04 November 2018

Prelude to the 1812 Overture

This day-before-Guy-Fawkes-Day, you American citizens have only one duty over the next two days: Get your butts organized and informed and vote. Or you risk Guy Fawkes Day coming to these shores.

One way to look at Fawkes's aborted revolution is that it was a reaction to one-party rule and voter suppression. Without attempting to excuse the problems with putting the Catholic Church's own medieval bigotry (it was still medieval, the Renaissance/Enlightenment had not yet hit either doctrine or governance of the Church) back in charge, the fundamental problem was voter and viewpoint suppression. If one actually reads the source materials of the Jacobite Rebellion and of Fawkes's own wannabe terrorist cell — there's really no other way to put it — the parallels are disturbing. It wasn't skin color but house of worship that was the dominant distinction... but women's rights, and Make AmericaEngland Great Again movements harkening back to the prior illegitimate "conquest" of France, and more other parallels than I can point to conveniently in a blawg post, jump out and beg for everyone involved to consider that in the bowels of Christ they might be wrong.

So, to avoid violent overthrow by would-be bullies, get out and vote. Get enough information to actually vote intelligently, not just by label. Here in Washington, I've already voted by mail. I made sure to get the information on the actual ballot initiative to vote — very much holding my nose in going along with the soft-drink industry — in favor of a restriction on imposing local sales taxes on food and beverages (epitomized by "soda taxes") because the available evidence is that such taxes are lazy, discriminatory, and ultimately counterproductive for the "behavior change" trumpeted as their benefit. I read the entire 31-page text of the initiative imposing minimal restrictions on paramilitary-grade firearm sales to ensure that there's no Constitutional problem (there isn't). I even reviewed the recent history of the Spawn of Satan and his family in another Congressional district with an open seat just to make sure that my memories of that family from growing up were accurate (they were, and in fact they're understatements regarding the tangled web of conflicts of interest).

But the key point is that I voted. Y'all do the same, y'hear? I'd really rather avoid fireworks of that ilk.