Political Hangover

The mid-term elections are over. Mostly. The vast majority of the followers of the would-be evil overlord were defeated by an army of young people who voted them down.

It’s weird though watching how the races played out around the country compared to what happened in Massachusetts, where Democrats and Republicans disagree, but are mostly reasonable people. Watching the ads from Georgia are like watching the trailer for a horror movie.

However, even my bastion of civility is not immune to political hyperbole. The ballot initiatives in Mass. were a collection of ideas of varying merit. The annoying part was all the ads, on both sides, played loose with the truth. It’s hard to see a commercial for a ballot initiative that you support that is all lies. 

The first question was a new tax on people making over a million dollars. It wasn’t perfect, but better than nothing. However, the ads promoting it outright lied about those imperfections. Fortunately, the ads against it lied even more and were blatantly self-serving.

The second was for new controls on dental insurance. The ads for it said that it would lower costs and make dental care available for everyone. Neither can be guaranteed by this law. Again, the ads against were also lies, claiming that poor people would have to go to the emergency room for dental care.

The third was a series of unrelated changes to liquor laws. Each ad, again on both sides, took one minor aspect of the question and blew it up to apocalyptic proportions.

The final question was about undocumented immigrants getting driver’s licenses. If this passed we were told there would either perfect harmony on the roadways or Death Race 2023. We all knew that neither would happen.

So do we need to fight lies with lies? Let the better lies win?