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M
odern
P
atriot
C
hronicles
An Eleventh Commandment Free Zone
Vol. 6, Issue 2
March 11, 2007
By Craig Dawkins
Oklahoma County Republicans Want Improved Ballot Access
My Minimum Wage Debate
Chesapeake's McClendon Pushes Global Warming Hysteria
Copyright@2007, All Rights Reserved
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POLLS! POLLS! POLLS! POLLS!
Do you believe Oklahoma Republicans should lead the way in ballot access reform?
Yes or No?
Go to
www.ModernPatriot.net
and vote today!!!
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Oklahoma County Republicans Want Improved Ballot Access
I have long argued that Oklahoma would do better with more political competition. By political competition, I mean giving other political parties equal opportunity by removing unreasonable barriers to compete with the two major political parties. When it comes to allowing political competition, Oklahoma is less restrictive than North Korea, but more restrictive than Afghanistan. Don't believe me?
If you go to this link, (
Political parties can function freely on the basis of the provisions of this law, and have equal rights and obligations before the law.
In Oklahoma, any party wanting to appear on the ballot must obtain almost 50,000 signatures in order to be identified as something other than "Independent." This situation is just not acceptable. Republicans and Democrats seem to be pro-democracy as long as it means political oligopolistic power of two and only two. That's just barely better than the old Soviet Union.
But the political culture is such that elected officials seek to make it almost impossible to beat an incumbent. They pass restrictive laws, like McCain/Feingold, that violate political free speech so that they can remain in office. Modern politicians aren't pro-competition, they're pro-incumbent. Pro-incumbent attitudes breed a "go along to get along" mentality.
When Mike Reynolds refused to vote for Lance Cargill for Speaker of the State House, he was threatened with expulsion from the Republican Caucus. There's something really ironic about that. (Since when do elected Republican officials seek to prioritize government spending in accordance to a limited government perspective?)
Once, back when I was on the radio, I had members of several different political parties in the studio talking about ballot access. Back then, I pondered the wisdom of changing the way Oklahoma restricts political competition. It is clear to me that Oklahoma has been hurt by the lack of competing parties.
Oklahoma County Republicans should be congratulated for getting the ball rolling on embracing competition as a way to improve the quality of the Republican Party. The State Republican Party Platform Committee would do well to follow their lead.
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My Minimum Wage Debate
The other day, I participated in a minimum wage debate featuring a small business man, a minimum employee (who wasn't working at the minimum wage) and Oklahoma AFL-CIO President Jimmy Curry. Let me just say, it was a real blast.
While I won't rehash the same old arguments for and against the minimum wage, there is some news that came out of the debate. AFL-CIO President Jimmy Curry announced to the audience that he was a socialist. Now to be completely accurate, he stated, "Maybe I am a socialist." Wow! Now that's a level of honesty seldom heard from a union chieftain.
You might be interested to know that Curry is a lobbyist as well. He lobbies our state legislature for union friendly legislation. Unions generally do all they can to support Democrats.
But to boldly proclaim loyalty to socialism in a minimum wage debate is just too good to pass on. Oh, and by the way…..Raising the minimum wage is generally a bad idea.
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Chesapeake's McClendon Pushes Global Warming Hysteria
I don't know how to feel about Aubrey McClendon's latest political foray. You see, McClendon as Chairman of Oklahoma's Chesapeake Energy has helped fund a public relations battle against TXU Corporation in Texas. (
McClendon has tapped into the global warming hysteria in trying to discourage TXU Corp from building electric generating plants using coal rather than natural gas. McClendon's approach to fighting coal burning plants is based on pushing the idea that coal is dirty and harmful to the environment as compared to clean burning natural gas.
This competitive strategy taps into the environmentalist fervor which faithfully blames human fossil fuel emissions for causing an impending global environmental catastrophe because of global warming. Never mind, of course, that we've had a very cold winter. One of the colder winters I can recall. But successfully arguing against coal in favor of natural gas on environmental grounds will likely help Chesapeake. So ultimately, it's about the profits.
However, it occurs to me that using global warming hysteria to pad the profits of Chesapeake is an interesting strategy that has little down side. For the media who is more interested in publishing hysteria than fact, it makes McClendon seem like one of the good guys. But how will his fossil fuel burning competitors respond?
It could get interesting. Let's just hope it doesn't back fire. Meanwhile, we'll have to enjoy watching McClendon take the radical environmentalists on a political joyride.
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