Tag Archives: Vote

News

European court finds that UK must give prisoners the right to vote

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From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

The European Court of Human Rights upheld a previous ruling that a blanket ban on inmates being able to vote was unlawful.

However, the court signalled that the UK government could decide which prisoners should be enfranchised, meaning serious offenders such as murderers and rapists could be excluded.

Judges may even be handed discretion to decide which criminals are allowed the vote.

The Government now has six months to comply with the ruling or face a raft of challenges and huge legal costs.

The decision will spark fury among MPs who voted overwhelmingly last year to not lift the 140 year blanket ban.

The case, now eight years old, has been at the centre of a deepening row in the UK over the influence of European judges on domestic law.

Ministers and MPs have insisted the decision on whether prisoners in a country can vote is a political one not a matter for the European court.

Last February, MPs backed a motion opposing the European judgment by a 234 to 22.

The vote was not binding but the Government has used it as evidence that Parliament’s wish is to maintain the ban.

Prisoners overwhelmingly vote for parties that are left-of-center, like the Democrats.

News

Landslide in North Carolina: traditional definition of marriage wins 61-39

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Eastern United States Map
Eastern United States Map

The traditional definition of marriage was affirmed by North Carolina voters on Tuesday. The count was 61-39.

North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, becoming the latest state to effectively slam the door shut on same-sex marriages.

With most of the precincts reporting Tuesday, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 61 percent of the vote to 39 percent against. North Carolina is the 30th state to adopt such a ban on gay marriage.

Tami Fitzgerald, who heads the pro-amendment group Vote FOR Marriage NC, said she believes the initiative awoke a silent majority of more active voters in the future.

“I think it sends a message to the rest of the country that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Fitzgerald said at a celebration Tuesday night. “The whole point is simply that you don’t rewrite the nature of God’s design based on the demands of a group of adults.”

In the final days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to oppose the amendment.

The Obama administration opposes traditional marriage and instead favors gay marriage.

Notice that there is nothing in the amendment about banning anything:

Sec. 6. Marriage.
Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

That’s something you hear in the leftist media, but this bill is no more a ban on gay marriage as it is a ban on polygamy. It simply affirms that the state will only recognize traditional marriages as valid. People can do whatever they want and live however they want. What they can’t do is force other people to call relationships that do not affirm the right of a child to have a mother and father “marriage”.

To understand why people oppose same-sex marriage, you can read my post from yesterday, in which I lay out 3 non-religious reasons to oppose gay marriage. In addition, my friend Melissa has another reason to support traditional marriage that Christians in particular will find compelling.

News

1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

 The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor’s degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there’s strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor’s degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

[…]You can make more money on average if you go to college, but it’s not true for everybody,” says Harvard economist Richard Freeman, noting the growing risk of a debt bubble with total U.S. student loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. “If you’re not sure what you’re going to be doing, it probably bodes well to take some job, if you can get one, and get a sense first of what you want from college.”

Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who analyzed the numbers, said many people with a bachelor’s degree face a double whammy of rising tuition and poor job outcomes. “Simply put, we’re failing kids coming out of college,” he said, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference. “We’re going to need a lot better job growth and connections to the labor market, otherwise college debt will grow.”

That bit about getting a job so you know what you need to study. It’s important to get a job – any job – so that you understand what you are supposed to be learning in high school and college – what employers want! The next most important thing is to have a career mentor – someone to steer you away from subjects like English and ballet and into engineering and science. A trade school is another good choice: nursing or electrical wiring or something like that. Something valuable that employers need – that should be the deciding factor – what employers want you to do for them. Here’s a page listing degrees and expected incomes. Engineering, medicine and computer science are the three best fields.

I am still trying to puzzle out why young people vote for Democrats so much. I think that they have been brainwashed to think that making moral judgments is wrong, so they keep voting against Republicans who pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family and pro-personal responsibility. That’s what teachers tell them in school – don’t have any moral standards, don’t make any moral judgments, let the government spend your money for you to be more “fair”, etc. So young people vote for Democrats. But voting for Democrats doesn’t just weaken the social fabric, it also wrecks the economy. Who do young people expect to work for when they keep voting to bash corporations all the time? Corporations hire young people. It seems stupid to vote against the people who want to pay you to do work.

Now that I think about it, it might be a good idea for social conservatives to be ready to make a case for free market capitalism and limited government, using evidence like this that shows how socialism fails to create economic growth and jobs. Even if people vote for conservatism based on fiscal concerns or foreign policy concerns, it’s still going to be helpful to social conservatives. We need to be like Paul and be able to speak intelligently to any audience on a wider variety of topics. Also, I think it helps social conservatives to be seen as competent in areas outside of social conservatism – it’s important to have a well-rounded worldview in order to not be perceived as being narrow-minded and ideologically motivated.