By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings
…'cuz some of them seem to be killing off their brain cells at an alarming rate…
On Tuesday, the House gave its approval, by an almost-completely party-line vote, to SCR1016.
That
SCR places a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution on the
ballot in 2014. If passed by the voters, it would add a clause to that
document stating that Arizona could "nullify", or ignore, any federal
action, law or rule. AZBlueMeanie at Blog for Arizona has a great
rundown of that here.
This
post is merely about a little over 40 seconds of the House debate on
the measure, specifically Rep. Steve Smith's "explanation" of his vote.
He used his "explanation" of his vote to respond to the previous
speaker, Democratic Rep. Albert Hale, the only Democrat to vote in favor
of the measure. Hale felt that such a measure would prevent the
federal government from taking land and sovereignty from Native peoples
and nations.
Note: There's no actual debate during
final votes on measures at the lege, just legislators "explaining" their
votes. Some of the explanations get a little long-winded and even
bombastic. Smith was neither long-winded nor bombastic, but after
watching his quiet certitude on the historical rightness of unbridled
imperialism, I considered adding a third descriptor to the previous
sentence – "drug-addled". However, lacking the results of an
independently administered and analyzed drug test, I chose not to go
there.
The text of his "explanation" (emphasis added) –
Mr.
Speaker, I think just since we're talking a little bit about history, I
think it would be fair to point out that history of virtually every
nation on the earth has come about from one people taking from another.
Going back to biblical times. If we stand on this argument, then God's
people never should have occupied God's land. 'Cause they took it from
people, too. I guess I wanted to say that some people look at the
United States as a taking nation. I look at it as the most benevolent and the most giving nation, certainly in our time and frankly, ever. I vote yes.
The
scariest part isn't that he said what he said. It was in how he said
it, with the same matter-of-fact tone that former legislator Sylvia
Allen proclaimed that strip mining uranium was OK because the Earth was 6000 years old and doing just fine.