March 2012 Archives

I have a bad back. I threw it out in December and am currently in physical therapy.

My therapist tells me my back is pretty bad in certain ways, and that it might benefit from certain chiropractic treatment. Of course, chiropractic treatment varies widely between practitioners and so on, so they were hesitant about just telling me to seek such treatment, because it might not help, and might even make matters worse.

But here's the bizarre thing: they tell me that they know how to do this treatment. They were trained. They could help me right now, saving me significant time, money, and risk to my health. But they tell me they can't because Washington State won't let them, adding that it is part of a "turf war" between chiropractors and physical therapists.

I thought that the liberal Democrats who run this state had a problem with government getting between a medical professional and their patients.

One more illusion shattered.

I don't really mean this as a partisan attack. But this policy of government making my health care decisions is directly harming me, and I just wish that when they said something, they meant it.

My resolution to restore the secret ballot in Washington State was adopted by our pooled caucus, which had more than 200 people in attendance, across 34 precincts.

The biggest confusion is in what a secret ballot is, and why it's needed. A secret ballot is one that is -- as the state constitution requires -- prepared and desposited in secret. The reason why we have it is to prevent bribery and coercion. If someone is pressuring or paying you to vote a certain way, and they cannot actually see your ballot, they cannot know how you filled it out; therefore, the ballot is protected from such influence.

We could argue about whether this is important. I think it is. But the facts and history are inescapable: we do not have a secret ballot in Washington State, and the Washington State Constitution requires that we do.

The other big problem some people had with the resolution was the effect on those who need absentee voting, because they are for some legitimate reason incapable of going to the polls. I had mentioned that this would be up to the legislature to address as they saw fit through introduction of a constitutional amendment, but we directly addressed the concern by adding "and that the Legislature introduce a constitutional amendment providing for absentee voting for electors unable to go to the polls" to the end of the resolution.

If you consider yourself a Republican, or something close to it, and you want to help select the next Republican nominee for President, your only option here in the state of Washington is to go to the precinct caucuses tomorrow.

(Well, technically, that's not true. You could skip the caucuses, and then get a delegate from the precinct caucuses to the next level to nominate you, and then get elected as a delegate there. But that's harder. Don't do that.)

Now, as I've mentioned before, there's no actual voting at the precinct caucuses. You simply state your preference when you sign in (or state no preference, or cross out the box, or something). Then the parties count up the preferences of all attendees, and report those results to the media. It's just a straw poll.

Personally, I'm writing Mitt Romney as my preference. I am, however, in the -- I suspect -- fairly unique position of wanting Santorum to "win." Now, some of you may think it's because I agree with Santorum more, but I think Romney has the best chance of winning, or somesuch. But that's not the case.

Now, I do think Romney has the best chance of winning, and that he would be a significantly better leader than Santorum (or Gingrich, or Paul). But I like and agree with Romney about the same as I do with Santorum (which, unfortunately, is not as much as I'd prefer, but I think either one will do a reasonably good job as President).

So it's not out of any internal conflict that I want Romney to be the candidate, but want Santorum to win the precinct caucuses. It's actually because I like to see a good race; I like both candidates; and I like it when the media loses its head over how terrible Santorum is.