No on Question 1

Or, as Governor Patrick called it almost a year ago, and the editors of Blue Mass Group have been calling it since then, the Dumb Idea.

Question 1, eliminating the Massachusetts state income tax, is worse, really, than “dumb” — it’s an astoundingly stupid idea.

Seriously, if you’re voting in MA, kill this thing.  Even in good economic times it would be stupid, but right now, when we’re no longer even faced with the question of whether we’re in a recession, but of just how long and how bad it’s going to be, the absolute last thing we should be thinking about doing is destroying the government’s ability to invest in infrastructure and services — creating jobs when there otherwise would be none, to help end the recession faster, and helping people hurt by the recession get through it.

Question 2, decriminalizing possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, probably won’t pass, but it seems like a good idea to me; Question 3, banning greyhound racing, is as obviously a good idea as Question 1 is a bad.

Go, Read.

Charley is exactly right:

There simply must be prosecutions. It’s not enough to imagine that we can restore the Constitution by popular vote, by just electing people of better morals, of more restraint, of greater reverence for the law and human history. Because “good people” come and go. You don’t always get the people you need in positions of power. The law itself must be affirmed, and those who intentionally and flagrantly abused its practice — for the purpose of abusing humans — must be punished.

…

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone asked Ben Franklin whether we had a monarchy or a republic. “A republic — if you can keep it,” replied Franklin. The lesson is that the Constitution is not magic, not an all-seeing eye, not a god that imperceptibly guides the machine of state. It depends on people of good faith and forbearance to keep it.

High-level Bush administration officials must be prosecuted.  Bush and Cheney must be prosecuted.  If no one at that level of power goes to jail, it will be the end of law in this country.