• Yes, I voted.  I always do.
• No, I won’t tell you my vote if you don’t already know.
• No, I won’t ask you what you voted.  Ever.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen people get so involved in the legislative process.

Scores of new voters have turned out to vote for different issues and to truly put “The Process” to the test.

That is truly wonderful.

Unfortunately, in the press to win the day, both sides have managed to polarize people who would normally be quite happy to associate with each other.  Hurtful accusations fly across all of the various media channels as people in and out of the spotlight pontificate on the rights, abuses and motivations of “those people” depending on what side you’re on.  Both Yes and No on 8 sites have “fact” lists that  directly contradict each other.

Madness. 

If I vote Yes, my choice of labels are (aside from the normal idiot redneck labels):

• bigot
• hypocrite
• intolerant
• liar
• racist
• many others revolving around my desire to reinstate slavery

If I vote No, my choice of labels are (aside from the normal anti-homosexual labels):

• anti-family
• liar
• sinner
• and so forth (actually, I’ve not seen a good number of these, please comment)

How is it that people who would normally encourage debate on any topic suddenly become overwhelmingly
intolerant when these issues play out in the public space?

How can people claim to be enlightened and tolerant and then engage in name calling?

I’m truly disappointed at several self-claimed enlightened people for becoming the thing they condemn
claim to dislike most.  Demeaning someone or calling them names for voting their conscience in some hope
that they can intimidate them into changing their mind is a horrible thing to do.

Shame on you for becoming what you despise.
Shame on you for reducing yourself to useless name calling.
Shame on you for trading in your intellectual privilege.

Go pick a bar fight if you want to argue that way.