voter I voted WAAAAAAY at the wrong polling station.

There were several seats open on the Roswell City Council in today's election, also a referendum on liquor sales on Sunday and a continuation of a 1 cent SPLOST which were mostly for educational purposes that were spelled out in detail on the ballot.

I voted yes on both referenda: I have no problem with liquor sales on Sunday. I don't drink, but I don't care if others drink on Sunday or not. I'm sorry for you if you're an alcoholic, but the solution is not to force everyone ELSE not to drink. I voted for the SPLOST because I generally approve of educational spending. An educated citizenry is a good thing, and Roswell public schools are highly rated, which means we are getting good value for our money.

I checked around on the web for information on the candidates for city council, what I found was not happy-making. The non-incumbent candidates were all beating their chests and trying to out-conservative one another:

Candidate 1: "We need to spend less on government! Lower taxes, less intrusion on our lives!"

Candidate 2: "You freaking liberal, we need to spend less on government and FIRE city workers who are not essential!"

Candidate 3: "FIRE the city workers? You BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL! We need to JAIL them!"

Candidate 4: "You crazy socialist bastard you! Who will pay to keep all those city workers jailed? We need to KILL THEM ALL with knives and then make a big pyramid of their skulls on the city hall lawn to remind the SURVIVING city workers that they need to work hard and efficiently!"

Well, perhaps I exaggerate here. Just a little. But since the candidates were all but calling the incumbents tax and spend liberals, I am not exaggerating as much as you might think. Roswell is not left of center by any means.

My other issue was, everyone was predicting a very small turnout in this election, and elections like that are where crackpot stealth candidates tend to sneak into office, propelled by a relatively small cadre of voters. I didn't want to wake up tomorrow and read about a new Roswell city ordinance that requires all Roswell citizens to not only own a gun, but to carry it in their hands at head level at all times.

So not having seen any giant tentacles or other manifestations of Cthulhu taking over Roswell, I just voted for the incumbents. If all the candidates have is general conservative chest-beating, they can go fish elsewhere for votes.