Being that Brian Kemp has been sucking strenuously on the Orange Overlord’s pucker Human Centipede-style throughout his campaign, I don’t think you’ll see much outrage from the likes of Shodan over a little thing like engineered mass voter disenfranchisement.
Means are a distraction. Like Kemp, focus on ends.
I see what you did there?
What really happened is
[ul][li]Some leftwing fruitcake filed a lawsuit because Georgia has a law he doesn’t like[/li][li]Said fruitcake wrote an opinion piece on a far-left website[/li][li]You fell for it, hook, line, and sinker, because it’s what the SDMB does[/li][li]You started a hysterical thread claiming the end of democracy in Georgia[/li][li]Since then, you have been thrashing around frantically trying to claim that you didn’t really mean it was illegal, just that he should go to jail for not breaking the law, except not really, because he is like Pol Pot, and besides the Left is the morally correct side, because they want to put people in jail for not doing things that are illegal, which is what the Right wants to do, which is wrong. Not that you are saying it’s wrong - just that it isn’t illegal, and they deserve it. And[/li][li]I have derived considerable amusement from your efforts [/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not a proponent of “2nd Amendment solutions” to political malpractice, but since I’m a Georgia voter, and have nothing better to do for the next few minutes, I’ll bite.
NO, it is not reasonable for Georgians to use violence to secure their rights. They are not, if they’re eligible to vote, being “denied access” to those rights. While the purge was a sneaky and rotten exercise, and while the available remedies required knowledge on the part of previously registered voters that they’d been purged, legal remedies did and do in fact exist in Georgia and information on voter registration is and has been freely available and maintained (I check my registration status before every election, which can be done on line, by telephone or personally at a registrar’s office). There are no armed government representatives turning people away from the polls, and there has been no permanent disenfranchisement of otherwise eligible voters.
Non violent protest and legal political actions (collective lobbying efforts, lawsuits, etc.) are certainly called for. Violence would be stupid, counterproductive and most importantly fucking immoral.
Let’s please leave reactionary bullshit to reactionaries, okay?
ETA: The next time regards Shodan accurately summarizes a left of center position or argument will be the first time.
I’m not a proponent of 2nd Amendment solutions either, but plenty of people on the right are and I would be interested to know when it would be appropriate if not in Georgia.
It’s no accident that the purged voters are very often poor and black. They simply do not have access to the information and resources to rectify this problem before election day. Again, that is no accident. Georgia is not a democracy, but let’s not kid ourselves, it never has been one.
If 2nd Amendment solutions is not appropriate in Georgia, a state that was built by enslaved peoples and who has established political systems specifically designed to prevent the descendants of those enslaved people from having access to political power, then I guess we can agree that they’re not appropriate anywhere in the US and I guess the right wingers here are forced to admit that fact.
that you either didn’t read the article linked to in the OP, or are willfully misrepresenting it?
What really happened is that a guy who’s currently running for Governor has removed many, many registered voters from the voting rolls. And “some leftwing fruitcake” is calling shenanigans and suing to open the records behind the purge.
Well, obviously, assuming it’s possible to do that. By which I mean, if the process to purge the rolls is something he has to trigger rather than being automatic.
Look, if politicians aren’t doing everything they legally can to get elected so the can enact their policies as their voters demand, they are not doing their jobs. It is no use whatsoever to hold what you consider to be the moral high ground if doing so means you don’t get elected, and more harm (as you see it) is done.
That’s why we need laws, not vague moral guidelines, so it’s a level playing field for all sides. If the left choose the handicap themselves, that’s up to them, but it will only harm their cause. And, ultimately, harm everyone because, no matter what your beliefs, an effective opposition is essential for democracy. And the Democrats have been failing to provide that since (at least) Obama’s second term.
Fair enough. (Although I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a right winger to disavow any of the magical powers of gun ownership.)
No, I know. I just think it is important that we call them on their bullshit.
I mean, I’m not a Second Amendment supporter, but it seems to me that violence as a means to a political end is acceptable only when peaceful means cannot reasonably be expected to work at all, and that peaceful means remain a possible solution in Georgia, as well as pretty much anywhere in the United States.
What part of this do you suggest is the deception? It’s kind of inaccurate to say “you got fooled” when you can’t describe which part is the ruse.
**Shodan **is being a lying shithead? Must be a day ending in Y.
Politicians write the fucking laws, you fucking ignoramus.
They LITERALLY decide what is and what isn’t legal. Doing everything they can “legally” includes changing the law to make whatever shitty they want to do “legal”.
Republicans wrote the law that triggered this purge, with the specific intent of purging Democrats from the voting rolls. Defending it as “legal” kind of skirts past the issue that a bunch of democracy hating scumbags made it legal to begin with.
The point isn’t, and has never been, that this purge was technically illegal, it’s that purging your political opponents from the voting rolls is a vile abuse of the democratic process.
In a just world, politicians who use their power to subvert the democratic process in an attempt to maintain power wouldn’t go to jail. They’d be convicted of treason and publicly hanged. There is no surer road to tyranny than letting politicians use their positions to alter the outcome of elections.
What are these peaceful means in Georgia? You have Kemp using his current position to suppress black votes and run out the clock until it’s too late so that he can win the election. After which he will then use his newly elected position to further block votes. Meanwhile, poor blacks in Georgia are being told just be patient, give us another couple of hundred years, we’ll get around to making this right.
You have Bricker, the supposed good conservative here on the Dope being dismissive of voter suppression and the undermining of democracy, mostly because he thinks it’s funny to do so to people he doesn’t really see as fully human and he’s giving just enough of an intellectual fig leaf to the dumber racists that make up the bulk the conservatives here so that they can just chortle along.
Like I said, I think the whole idea that the 2nd Amendment was intended to allow for armed citizens to take on authoritarian government problematic. But if ever there was a case for it, it is in Georgia. For centuries, poor blacks have been oppressed and their access to the political process stymied. The conservatives laugh as they do it and the white moderates go tsk-tsk.
As MLK wrote:
So hold on blacks in Georgia, we can all agree that the 18-20th centuries weren’t for you and it’s looking like the 21st isn’t going to be too great for you either, but hey, let’s see what the 22nd century is like, that might the one where we treat you like people.
You are fucking crazy. You’ve gone from locking people up fro doing what they’re elected to do to fucking killing them. You are the danger here, not anyone else. You’re either a psychopath or an anarchist, and either way the further you are kept from political discourse the better.
You have no conception of justice, fairness, society, democracy, politics, or anything else involving the compromises humans must make to coexist in large groups.
Hilarious! This:
… from the guy who had the following to say about a convicted murderer (Michael Dunn) who shot at a car full of kids driving away:
Give us another one! Great stuff.
Ouch.
Hypothetically, let’s say 30 years have passed from today. Georgia is still a de facto one party state, in spite of more of its citizens supporting the other party. All legal remedies and peaceful protests have failed. Is armed resistance ok in that scenario?
Sorry, but the death penalty for treason is LEGAL, it’s right there in the law. Why are you saying the law is crazy and only psychopaths or anarchists would follow it? I’m suggesting doing something legal to get the outcome I want, exactly what you said to do.
Fairness
Compromise
Coexist
Interesting words from someone defending the stripping of voting rights from a half million American citizens.
What would armed resistance be accomplishing in that scenario? Forcing people to vote Democrat?