Category: Elections

Welcome Change

Elections

As anyone who’s read this website for any length of time should know, I love the country of Chile.  In fact, of all the Third World countries I’ve ever been to or even lived in, Chile ranks #1, by miles.  I love its people, its scenery, its way of life, the women are among the sexiest I’ve ever seen and the climate is wonderful;  so despite the language difficulty, if someone were to say:  “You have to go and live in Chile”, my response would be:  “Gimme the ticket.”  I’d learn Spanish just to go and live there.

I can’t remember if I’ve told this story here before, but in case I haven’t, here goes.

You will recall that at one point, our family traveled extensively around the world (either on vacation or on business), and over three years we visited nearly two dozen countries, several repeatedly.  We knew that the travels were going to end at some point (for all sorts of reasons) so at the end of what turned out to be our final trip, we polled our three kids with the following question:

“Assuming that you could afford to live there (had a job, etc.), which are the top three countries you’d choose to live in?”

The answers were as follows:

Daughter:  1. Tokyo, 2. Paris
Son&Heir:  1. London 2. Heidelberg (Germany)
#2 Son:  1. Tokyo 2. London

All three picked Chile — specifically, Viña Del Mar — as their third choice.

My only reservation about Chile — it was one of my top choices, too — was that I got the feeling that it was just one revolution from becoming Communist.  And incidentally, that fear was also prevalent among many of the native Chileans I met on our trip there.

Which makes the most recent political news from Chile all the more exciting:

In December, former congressman José Antonio Kast found himself in a runoff against the Communist Party’s Jeannette Jara. Thankfully, Kast won in a decisive victory with nearly 60% of the vote.

But the people of Chile are ecstatic. The country has more or less been taken over by socialists and leftists for decades, and its most recent president, 40-year-old Gabriel Boric, may have been the most hardcore — and least popular — of all.

So, let me warn you that as you peruse the fake news media today that you’ll probably see a lot of headlines about how Kast is “far-right” or “ultra-conservative” or a big fan of the country’s former dictator, Augusto Pinochet. First of all, Kast has praised Pinochet’s economic reforms — he was a big capitalist, free market kind of guy who saved the country from full-on Communism — but Kast has also condemned him for his human rights abuses and all the bad stuff he did. It’s not like he has posters of him hanging on his office walls. Sheesh.

Second, Kast has been called “Chile’s Trump,” and that right there is enough to make the MSM lose its collective mind.

Kast campaigned on being tough on crime and restoring law and order to the South American nation. That includes deploying the military to cities with high crimes, strengthening the country’s borders, mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, putting the interests of native Chileans first, and getting tough with cartels and terrorist organizations like Tren de Aragua.

Sounds like Chile, at last, is in the right [sic] hands, even though it seems unlikely that ChilePres Kast is going to revive Air Pinochet, which is rather sad.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see what it costs to fly to Chile… wait, less than $900 return?  Whoa.

Oh, and one last story.

When we arrived in Santiago and checked into our hotel (Four Points Sheraton), we got a call from the kids’ room:  “We’re hungry;  can we get room service?”

Well, a week prior to that we’d been in Zurich, where room service required a credit check.  So with great trepidation I scanned the Four Points’ room service menu, converted the CLP$ (peso) into USD$, and said:

“You can order everything off the menu.”
“You mean anything?”
“No, I mean everything.”

I don’t remember what anything cost, but it was about 20% of what the same thing would have cost in a U.S. hotel, and about 1% of what it cost us in Zurich.  (I’m not exaggerating.)

So yeah;  add “affordable” to your travel plans.

I am seriously considering this idea, funds permitting.

Note:  It appears that Chile no longer charges U.S. citizens an entry fee of $160 per person, nor does the U.S. do likewise for Chileans entering the U.S.  This was the only fly in the ointment on our trip there, and thankfully it is no more.

Propositions

Elections, Politics

Also in last Tuesday’s Republican ballots were a series of “propositions” — basically, a way for the Texas Republican Party to gauge the feelings of their supporters for ideas that should be considered for inclusion as planks in their party platform in future elections.  They make for interesting reading (with my vote + reasons):

Proposition 1:
Texas property taxes should be assessed at the purchase price and phased out entirely over the next six years through spending reductions. — Yes (government should get only one bite at the cherry, not an annual one;  if they need more money, let them beg for it at election time, or sell bonds)

Proposition 2:
Texas should require any local government budget that raises property taxes to be approved by voters at a November general election. — Yes (one of my buddies recently moved to a “growing” area, and was presented with a 40% increase in his property tax for next year;  municipalities should never think they have an open checkbook)

Proposition 3:
Texas should prohibit denial of healthcare or any medical service based solely on the patient’s vaccination status. — Yes (screw those Covid-type excrescences)

Proposition 4:
Texas should require its public schools to teach that life begins at fertilization. — Yes (although I have some reservations about this, I can see why it’s been suggested)

Proposition 5:
Texas should ban gender, sexuality, and reproductive clinics and services in K-12 schools. — Yes (if the kids feel they need any of those, they can do it with their parents, outside school)

Proposition 6:
Texas should enact term limits on all elected officials. — Yes (although I sometimes like it when we get a good ‘un, I don’t like any politician to get too comfortable in a sinecure)

Proposition 7:
Texas should ban the large-scale export or sale of our groundwater and surface water to any single private or public entity. — Yes (we don’t have a lot of water in the Lone Star State, and we need to guard it jealously)

Proposition 8:
The Texas Legislature should reduce the burden of illegal immigration on taxpayers by ending public services for illegal aliens. — Yes (especially education, which has stuck in my craw for decades)

Proposition 9:
The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature should stop awarding leadership positions, including committee and subcommittee chairmanships and vice chairmanships, to Democrats. — Yes (because Democrats are not to be trusted with any levers of power)

Proposition 10:
Texas should prohibit Sharia Law. — Yes (to address any First Amendment qualms on this issue, see what’s happened in Britishland)

I’ll be interested to see how this all plays out.

Primary Colors

Elections

Went early to vote in the Republican primary elections yesterday.  The place looked like an AARP/VFW convention, no doubt because Republican youngins in my district have things like jobs.  Anyway, my local choice for the U.S. House did okay:


…but that wasn’t unexpected.  Come November, I expect him to win again against whomever the Democrats place on the altar.

In other local news:


…damn, I thought Pax had it in the can, but Cornyn’s got huge support from the RINO element, and he outspent Paxton by something like 10:1.  Oh well… it’s going to be a close-run thing even with most of Wesley Hunt’s voters (Hunt is more conservative than either of the two, so his support will likely go to Paxton and not to the RINO).

The TexGov primary was predictable:


…which means a reelection in November seems likely.  (I know that many Texas Republicans don’t think too highly of Abbot, and I can see why.  But I agree with his actions about 80% of the time, and I’m not going to let perfection be the enemy of the good.)


Ditto the vote for Dan Patrick.  (The position of Lt. Governor is an important one in Texas, unlike in many other states.  For one thing, the Lt.Gov sets the agenda for the Texas legislature, which is highly influential.  Patrick’s done well in the job, so he’s justifiably popular.)

But Wait!  There’s More!

In national news, there’s a Good Thing What Happened in the U.S. House race, over in the Evil Party:


Bye bye Jasmine (who is predictably saying her voters were excluded or “suppressed”, the lying bitch).  I have no idea who Talarico is, but he can only be an improvement — assuming, that is, that he wins in November against his Republican opponent, whether Paxton or Cornyn.

Glad to have done my bit.

And Another Thing

Elections, Politics

Before we get dragged into another pointless argument with the Usual Suspects, let us remind ourselves what the three purposes of a secure Voter ID card are, namely that you are:

  • a U.S. citizen, and therefore entitled to vote
  • alive, and
  • can only vote once.

It’s really that simple.  Now ask yourself the simple question:  who would be against such a simple concept, and why?

The next step is a lot more, shall we say, punitive.  Considering that the above constitutes one of the principle freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution (i.e. that citizens are entitled to vote), then I would suggest one final step:

Any U.S. House Representative or Senator who votes against this measure should be immediately removed from their position because they have betrayed their oath of office, and must be subject to a recall vote in their state or district.

Frankly, I’m sick of fucking around with this nonsense — fraudulent votes, stolen elections, voter negation and all the rest — and it’s time we put an end to it.  Immediately.

Stopping The Slide

Elections, Politics

We’re all familiar with the “slippery slide’ argument when it comes to laws and social policies (a.k.a. the “camel’s nose under the tent” expression).

Yesterday in Texas we went to the polls to vote on a series of propositions that either change or underline the Texas constitution.

The one proposition was that in order to vote in the state of Texas, you have to be a U.S. citizen.  Now one might think that that is understood to be the case — except of course when shit-holes like Boston or San Francisco allow non-citizens to vote on “local “matters.

Well, that ain’t gonna happen in the Lone Star State, should our local shit-holes (like Austin) start getting any ideas.  Best of all, of course, is that by making it a constitutional issue, Texas has the right to demand that voters show proof of citizenship before being allowed to vote.  (With my very non-Texas accent, I always take my passport with me to the polls, just in case.  Of course, I do have my voter’s card and driver’s license, and I’m on the voting roll anyway, but I have absolutely no problem with producing my U.S. passport if anyone wants to see it.)  This is not an issue to mess around with, and I’m glad we’re going all hardass on the topic. [Update:  it passed, 75-%25%.]

All the other propositions / amendments had to do with taxes, and when doing my research on each of them, I grinned broadly because they seemed to fall into two camps:  “This tax is bullshit and it needs to be whacked” — e.g. that farmers have to pay a tax on animal feed.  There were a few like that.

The other group of propositions are all preventative in nature, because unlike the U.S. Constitution, a product of the Enlightenment, the Texas constitution is very much proscriptive as well, i.e. we’re not going to trust the government to abide by goodwill alone:  the damn government isn’t allowed to do this or that specific thing — in fact, a whole lot of specific things.

My favorite?  The one that bans any kind of estate tax — okay, a “death” tax.

“But Kim… Texas doesn’t have a death tax.”

Quite right.  And now that it’s expressly forbidden by our state constitution, there’s never going to be a death tax in Texas.

I voted in favor of all the propositions.

And by the way, I thought that the polls weren’t going to be too busy.  In fact, the line of waiting voters was well over 200 yards long, and it never fell below that in all the time I was there.  [Update:  all the results are here.  The margins are about what you expect.]

We take this “restricting government” thing very seriously here, deep in the heart of

Chamber Of Horrors

Elections, Feminazis, Freaks & Loonies, Marxists

Good grief.  Imagine being a centrist Democrat (if such a beast exists anymore), and being presented with this list of presidential candidates at the polling booth:

I would demand a pistol with a single cartridge in the chamber, just to avoid making a choice out of that lot.

Too bad that even the most centrist of Democrats hate all guns, so that option wouldn’t be on the table, so to speak.

But for the typical raving loony Democrat voter of today, that list is an embarrassment of riches.