Hick Ideologue

Brain dead maroon here, name of Jeffrey Hare. Or, in conserva-speak, "principled." (But don't ignore the principled maturity of "You can't tell me to do nuthin'!!" found in the second blockquote.)

Well, there has been criminal background checks for gun buyers for a long time, both at the federal level and the state level.

[That's an unprincipled lie. —M.B.]

There's just a principled opposition to anything related to Second Amendment rights. Both the magazine ban and the universal background check are just an erosion of Second Amendment rights. People would argue that both of them are setting up for a national database of gun owners. So typical, you would call it, arguments.

All rights are absolute then? Good. We can go back to yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater & everybody else can just fuck right off.

So on renewable energy, is there also just widespread, on principle, opposition to imposing percent standards on where each farm needs to get its energy from?
In principle, you shouldn't have a state government forcing its will on certain portions, even minority portions, of the state. ... So I would argue that's not the proper role of government. The role of government is not to erode liberty, the role of government is to protect liberty. So the principled argument is you have rural communities saying we don't want this. It's imposed upon us. And you have an urban-centric legislature that's saying we don't care what you want we're going to do it anyways.

And when his new state's legislature dares force its will on him (By cramming it down his throat, no doubt?) where will he draw the line? Precinct secession? The Sovereign State of The Block Jeffrey Hare Lives On?

So this is an issue of the bottom line then for these co-ops?
Right. It's purely an economic, free-market-driven argument.

English majors w/ decoder rings will know that means "Right. We're greedy & don't know any better."

Hare has already digested & passed the new talking points: It's not fair that real Americans keep losing elections just because more people vote the other way. (Said w/ completely straight faces.) Democracy sucks when it represents the will of other people. Extra-especially urban other people.

So you'd say those are the three main issues, the straw that broke the camel's back and led to proposing the ballot initiative?
There's a lot of things that have gone on for a long time. The urbanization of America has driven all the power, if you will, into all the population centers. The one thing that often the press gets wrong in this is they say this is really a Republican versus Democrat issue. And I would just point to Kansas and Nebraska, which are two hardcore-red states, Republican-dominated states and you have very disenfranchised rural farmers living in the Western parts of those states equally as frustrated with being underrepresented in the state legislature, even with an "R" behind people's names, so it really is a systemic issue. Not all farmers vote "R." If you go to certain states like Iowa, for example, there's probably more people that vote for Democrats than they do Republicans.

Clodhopper, please. We're educated; we've known for decades that the battle for civilization is between hayseeds & civilized people, not mere Republicans vs. Democrats. (Not that the hick zones aren't bright red Republican, no matter the state results. Hare can't get three sentences out of his pie-hole w/o spouting one form or another of crap.) And while you're wallowing in self-pity because the rest of the world has moved to the big city, consider how disenfranchised we urbane sophisticates feel when states so miserable that livestock outnumber the human population nonethe-fucking-less have the same representation in the U.S. Senate as states where millions & millions of people want to live.

The Weld County secession committee.

Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway, center,
with other elected officials address a group of supporters of
the 51st State Initiative during an election result watch party
at the Historic Fort Lupton Fort, November 5, 2013.
(RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

Clue to the clueless: The gawd-damn frontier closed in 18-fucking-90, & you're not John Wayne in a Western. (Possible exception: The Alamo, wherein every last one of you will die at the hands of Mexican revolutionary forces.)