It's been a while since we last opened up the Hey Wiseguy mailbag, but we figured we'd check the 'ole inbox in time for the election and we're glad we did. We had a reader write in asking a pretty dang good question. What the heck does being against a ban on fracking mean? Read on for more!
Hey Wiseguy,
I've never thought of myself as a dumb individual, but I'm kinda rackin' my brain right now understanding this whole fracking ban thing. My actual opinion withheld, I'm not sure exactly how to vote. Is a vote for "yes" a vote to frack or a vote to ban fracking? Open my eyes please, goodsir.
Yours Truly,
Admiral Adama
Dear Admiral,
Man, do I know it. Politics can be confusing in general, but when the advertising for something is more confusing than the actual wording on the ballot, something's wrong. Speaking of the wording of the ballot, let's take a quick look at that. When voting, you will be presented with the following question (in all caps, of course):
“SHALL AN ORDINANCE BE ENACTED PROHIBITING, WITHIN THE CORPORATE LIMITS OF THE CITY OF DENTON, TEXAS, HYDRAULIC FRACTURING, A WELL STIMULATION PROCESS INVOLVING THE USE OF WATER, SAND AND/OR CHEMICAL ADDITIVES PUMPED UNDER HIGH PRESSURE TO FRACTURE SUBSURFACE NON-POROUS ROCK FORMATIONS SUCH AS SHALE TO IMPROVE THE FLOW OF NATURAL GAS, OIL, OR OTHER HYDROCARBONS INTO THE WELL, WITH SUBSEQUENT HIGH RATE, EXTENDED FLOWBACK TO EXPEL FRACTURE FLUIDS AND SOLIDS?
FOR THE ORDINANCE _______________
AGAINST THE ORDINANCE ______________
The ordinance in this case, is for ban of hydraulic fracturing and whether you want it allowed in the Denton city limits or not. However, they've added a few extra nouns, pronouns, and hypernouns (are those a thing) to beef it up. Is there a minimum word count for propositions? Who writes these things, afterall?
The way we see it, you're either against being for being against fracking in which case you would vote NO, or you're for being against being for fracking and would cast a YES vote. It really couldn't be simpler.
In other words, putting your vote as "for the ordinance" would ban fracking in Denton and casting your vote as "against the ordinance" would be a vote to keep fracking. You're either "for" or "against" the ban.
And, that's what much of the billboards, yard signs, online ads, mailers, infomercials, product placement, other mailers, blimps, skywriting, and face yellings (these are where people yell at your face how to vote) have tried to get across, albeit in a few more words. We've seen billboards that read, "Support responsible drilling," which a casual observer, with knowledge that there's a fracking ban on the line in Denton would be led to believe was actually an ad for "Frack Free Denton," but they would be wrong. On the side of that same billboard, you'll read, "Vote no [sic] drilling ban." Responsible drilling then meaning the drilling they've been doing in the city limits.
So go vote no or yes on whether you'd like or not like for there to never be no fracking in Denton city limits and get one of them fancy little stickers people seem to like so much.