Voting against an amendment

2013-1-28

At the Clark County Republican Central Committee meeting, there was a resolution about gun control and the recent Sandy Hook incident. The resolution had language talking about the killer using an assault rifle. A man made a motion to amend the resolution because he said that it had been recently learned that the killer had an assault rifle in his car, but did not use it in the killings. He vaguely asked to amend it to remove mention of the assault rifle from the resolution. The man argued that we should remove mention of the killer using an assault rifle because, otherwise, we would be lying. When the vote commenced and the nays voted, the man who made the motion got up, and pointed at people close by to him who voted nay and shouted “Liar, Liar, Liar!”.

The man who made this motion was wrong and extremely impolite to call these people liars. Here are some reasons for voting nay without needing to lie:

1. You agree with the man, but disliked his vague amendment. You would like to propose a more clear (or better worded) alternative after the motion is dispensed with. Or, you want to vote against amendments in general, unless the exact changes are clearly presented.
2. You plan to vote against his amendment and against the adoption of the resolution.
3. You agree with the man, but not with the resolution as a whole and want it to contain lies to make it less likely to pass.
4. You do not believe the man, and would like to table the resolution until better proof is made available.
5. You dislike the man (who wouldn’t dislike someone who shouts at people and calls them liars?) and want to vote against anything he proposes.