{"id":735,"date":"2010-10-22T08:41:27","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T13:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/?p=735"},"modified":"2010-10-22T08:41:27","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T13:41:27","slug":"michigan-maturity-and-the-con-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=735","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Maturity and the Con-Con&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GRPR035.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-736\" title=\"GRPR035.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GRPR035.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GRPR035.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GRPR035-300x209.jpg 300w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/GRPR035-429x300.jpg 429w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Originally published in the <em>Grand Rapids Press<\/em>, October16, 2010<\/p>\n<p>On the ballot next month Michigan voters will get to choose whether to have a convention to rewrite our state constitution (or the cool way to say it, have a \u201ccon-con\u201d).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Why It\u2019s a Good Idea: Our constitution has been amended several time since the last whisking nearly 50 years ago, and it\u2019s a bit of a patchwork mess. In fact, the whole state is a bit of a patchwork mess. So now would be a good time to start fresh, realign goals, and move on a clear path forward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Why It\u2019s a Bad Idea: We can\u2019t trust ourselves not to totally screw it up. Notice I didn\u2019t say \u201cpoliticians\u201d or \u201cWall Street bankers\u201d or \u201cthat damn Obamacare that is tearing the moral fabric of a once genteel and noble society leading us into ruination, bankruptcy, venereal diseases, and the designated hitter rule in baseball, which I have never liked.\u201d No, it\u2019s kind of like term limits &#8212; because we think so little of our capacity to make good decisions we take away our own options.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0For the comic I singled out the politicians because it\u2019s election season and their pandering is in high gear (and because it was the path of least resistance to get the point across). But it is good to keep in mind that &#8212; in a country that is of the people, by the people, for the people &#8212; politicians are not separate citizens and government is not a separate institution. They are we, and it is us. Time to take some responsibility, read up, and vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, October16, 2010 On the ballot next month Michigan voters will get to choose whether to have a convention to rewrite our state constitution (or the cool way to say it, have a \u201ccon-con\u201d). Why It\u2019s a Good Idea: Our constitution has been amended several time since the last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-rapids-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}