The Right Rev Rowland

Or so that’s what I had heard. For over 20 years, a group of business leaders and community leaders have been advocating for a high-speed rail system between Southern California and Las Vegas. There have been billions spent on research, planning, surveys, and lobbying efforts.

One of the biggest supporters of this railway has been the hapless Harry Reid, Nevada’s senior senator, and currently, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate. Harry has waited for decades to see this railway dream come to pass, and he is getting a little impatient.

With Obama in office, and stimulus funds flying out of the Treasury faster than the ink can dry on the bills, Harry was able to secure a portion of the 8 billion dollars designated for fast rail projects for our little railway. Literally, a dream come true!

Then, just this month, it came out that Reid had switched horses in the middle of the race. He had for years been a proponent of the Maglev railway system, which uses magnetic power to lift and propel the train at speeds of up to 300 MPH. These magnetic trains can easily traverse the steep grades in the Cajon Pass, which rises from the Riverside Valley to the high desert near Victorville, CA. All this at the bargain price of $12 billion.

Nowadays, Reid is backing Desert Xpress, a much younger company that is proposing a traditional steel-wheel railway powered by a diesel-hybrid engine and can run up to speeds of 150 MPH. Oh, and the best part about this slower option for travel is that will only run between Las Vegas and Victorville, at the top of the Cajon Pass. It would still be another 85-mile drive into the Riverside Valley and LA area through CA freeway traffic.

The reason that Desert Xpress has to stop at Victorville is that it’s engine and rail technology can’t handle the steep grades of Cajon Pass. That’s the major incline/decline that we traverse on the 15 to get to and from Disneyland, the beach, Tijuana, and most other cool things Californian from Southern Nevada. My wife hates driving up and down this stretch of road(although up is a little easier to take for her than down, I guess cause all the scary-looking dropoffs are mostly behind the SUV as we jam up the road at 80MPH.)

So, to be clear, the superior technology of the Maglev magnetic railway will get you farther, faster than the dated Desert Xpress option. The better service will cost more, DUH! But if I have to ride for an hour and a half on a train and then rent a car and drive another hour and a half to get to the beach, WHY wouldn’t I just take a 45-minute flight to LAX, rent a car and drive 20 min. to the beach. OR Disney? For a more detailed comparison, check out the story in the Las Vegas Sun, or you can read Nevada Blogger, Elizabeth Crum’s take on it. OR, you can read national coverage by Mark Hemingway at National Review.

Reid’s spokesperson claims that the good Senator has waited 30 years to see a fast train to SoCal and has lost patience. Desert Xpress promises to deliver sooner than Maglev. Desert Xpress claims private financing and would not need as much government assistance to launch as Maglev.

Wait! hold the phone a tic! Is our good senator about to make a fiscally-responsible -conservative, even – decision in this down economy? To promote private industry over the government-funded project? Nah, look a little closer.

Reid has THE toughest re-election campaign in his career looming in 2010. The ‘Anybody-but-Reid’ movement is growing in number and volume. Desert Xpress, unlike Maglev, can deliver construction progress by 2010, giving Reid a campaign issue to crow about. He can even claim he made a fiscally-sound decision and ’saved’ the government money by promoting the cheaper (& crappier) option. I’m sure there will be no talk of if we should even have government dollars supporting any railway, of which Amtrak is a painful reminder, but I digress.

Add to that that Desert Xpress has a powerful backer in Sig Rogich, a prominent political and business figure in Nevada who claims to have a Republican political affiliation. Rogich also announced his support for Reid by chairing the ‘Republicans for Reid’ comittee announced in February of this year. I’m sure there was no convenient arrangement between Rogich and Reid for political favors, not like Harry’s land deal with his good friend Jay Brown…. what do you think this is, Las Vegas? Oh, yeah, right….. well….. it is.

Me? Well, if they built it, I’d ride it down to Disneyland…not Victorville, but I don’t want the government to finance, manage, or operate the darn thing. If there is a viable option for such a line, and somebody can make money doing it, there will be investors willing to support it. If the consuming public is unwilling to pay to use the service, or doesn’t like the destination (pssst… Victorville!), then it shouldn’t be built.

And I certainly think that a one-man propaganda machine like Harry Reid shouldn’t get his name all over it with US Taxpayer dollars. Like Sen. Steven’s Bridge to Nowhere, or the Murtha Airport, or ANYTHING with KKKBird’s name on it in West Virginia. We do not NEED a Reid fast-train that looks like a suppository speeding through the desert. Then again, the imagery might be fitting…..

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For those of you who don’t know, we are not a strict democracy. The government of the United States was designed to be a republic. The dictionary definition of republic:

 ”a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.”

In a republic, the voters select representatives who govern for them, and it is in accordance with established law. I don’t have to govern every day because I’ve got people. I voted for them and sent them off to represent me in the government, and I trust them to use their common sense and integrity to the betterment of the whole of the people.

The dictionary definition of democracy:

“government by the people ; especially : rule of the majority”

 In other words, a straight democracy is rule by the mob. The majority rules. If 51% of the people want to take your stuff, you lose your stuff. The mob is subject to passions of the moment, and trusting your future and safety to the mob is a dangerous way to live.

When the Founders of our nation sorted through all the forms of government available to them for the American experiment, a democratic republic was the absolute best solution they arrived at. With the democratic principles of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, combined with the protection of the minority with equal representation, they created a system of government unheard of in the history of mankind.

This new creation of a government in the United States, partnered with a free market economic system, led to the most free and prosperous people of any nation ever recorded on earth. Liberty had come to mankind, and coupled with the responsibility of citizenship, was spread to encompass all who lived within her borders. The seeds of change were also included in this bold experiment, to become inclusive of ALL citizens, leading to sufferage for women and the civil rights conferred upon all people equally, minorities and majorities included.

This delicate balance of a representative democratic republic was protected by a few vital provisions. The number of members of the House of Representatives was to be determined by the population within a state, providing a direct reflection of the populous. Each state was given two senators, and those senators were chosen and appointed by each state’s legislature, not elected.

The protection to the people was that they directly elected their house representativeds and their state legislature and so had a say in what sort of representation that state would have in both the house and the senate. In 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution gave the people of each state the right to vote directly for their senators. It was a step away from the original protections of a republic and toward the mob.

In selecting the President, each state was given a certain number of electors, determined by their population, which would be awarded based on the outcome of the vote within that state. This was yet another protective measure for the smaller states, that their votes would count toward the candidate of their choice. The state legislature was entrusted with determining the manner in which the electors were assigned. Some states opted for a winner-take-all assignment, while others split their electors based on the percentage of the vote recieved. In each system, the individual states would assign their electoral votes in response to the vote of the people OF THAT STATE.

Today there is a movement to abolish the Electoral College. Some claim that it is antiquated and no longer serves its purpose. They advocate that the direct majority should determine the outcome of the national elections. They call this winning by the popular vote. Whichever candidate garners a higher number of votes nationally is the winner.

This straight popular-vote determination disenfranchises the voters of smaller states with lower populations. It removes the protections they have from the tyranny of the majority by negating their votes in favor of larger, more populous states. It is a huge step toward the rule by the mob, or a straight democracy.

In Nevada, our legislature just passed AB413, which will award Nevada’s electors to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. What this means is that even if every citizen in Nevada chose candidate X, but candidate Y got more in the national popular vote, then NOT ONE of Nevada’s electors would go to it’s chosen candidate. This is a travesty of our system of government, and disenfranchises the voters of Nevada.

Now, the President of the United States only has to curry favor with the most populous states and can ignore the smaller states. If a small state wanted to send a message to a popular President by voting for his opponent, they could be dismissed as irrelevant, because enough other states will carry the victory. With this new legislation, the vote of the people in a small state will not even register, as the electors are awarded to the national popular vote.

It is taking the right of the voters of the State of Nevada to have their votes counted in favor of what OTHER states do. This is an appalling lack of representation of the Nevada State Legislature on behalf of the voters of Nevada. They have created a situation where others states can ignore the vote of Nevadans. HOW is this in the best interest of the voters of Nevada? In what way do Nevada citizens benefit from giving their votes away to the national mob?

I’ve yet to hear a plausible explanation from the legislature. I also noticed that it passed down a straight party vote, with every single Democrat voting for the measure, and every single Republican voting against. Surprising, actually, I thought that Nevada Republicans had slipped into a coma. Maybe some limited-government principles DO still exist in the Battle-Born State. Sadly, not enough. And even more sadly, not enough Nevada citizens will even understand what they are losing, or why it matters.

The march toward the mob continues, to the tune of democracy. It all sounds warm and fuzzy, until you find yourself in the minority, and the majority has just decided they want your stuff.

I’m just sayin………

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