Vote today against a dystopian future.
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Vote today against a dystopian future.
Posted on 2012-05-08 at 05:18 by montsamu
It’s one of my favorite genres of sf: dystopian fiction. In the great Orwellian tradition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, it isn’t enough to simply have an oppressive government; the government in question must be doing its oppression in the name of doublespoken freedom.
Here in North Carolina, a fairly typical dystopian plank appears on our ballots today, Tuesday, May 8th, 2012: put the human rights of a minority up for a majority vote and call it democratic justice. Well, I say no thanks. I am pretty uncomfortable being blatantly political here; I haven’t before and don’t think myself too likely to do so again outside a repeat of this kind of nonsense. The thing is, history shows that this kind of thinking is barely cold; North Carolina cleaned up our last Constitutional marriage mess just 35 years ago:
“Amendment to Article Fourteen: All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a negro descendant to the third generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited."
"Article 14, Section 8 was adopted during the Constitutional Convention of 1875. The amendment, outlawing interracial marriage, remained a part of the North Carolina Constitution until 1971, when a new state constitution was adopted. In 1977 the General Assembly passed a law validating all interracial marriages that occurred prior to March 24, 1977, the date of the law’s passage.”
So. Find your precinct. Find the time, whether before work or school, on your lunch break, or … You don’t have to research and vote in any of the other primary and other elections going on; you can simply vote against, turn in your ballot, get your sticker, and go home. (Though if you want to, you can bring in a cheat sheet of paper to help remember your choices.)
The polls are open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. If you are standing in line at 7:30 p.m. when the polls close you will be allowed to vote.
Find the time. Vote against dystopia, no matter how interesting the fiction might be.
Sincerely,
Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
Publisher, Bull Spec