I believe that, to the contrary, Lobohan would be first in line with steel-toed boots.
I smell opportunity! A lottery! Ten dollars a chance, random drawing, winner gets one good solid kick. Gives one solid kick, gotta word things carefully around the Brickster. Ka-ching! Sure, you’ll be limping, but only as far as the limo…
My idea. Ten percent seems fair.
If only we had some sort of representative body, perhaps selected at regular intervals by the populace, that was charged with determining how to balance the two competing policy objectives of (1) cost-efficient, fairly conducted elections, and (2) minimizing the compliance burden posed to potential voters!
Dare to dream! I guess we’ll just have to settle for Euphonious Polemic’s pronouncements on what’s “morally right.”
You do. With your brain.
Try as I might, I can’t seem to find anywhere where I’ve set myself up as the authority on what is morally right. I wonder if you can point it out to us.
You see, when I say that it is incorrect to set your moral core on what is technically legal, it is interesting to note that this does not mean that I therefore think that I am the only one qualified to decide what is moral.
Can you understand your error here?
The first and third of your provisions are not quite as convincing as you seem to think. Any requirement is going to burden some potential voters. It also happens to be true that you would more voters by installing a polling place on every block than if you install one polling place for every twenty blocks. So if the government does not put a polling place on every block, have they infringed the right to vote? And if not, what is the maximum number of blocks? And who, if not the legislature, should decide that maximum number?
Again, it is not the case that there is no voter fraud or attempted voter fraud. There is very very little, but it is not non-existent. So to whom does the task of determining when the danger of electoral mischief merits a response? The elected legislature or the unelected courts?
As to your second, if it can be shown that the passage of the law was done with the intention deliberately to exclude certain classes of voters, this would be problematic. (Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977).)
The criterion is simple: If you disenfranchise more legitimate voters than the number of fraudulent votes you stop, the system is bad. What’s so complicated about that?
Sure, it is true that some things that are legal (in the full-blown sense, more than just “technically legal”) are bad things to do. Making a racist website for instance.
These types of scenarios occur because we value individual citizen autonomy over obnoxious (but not especially harmful) behavior. We allow racist speech because (1) we value each citizen determining his own value system and (2) we believe that mere speech does not cause serious, lasting harm. [Point (2) is not everywhere accepted, and it can be fairly debated, but in US law, we generally accept this premise.]
We are not here talking about an individual’s own formulation and execution of his value system. We are instead talking about social compromises achieved through the political system (balancing our desire for cheap, fair elections on the one hand versus light compliance burdens on the other). In this very different circumstance, I am not sure that the distinction between legal/constitutional and moral has much going for it.
As a non-American, this whole subject is both amusing and depressing (ampressing?). I enjoy following American politics, but I don’t always get the whole story - my take on voter ID laws is thus:
-The number of instances of voter fraud which would have been stopped by having ID laws is tiny.
-The most enthusiastic proponents for voter ID laws are Republicans.
-The people most likely to be affected by voter ID laws are Democrat blocs.
The idea that Americans might have to jump through more hoops to be able to vote than to buy a gun seems illogical to me, as they’re both rights enshrined in your constitution.
For a long time I have thought that “bemusing” should mean “amusing and confusing/saddenning”, and there still should be a word that does mean that.
I continue to be astounded by the fact that you’re part of the SAB on this board.
La la la la la
Let’s all sing a song about
VOTER CONFIDENCE, we shout
ID is critical; make no mistake
'Cuz no one’s ever made one fake!
La la la la la
Ahem.
Ga. voter says another person voted in his place
“County elections director Nancy Boren says whoever voted in Tate’s name showed a driver’s license that matched his voter registration. Tate’s family says he couldn’t have voted previously because he was in the hospital the day the ballot was cast.”
Just one more bit of evidence that requiring ID at the polls does nothing to stop someone from voting illegally if they’re determined to do so, but only serves to disenfranchise legitimate voters and strip away their rights.
So did Jim Crow laws.
So the minority opinion’s always wrong, is it? If 51% of people think abortion’s OK, will you stop opposing it?
I think in political discussions it’s worthwhile to skip the accusations of appeals to popularity. However, despite being an ardent supporter of direct democracy, I also believe in an entrenched constitution: that tampering with constitutionally protected rights should require more effort on the part of the electorate than passing a simple law. In this case, it should involve debate and education as to the effects of the law.
In Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning, one must recognise that legality does not entail morality and vice versa to reach the higher stages.
A state ID costs seven bucks. If you don’t have what it takes to make, beg or borrow seven bucks, your opinion shouldn’t be steering an election, plain and simple.
The victim mentality is getting pretty old.
I am getting sick of Bricker’s “B-b-b-but Rhode Island” response so I did a little search into the single Blue State out of eight passed Vote ID laws in 2011. I found this compelling:
So to recap:
[ul]
[li]Rhode Island is an anomaly. It is disingenuous to scream and point to one state out of many more and scream “both sides do it.”[/li][li]The law was brought about by the same unproven accusations as it was in every other non-Blue State. Bad legislation can come from both sides of the aisle, but again, it is disingenuous to scream “both sides do it.”[/li][li]The law in Rhode Island came about from people scared of a minority group wielding more electoral power. It is just as reprehensible when Black Liberals want to disenfranchise Hispanic voters as it is when white conservatives want to disenfranchise other voting groups. Many decried when black liberals voted against gay marriage in California. It’s still wrong no matter who does it. But again, it’s disingenuous to scream that “both sides do it.”[/li][li]The Rhode Island law was not jammed through to cause chaos in the current election cycle. It has until 2014 to be implemented. This is a huge distinction from the laws in Pennsylvania and other states where court challenges and appeals from the state kept things in limbo right up to the cusp of the vote.[/li][/ul]
So please, enough false equivalencies, Bricker. Rhode Island is not evidence that Voter ID laws do not discriminate. Rhode Island is evidence that sometimes the discrimination comes from unexpected sources, but it’s still discrimination and it happens considerably less from them than the usual suspects.
We should bring back the poll tax then… That worked so well.
This seems almost dangerously false. People get confused about democracy, thinking that it works on an assumption that the side with more votes isn’t just entitled to enact their policies, but even more, are necessarily right. Disallowing accusations of appeal to popularity would only exacerbate this confusion.
(I’m actually not generally a fan of calling people on fallacies, but my point here is that I don’t think there’s something special about Popularity such that in a democracy it should get a pass. Quite the opposite.)
Then take the winos and crackheads to the DMV of your own accord and pay for their ID’s and you’ll be doing something more substantive to be a defender of the downtrodden’s voting rights.
You can proselytize the wonderfulness of your chosen candidate the whole way. A “win-win”.
I actually think that anyone who doesn’t meet my standards should not be allowed to vote, ID or not. In fact, being unable to participate in our democracy is only the beginning: We should make steps to incarcerate them. Did I say incarcerate? I meant execute. :rolleyes: