When the People are given the chance to speak, they reject Obamacare!

[Rick Rowlands]

Perhaps I have just become accustomed to the consistent barrage of  liberal opinions offered by just about everyone on this forum, and concluded that you must have the same opinions.  If I have misjudged you then I apologize.

Have you visited the Tod Engine Heritage Park yet?  Its only three miles from downtown but to many in Youngstown that might as well be three hundred.  I have consistently enjoyed the support of more people from outside the Mahoning Valley than from within.  I would like to change that, but I will not sacrifice my personal beliefs for the short term gain of a couple additional contributions or a new volunteer. Its not that hard to drive down Albert Street, turn left onto Hubbard Road then turn right into our driveway.  Our volunteers are on site every Saturday.

The Park is 100% privately funded.  Not one dime of government money has been accepted.  I practice what I preach, and would welcome your voluntary contribution but would not EVER ask the government to take your money by force to be spent here.  I have the utmost respect for the property of my fellow citizens.  How could I ever support the philosophy of requiring the servitude of one citizen to provide a right to another?

So if you would like to learn a little bit about our area's industrial heritage, come on out to the Park and take a look around.  And that goes for iwasthere, westsider, jay, john swierz, towntalk, shar, irishbobcat, westside nosy neighbors...  As far as I know Whytown, youngstownshrimp and Allan have made the trip.  We will be there Saturday, but its just a hunch that none of you will make the three mile trip.

[Janko]

some thoughts:

point 1 - Nowhere in my response was any personal opinion on healthcare offered. I just offered the fact that a population skewed so much in a certain demographic produces a skewed response. This is independent of the political topic.

point 2 - "Your brand of servitude is what is sickening..." is a pretty revealing method of attacking a person and not a position. That's unfortunate.

conclusion - I feel there are many in this community who would support a variety of your efforts Rick. I just hope your criticisms and tart responses don't consistently disappoint ordinary folks, such that they don't want to assist you and others around you.

best of luck in your efforts.

[Rick Rowlands]

Oh and by the way Janko, FREEDOM has always solved our nation's ills. Your brand of servitude is what is sickening this once grand country. 

[Rick Rowlands]

The refusal to vote is still a vote.  Apparently either the Democrats in Missouri failed to get their people to vote, or there just aren't that many to begin with.

Ohio is collecting signatures to place a similar issue on our ballot.  Whether in favor of Obamacare or opposed to it, I cannot fathom why any Ohioan would not want the opportunity to vote on it themselves.

[Janko]

Before reading Rick's post, I had never heard of "Proposition C."

While I respect Mr. Rowlands because of his passion for local history, the analysis he re-posted here is ultimately wrong.

In a primary voting system, as was the case of Missouri's election, individuals vote for members in a party. Finding values at the Missouri Secretary of State's website (http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrweb/allresults.asp?eid=283), voters from each party for the Senate race were:

315,776 Democrat (35%)
577,602 Republican + 3,502 Libertarian + 1,1883 Constitution Party = 582,987 (65%)

Judging by historical compositions of the Missouri electorate, the people who turned out to vote were not a representative sample of the state's electorate in any general election.

If two-thirds of a skewed population is of a conservative persuasion, it follows about two-thirds would vote for this Proposition C.

Next time I am at the Ohio State-Michigan game in Columbus, I'll ask around the stadium which team each individual favors.
I'm willing to bet it runs 95%+ in the Buckeyes' favor.
How about that?
The population dictates the results.

We need pragmatic solutions to solve our nation's ills, not misguided reposts of rubbish.

[Rick Rowlands]

Cut and paste from an email I received today:

Missouri's Prop C passed with OVER 70% of the vote! 
Missouri's initiative passed overwhelmingly with over 70% of the vote.   

Follow up... it was passed as a state law, not a resolution:

From Fox News article:

Republican lawmakers originally wanted to place the measure on Missouri's November ballot in the form of a state constitutional amendment. But to avoid a Democratic filibuster in the state Senate, they agreed to scale it back to a proposed law and place it on the primary ballot.


Missouri: Prop C passes overwhelmingly

Reposted from stltoday.com
ST. LOUIS • Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.
"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.
With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1. The measure, which seeks to exempt Missouri from the insurance mandate in the new health care law, includes a provision that would change how insurance companies that go out of business in Missouri liquidate their assets.
"I've never seen anything like it," Cunningham said at a campaign gathering at a private home in Town and Country. "Citizens wanted their voices to be heard."
About 30 Proposition C supporters whooped it up loudly at 9 p.m. when the returns flashed on the television showing the measure passing with more than 70 percent of the vote.
"It's the vote heard 'round the world," said Dwight Janson, 53, from Glendale, clad in an American flag-patterned shirt. Janson said he went to one of the first Tea Party gatherings last year and hopped on the Proposition C bandwagon because he wanted to make a difference.
"I was tired of sitting on the sidelines bouncing my gums," he said.
Missouri was the first of four states to seek to opt out of the insurance purchase mandate portion of the health care law that had been pushed by Obama. And while many legal scholars question whether the vote will be binding, the overwhelming approval gives the national GOP momentum as Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma hold similar votes during midterm elections in November.
"It's a big number," state Sen. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay, said of the vote. "I expected a victory, but not of this magnitude. This is going to propel the issue and several other issues about the proper role of the federal government."
From almost the moment the Democratic-controlled Congress passed the health care law — which aims to increase the number of Americans with health insurance — Republicans have vowed to try to repeal it. Their primary argument is that they believe the federal government should not be involved in mandating health care decisions at the local level.
While repeal might seem an unlikely strategy, the effort to send a message state by state that voters don't approve of being told they have to buy insurance could gain momentum.
That's what Republicans are counting on at least, hoping that the Missouri vote will give the national movement momentum.
"It's like a domino, and Missouri is the first one to fall," Cunningham said. "Missouri's vote will greatly influence the debate in the other states."
Proposition C faced little organized opposition, although the Missouri Hospital Association mounted a mailer campaign opposing the ballot issue in the last couple of weeks. The hospital association, which spent more than $300,000 in the losing effort, said that without the new federal law, those who don't have insurance will cause health care providers and other taxpayers to have higher costs.
"The only way to get to the cost problem in health care is to expand the insurance pool," said hospital association spokesman Dave Dillon. He said the hospital association didn't plan to sue over the law, but he expected it would be challenged.
"I think there is going to be no shortage of people who want to use the courts to resolve this issue," he said.
Democrats also generally opposed Proposition C, though they didn't spend much time or money talking about it.
In the closing days of the campaign, many politicians 'sidled up" to Proposition C, Cunningham said, seeing the momentum the issue had gained.
Among them was U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, who won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night. Late last week, Blunt announced his support of Proposition C.
On Monday, Blunt said he hoped Missouri voters would send a "ballot box message" to the Obama's administration by overwhelmingly passing the measure.
The question now is whether the administration will respond by suing the state to block passage of the law, much as it did in Arizona recently over illegal immigration.
The issue in both is the same: When state laws conflict with federal laws, the courts have generally ruled in favor of the federal government, because of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Richard Reuben, a law professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, said that if the federal government sues on the issue, it would likely win. Several other Missouri legal and political scholars agreed.
But Cunningham is undaunted. She's got her own experts, and they're ready to do battle in court.
"Constitutional experts disagree," she said. "There is substantial legal status to this thing."
--
Jason Mihalick, Buckeye Firearms Association Delegate
The Ohio Liberty Council

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth." --George Washington