They Hate Us For Our Freedom

This morning the the Washington Examiner reported that the city council might consider legislation to make the "Taxation Without Representation" license plates mandatory on all DC registered vehicles.

Via DCist:

"The measure, offered by Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham and co-sponsored by seven of his colleagues, would require all plates issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles to bear the city’s rallying cry for congressional voting rights. The only exemptions would be for organizational and vintage plates."

Jim, I love you but sometimes you piss me off. Let me get this straight. One day you were looking around DC, and despite all the shit that's wrong with this city (check out the last 6 years of posts on this blog if you're having trouble thinking of some some examples), you zoned in on the other set of plates that display the DC website, http://www.dc.gov/, instead of "Taxation Without Representation" and thought, "Traitors! Traitors to the Cause! This cannot stand!"

I personally haven't settled my mind on whether DC should be granted full voting rights in the House of Representatives (and I'm sure some of you are dying to argue with me about that and I welcome that, I really do). I tend to think they (we) shouldn't, but I'm no longer completely sold on the argument that "it's because the Constitution says so." At one time, citizens in the District were prohibited from voting in Presidential elections. That was changed in 1961 by the Twenty-Third Amendment.

On the other hand, if you bend the rules for DC, you have to bend it for Guam, the Virgin (giggidy) Islands, and American Samoa to name a few. I don't want Guam hanging around. Guam smells.

Then there's the extremist view that DC should be granted full statehood and two Senate seats. To me, that's kinda out there.

DC has survived hundreds of years with out a vote in Congress. It already receives earmarks and a shit load of subsidies for Metro. Hell, it even has its very own appropriations bill in Congress.

We've got this DC Voting Rights Act that's been reintroduced in the 111th Congress. I realize that getting that beast enacted has been as hard as Bob Dole's Viagra induced erections. But Jimbo, things are different now. Why don't we wait to see if fantasy Congresswoman Eleanore Holmes Norton is allowed to sit at the cool kids table before we start ramping up the rhetoric.

And if we're going to start dictating what government propaganda should be displayed on license plates, I'd like to see some options like, "Don't Drink the Tap Water," or "The Bitch Set Me Up," or "This Car is Probably Stolen," or "Gentrification! It's a (Race) Riot!"

You see where this is going, Jimbo? Where does it end if the Voting Rights bill is passed? What will be our collective's next social cause, oh great and wise leader? I'm asking because I need the government to tell me what to think.