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The Huffington Post picked up the thread about the GOP challenges to
ballot access today...<br>
<a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/illinois-republicans-lead_n_676232.html"><br>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/illinois-republicans-lead_n_676232.html<br>
</a><br>
<br>
On 8/10/2010 3:25 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4C60FF04.2000006@pigs.ag" type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="content-type"
content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
Gerald Weinberg is a ancient computer programmer (he and some of the
computers he programmed) who worked on the Edsel project, Project
Mercury, for IBM, and is an at times excoriating social critic and an
ex-(ex-patriot) who wrote some interesting books on the psychology of
computer programming, a quite remarkable book called "Introduction to
General Systems Thinking", and several other "how to think better"
books. He is also famous for a few of "laws" or "principles" which he
formulated. One of his "laws" that got some attention is "Weinberg's
Law of Twins"---(originally from the 1979 "On the Design of Stable
Systems")... Wikipaedia notes:<br>
<blockquote>
<p><b>Weinberg's Law of Twins</b> states that most of the time, no
matter how much effort one expends, no event of any great significance
will result. <b>Weinberg's Law of Twins Inverted</b> states that
occasionally—particularly when one isn't expecting it—a significant
event occurs.</p>
<p><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Weinberg"
title="Gerald Weinberg">Gerald Weinberg</a> invented the law and
described it in his book <i>The Secrets of Consulting</i> (1986), in
which he explains the origin of its name. He reported that, while
riding a <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus" title="Bus">bus</a>
in <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New
York City</a>, he observed a <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother" title="Mother">mother</a>
with eight small <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child" title="Child">children</a>
embark. She asked the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_driver" title="Bus driver">driver</a>
the amount of the fare; he told her that the cost was thirty-five
cents, but that children under the age of five could ride for <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis"
title="Gratis">free</a>.
When the woman deposited only thirty-five cents into the payment slot,
the driver was incredulous. "Do you mean to tell me that all your
children are under five years old?" The woman explained that she had
four sets of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin" title="Twin">twins</a>.
The driver replied, "Do you always have twins?" "No," said the woman,
"most of the time we don't have any."</p>
</blockquote>
Democracy as we know it seems to be about limiting debate and limiting
real choices while maintaining, via a massive education and PR
campaign, the thin facade that the system gives a ripe red rat's ass
about the Vox Populi. Of course the system does welcome the Vox Populi
as long as it is sufficiently squelched and massaged to support the
notions of the Masters.<br>
<br>
Government in Illinois is no exception. The system is rigged to
maintain the power of the two-headed one-party system and to make sure
that the hopes of 3rd party ideologies are dashed to pieces on the
rocks of the Illinois ballot access process. Non-conformist candidates
are forced to get many times the number of signatures required by
"candidates" of the Illinois Combine. The next step in the "democratic
process" is for the Democrat party to file objections to the signatures
on the petition. The objections to Rich Whitney's petitions filed by
the "Democrats" in 2006 is the classic case. But with the emergence of
the Tea Partiers and the R[3voJ]uition-aries, even the GOP feels
threatened by this new Spectre of Democracy which seems to be slowly
spreading its dark shadow across the tidy gaming of the electoral
process.<br>
<br>
Threatened by several emerging candidates for US Senate and other
races, the Illinois Republican Party is stepping up to show they too
have a can-do attitude when it comes to stamping out participatory
democracy<br>
<br>
But here is where Weinberg's Law Inverted may be taking hold. It's
quite possible that the people are starting to stir a bit and even
express a bit of righteous indignation. Doug Ibendahl grew up on a
cattle farm in southern Illinois and is now a Chicago attorney and was
at one time General Counsel for the Illinois Republican Party. That is
to say he knows too much about the inner workings of the beast and he
knows where the bodies are buried. Doug is a traditional
paleoconservative and a tireless reformer who hates machine politics
and its dirty tactics and wants to return the voice in government back
to the people. We wanted to get Doug on at the Midwest Liberty Fest
but he was not available.<br>
<br>
Interestingly, Doug is now representing the Constitution Party against
the petition challenges filed by the Republican Party. I think its
interesting because Republican Doug is stepping up to cry foul and
oppose the corrupt system. Doug writes at his blog:<br>
<blockquote>
<p>No one was happier than I when Republican <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.cedracrenshaw.com/">Cedra
Crenshaw</a> recently won
her court fight and the right to appear on the ballot as the GOP
candidate for State Senate in the 43rd District. Cedra’s now officially
facing incumbent Democrat Arthur Wilhelmi in what has already become an
exciting race. If any Republican can take that seat this year, it’s
Cedra Crenshaw. The Democrats’ attempt to keep Crenshaw off the ballot
was wrong. It was doubly wrong for the incumbent Wilhelmi to pretend
(at least for awhile) that he had nothing to do with the objection
filed against Crenshaw’s petitions. Fortunately that one turned out
for the best – eventually – after much time, frustration, and expense.
You were probably already aware of the good news story regarding Cedra
Crenshaw. You’ve likely heard all about how evil the “Democrat Machine”
was for attempting to deny ballot access to a bright political
newcomer. That’s all true. But what you probably don’t know is that
the Republican Machine is putting the Democrat Machine to shame right
now in terms of petition challenges filed. The Illinois Republican
Party is behind 11 petition challenges right now, all of which are in
litigation at the State Board of Elections.<br>
</p>
<p>And note that those 11 challenges include a lot more than 11
candidates. The Illinois Republican Party is currently attempting to
keep the entire Constitution Party slate and the entire Libertarian
Party slate off the ballot. Each of those counts as one case only –
even though each party’s statewide slate has 7 candidates. So think
about that for a moment. We already knew that Pat Brady is against the
idea of Republicans voting in their own Illinois Republican Party.
Brady still opposes passage of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://republicannewswatch.com/wp/?p=4738">SB600</a>. But now
Pat Brady is heading the effort to keep Constitutionalists and
Libertarians from having a vote too – for ALL of their candidates...<br>
</p>
<p>How do I know so much about this topic? Because I’m the lawyer
representing the Constitution Party and its candidates in their defense
of the petition challenge. I’m very proud to be doing so. I think what
my Illinois Republican Party is doing right now is entirely wrong, on
several levels. First off, I think a little healthy competition would
make the “established” parties better. Further, maybe if our Illinois
Republican Party would clean-up its act and stop doing self-destructive
things like constantly rigging party conventions and intra-party votes,
maybe there would be less to fear from new entrants to the political
marketplace. I can also see as clearly as anyone that our GOP has at
least two candidates on the statewide ballot who aren’t even
Republicans in any sense of the word. I’m talking about Mark Kirk and
Judy Baar Topinka. At a minimum, I personally want another choice when
it comes to those two. <br>
</p>
<p>Finally, I’m representing the Constitution Party in this because
quite frankly I’ve always liked the underdog. Randy Stufflebeam is the
Constitution Party’s candidate for U.S. Senate and I’ve gotten to know
him extremely well this past month or so. Randy is a good man and one
of the most honest I’ve met. They say once a Marine always a Marine and
no one exemplifies that idea better than Randy Stufflebeam. In fact all
of the folks I’ve met on the Constitution Party side are truly decent,
God-fearing people. They don’t deserve the disrespectful treatment they
are getting from Pat Brady and a handful of his Republican pals.</p>
<p>The pooh-bahs of the Illinois GOP see things differently of
course. They want to strangle-off the competition so we Republican saps
have no place else to go. They hope that if the ballot’s cleared we’ll
have to hold our nose and vote for their boy Mark Kirk and others.
Maybe some will, but I won’t – no matter what. I will not vote for any
candidate who has lied to us like Mark Kirk has so many times...</p>
<p><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
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