Overheated Rhetoric?
A couple choice quotes from today's ProJo about the aforementioned casino debate.
Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas: "The people really want to vote on this issue, and to deny the people the right to vote on this issue that has been in the forefront for 14 years would be the crime of the millennium. It would just be unfathomable."
Nineteen men hijack airplanes, murder 3,000 people and cause billions of dollars in damage, and yet not allowing people to vote on an unconstitutional referendum would be the crime of the millenium? Yikes.
Supreme Court opinion: "If we were to sit idly by while an unconstitutional question was submitted to the voters, only to later issue a binding decision declaring the Casino Act and the referendum question void, chaos might well ensue."
The great casino riots of 2004? Oh, if only people got that riled up about elections.
So now that this is dead, we should only have another couple days or so of this ridiculousness. Then we can go back to debating inflatable gorillas…
August 14th, 2004 at 6:06 pm
I had the same exact thought when I heard Matthew Thomas say that on TV this morning. I was like, “didn’t a buncha guys fly some planes into some buildings a few years back??”
As for the chaos, sadly I would not be at all surprised to see people riot over this. People around here have some warped priorities.
I’m really tired of the whole “right to vote” non-sense. We are not ruled by plebicite. If we had the right to vote on everything we wouldn’t need a legislature (which may not be such a bad thing). I don’t understand why people don’t understand that we elect our legislators to vote on things for us.
I also don’t understand why so many people are fooled into thinking a casino would be a good thing for Rhode Island.