I went to vote on a few ballot measures last night after official work day and before dinner/ night work.
For once, nobody was running for office, so it was entirely voting on propositions, 3/4's of I had not done any research. So I skipped a few items and tried to understand what they were asking for on a few others, some of them fairly straightforward, like bonds for road work.
The controversial issue on the ballot was the request for state money for cancer research. Like most folks, I have a beef with cancer. Like most folks, cancer has touched my family and friends. I also know cancer is not a single disease but a blanket term to describe a plethora of conditions. I am also concerned about the distribution of money, and understand that there are many diseases to worry about. Take kidney diseases like
FSGS. That one is much less fun than it sounds.
I guess my reasoning came down to: in 500 years, what will we have done? Will we have spent our vast resources building giant robots to kill people who do not have giant robots? Will we have chipped every person on Earth and spent money to make sure we were keeping a close watch on them? Will we have made any inroads to actually stopping the causes of grief and people raising their hands against one another? Or will we have insisted that the fight to heal the sick is someone else's mission?
I am not a doctor. I am not a nurse, or even much of a caretaker. I am not a researcher, and I am not able to help people much in my day to day life (and this is something I am considering in depth these days). There is very little I can do out there to help more people than myself and my family and friends. But there is a lot WE can do to help each other.
Without passing judgment on the rightness or wrongness of the current wars, I would rather live in a country at war with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and many other killers than with other nations or peoples. I don't see the two as mutually exclusive. One of the number one things any candidate could do to make me feel safer would not be to promise me endless war against any enemy or outside threat. They could promise me they would dedicate their term to the eradication of disease and hunger. In the end, I doubt I'll die from a dirty bomb. That may be naive, but I am certain diabetes, cancer or heart disease will kill me.
These things seem simple enough at face value, but they aren't where the people we elect put our money or our priorities.
As I mentioned, I am concerned about the use of the money. Government agencies are run by people, and people make ridiculous decisions. But I'm not sure that doesn't mean we shouldn't try, or that nothing will come out of the research, even if it isn't a cure.
So I voted for Proposition 15. And against getting rid of the office of taxidermy or whatever that wacky bill was.