OK, “dumb” is a strong word. A better word might be “distracted”? Or perhaps “willfully dumb”?
After 22 years of being involved in politics, I have reached the conclusion that democracy is essentially impossible in our modern age. It’s not that the public lacks the brain power or even the life experience to make good decisions: modern discourse makes it functionally impossible for them to make good decisions.
Why impossible? The biggest problem is that the window of awareness for public policy is roughly 72 hours. After that, it is as if no event or decision happened. Any terrible mistake or bad behavior by a politician or public official will “Unhappen” before the week is out. Another term would be the “news cycle.” Therefore, when it comes election time and people have an opportunity to weigh in on leaders and their results, they aren’t actually doing that; they’re just picking in a popularity contest.
Modern elections in America are just American Idol without the talent.
While democracy is impossible with Unhappenings, “Democracy”—a progressive elite ruling through the appearance of public consent—needs Unhappenings in order to function. Otherwise, you might start to question how all of these decisions and “choices” foisted on you are actually working out for you.
I am actually in disbelief of how susceptible people are to Unhappening. I can’t pretend to understand it myself. Perhaps I have a peculiar flaw that I remember slights, poor decisions, and bad behavior seemingly forever. Yes, I remember you scamming me out of lunch money in 6th grade. No, I am not going to lend you any more money.
Even though I can’t understand how people go along with it, I can still see it going on all the time. The examples I’ve seen are legion. I would think you should be able to see these Unhappenings happen, too, but maybe not.
The latest example is particularly frustrating. I spent most of 2022 trying to explain to people what Proposal 3 would do to Michigan. I failed. All of the many people trying to do that along with me failed. It didn’t help we got outspent by $25 million dollars, but the Unhappening seems to be an insurmountable challenge at this time. They lied, and got away with it.
This week, it was announced that pro-abortion organizations are suing Michigan, using Proposal 3 to try to eliminate the state’s laws on informed consent for abortion, the 24-hour waiting period, and the requirement that doctors perform abortions.
If you read the text of Proposal 3 with a halfway critical mind, you will see it literally gets rid of every single restriction or regulation on abortion you could possibly imagine. And that’s not even considering the 50 years of experience we have with pro-abortion judges who twist plain legal language in order to achieve their desired results.
For example, Proposal 3 says, “An individual’s right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
Simple, right? Absolutely no obstacles in any laws or regulations allowed, unless they are justified by a “compelling state interest.” What is that, you ask?
Proposal 3 defines a “compelling state interest” for you: “A state interest is ‘compelling’ only if it is for the limited purpose of protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine, and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
There’s three parts there:
Any abortion law can only be for the “health” of the woman who wants an abortion, meaning no late-term bans or anything done with the child in mind.
It has to be consistent with “accepted clinical standards” and “evidence-based medicine.” So, that means whatever abortion clinics set as their standard is the law. Since they do all of the publicly-promoted research on abortion (anything skeptical is discounted), whatever they say the facts are, is the law. That right there is enough to eliminate every abortion law and regulation on the books, because it now literally says in our Michigan Constitution that abortion businesses regulate themselves.
It says any abortion law can’t infringe on an “individual’s autonomous decision-making.” So, a law can’t tell someone “no,” if they choose to do it. Well, shoot, the entire purpose of laws and regulations is telling people they can’t do something they want to do. Traffic laws say you can’t decide to drive over the speed limit. Food safety regulations say you can’t operate a restaurant that never cleans the dishes.
How neat is Proposal 3 if you like abortion? The Michigan Constitution says you can’t restrict abortion in any way. Whatever you want or Planned Parenthood says, goes.
(Hey, let’s do a constitutional amendment that says whatever Chris Gast accepts, goes? There’s a word for that type of government system, and it ain’t “democracy.”)
I could go on and on about specific regulations that Proposal 3 will eventually axe, including some pretty crazy stuff. For example, Prop 3 is not just about abortion, but “all” matters of reproduction, including sex. So, if a minor child “wants” to have sex with an adult, how can we restrict such autonomous decision making?
Of course, asking Michigan voters in 2022 to approve a constitutional amendment that does things like getting rid of parental consent for abortion is a non-starter. But, no worries if you are an abortion advocate! Our progressive managerial state loves them some population control! With the wonders of modern attention spans and a mainstream media firmly in your corner, reality is no obstacle.
So, for example, when the authors of Proposal 3 stupidly admitted at the beginning of the campaign that it would end parental consent for abortion, they simply waited the required 72 hours for Unhappening to occur, and voila! It never happened. The many major news publications rooting for Proposal 3 wrote article after article saying it wouldn’t affect parental consent. It worked, and they won.
Before the alcohol became flat on election night, the Proposal 3 people were already talking about all the prolife laws they would be coming for. And they did, slowly, throughout 2023. They began eliminating laws specifically through a complaint Legislature, however, they remained nervous about touching certain laws that are obviously popular.
Having hit a snag with removing certain laws and the Michigan House now deadlocked 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats, a new direction was needed. So, this week, they finally pulled the trigger: the Center for Reproductive Rights is suing Michigan to eliminate informed consent, waiting periods, and doctor-only laws. And it’s nearly impossible to see how they will lose in court, since Proposal 3 says what it says: anything goes. Prop 3 is an instant “I win” button in court. The only issue for them is the cost to litigate it, or the time required to make certain unpopular things Unhappen. They haven’t come for parental consent, yet…
I give them credit for holding off long enough for a thorough Unhappening. By this point, a little more than a year later, very few Michigan citizens will care that they were blatantly lied to during the Prop 3 campaign—if they are even made aware of it. For the purposes of people’s attention span, the Prop 3 campaign might as well be the Egyptians and Hittites duking it out in the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC.
Foolish me, hoping to remind people how their trust was abused! After all, if you talk to the average citizen in Michigan, they obviously think women should be told about abortion risks before they have surgery; no way should people be able to get same-day surgery, let alone make a life or death decision in one afternoon; obviously only doctors should be doing surgeries, and we have medical schools and state health departments for good reason.
But that doesn’t matter. We are addicts. As a nation, we are addicted to a short attention span. Today’s controversy will be forgotten by next week, no matter how badly it affected you. Did the State literally kill your grandmother with their COVID policies? Oh well. What do you think about Taylor Swift at the Superbowl? That whole beloved grandmother died because we practically imprisoned innocent people for zero health benefit thing? It never happened. It has Unhappened.
Just forget about it, OK?
I don’t know how to fix it. Sadly, like any addict, it seems change is only possible once we hit rock bottom. Given the exponentially increasing amount of public policy failures in the last 25 years, we’ve hit at least a dozen solid rock bottoms by my reckoning. But every addict’s rock bottom is different. We shall see when we hit it for the rest of America. Maybe then, we can totally redeem ourselves.
Until then? We get the government we deserve.