
California green-lights initiative that is conspiracy theorist’s dream - Dangeranger
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/california-green-lights-initiative-thats-a-conspiracy-theorists-dream/
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jimrandomh
Very misleading headline. California has a ballot-initiative process where
first you satisfy some bureaucratic requirements, then you collect a bunch of
signatures, then it's on the ballot for the next election and voters might
vote for it. What's happened here is that a particularly dumb initiative
has... gotten past the "bureaucratic requirements" step, and is now on the
"collect signatures" step. Absolutely nothing about the procedure thus far
does any filtering for good policy, nor is it intended to filter for good
policy. That's the responsibility of petition signers (who shouldn't sign dumb
things) and voters (who shouldn't vote for dumb things that somehow manage to
get signatures anyways).

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mc32
Why do we entertain such nonsense at taxpayer expense? Seriously, remove
vaccination requirements?

California prides itself for being at the forefront of the American zeitgeist.
This is a terrible precedent to set, if it were to take hold.

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korfuri
This is just allowing the author of the proposal to start gathering signatures
on a petition at their own expense. Even getting the signatures doesn't make
it law. We entertain this kind of nonsense because democracy must allow
everyone to speak up, even the people with fringe opinions we sometimes call
crazy.

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IntronExon
His right to speak ends st my right not to die from measles because Gwyneth
Paltrow has a gaping hole where her soul should be. Where harm to large
populations is concerned, I’m more than happy to infringe on speech, and the
courts agree.

This isn’t just crazy, it’s demonstrably damgerous.

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dragonwriter
> His right to speak

Her.

> ends st my right not to die from measles because Gwyneth Paltrow has a
> gaping hole where her soul should be.

And if the _speech_ directly impacted your right with no intervening action,
that would be relevant. You have a very good point about why the proposed law
should not be adopted, and, if you can tie it to an actual superceding (e.g.,
federal) guarantee perhaps why it cannot be implemented even if it is passed.

But it is not an argument against the action actually undertaken here by the
State, which is the ministerial act of certifying that a procedural
requirement to exercise the state Constitutional right to circulate an
initiative petition, which is several steps from implementing a law.

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lkjklajsdklf
US health education lacks a lot topics, one of which is vaccination. Even
college graduates will not get exposure, so most US citizens would have to
research in their free time to get knowledge of such things.

