It’s Saturday morning, I’m bored, and I know I’m right. What else am I going to do, watch Mythbusters?
Actually, that sounds pretty good, now that I think about it…
Leave it to you to get all meta and make a good observation like this. His MO is really to just chum shit in order to obfuscate. Working from a very partisan agenda, of course.
First, I agree with this for the most part. The “ultra-long voting lines” phenomen didn’t even exist until about 12 years ago and now it seems only to exist in swing states. I live in an urban area in a Blue state and I’ve never had to brave lines to vote to anywhere near this extent. I remember my Mom calling me in 2004 asking if i’d had to wait in line to vote…I was rather puzzled by the question and said " well, there was someone ahead of me when I went to sign in but by the time I got to the machines there was one available."
But to the particular situation under discussion…whatever happened to freakin’ common courtesy?? A close friend of mine was dying of pancreatic cancer in Novemeber 2004, and when he went to vote the the people in line immediately insisted he move to the front of the hours long line ( and they even insisted that his wife move to the front as well, although she wanted to let him vote, drive him home and come back herself to stand in line). Even though I’ve never encountered a voting line, this is a situation I’ve seen about a million times in long restroom lines and it’s really a no-brainer, if I had been in that line I would’ve seen that she got moved to the front.
Yeah, the solution to the problem is simply that we kindly rank order ourselves by relative infirmity, so that only people who can easily endure the six hour wait do so.
No muss, no fuss, no cost. Great solution!
How about everybody votes through absentee ballots. Then nobody has to have an I.D. to vote, there are no lines to wait in and the USPS receives a boost!
Of course, then voter fraud is made that much easier…
My strawman?
Well?
Others have proposed reasonable statements:
Do you see me arguing with that? No. That’s very likely a perfectly achievable goal.
But learn to read, dummy: I didn’t strawman up a proposal that says “No matter what the cost” we need to “make sure that nobody has to wait more than an hour in order to vote in person at the polls.” I did not author the “Write a law that says wait times shall be measured, and if any voter’s wait exceeds the legal limit, that is grounds for impeaching that state’s secretary of state.”
Did I?
I’m inclined to agree, but alas I cannot. Letting someone have frontsies only works when everyone else in line is fine about it. You let 102-year-old lady have frontsies, and then the 95-year-old man even farther back in line wants to be fast-tracked. And then Forty-Year-Old Dude who is already late for work sees all this and flips out. And why wouldn’t he? He just got back from Iraq, and hell, he’s got bad hemorroids too. Doesn’t he deserve some consideration?
Frontsies works when you’re in line at the grocery store and you have 100 items and the girl behind you only has one item and she isn’t cutting in front of anyone except for you.
I am not surprised that you find accountability hilarious. Sure, let’s pretend to care it’s all about numbers, let’s pretend to make an effort… just as long as nobody’s held accountable, because then you can feel safe knowing it’s never actually going to happen.
I suppose you are just pulling together some figures to demonstrate the cost differential, because otherwise you’d be just a typical conservative here on the SDMB… you don’t understand what the cost differential is, and you don’t need to, because the cost that’s important to you is the political cost to Republicans of letting more voters cast their ballots.
Yes, that’s a very reasonable reformulation.
But let’s kindly not pretend that you meant that all along, please. Nowhere in your earlier posts do you disclaim your literal meaning – and most tellingly, nowhere do you take issue with anyone else who also posts unmistakably literal formulations.
And not only that, he’s pretty much admitted that the “problem” of vote fraud is miniscule, and the thing he’s trying to fix is “voter confidence in the system”. Which confidence is actually being eroded not by factual information, but rather by misinformation put out by those who want Voter ID laws! Nice!
And he has said (paraphrased) that if this results in less turnout from Democrat voters leading to more Republican victories - well that’s just tough luck. If it’s legal, they can do it, and anyway both sides are the same.
It’s anti-democratic, it’s pathetic and at it’s core it is disgusting.
You ran wild with a ridiculous assumption and now you’re trying to cover your ass. Glad to see you finally admit that I’m right about the point I’ve been making ever since I first entered this thread. Too bad it took four pages to get here.
Bricker: I think that in fairness to MsWhatsit, you should acknowledge this post. It kinda cuts through a lot of the argument you have been having with her and explains her position in a reasonable way.
This was back on the previous page, btw.
Yes, it does.
But help me out here, John. Please reconcile this:
With this:
I absolutely agree with the first quote, and absolutely disagree with the second.
Problem is, they address the same subject and come from the same person.
So which face of Eve is the real one?
A Bricker daily double!!!
“You didn’t disclaim a painfully stupid literal re-interpretation of your position” and “You failed in your responsibility to decry every other post and poster who I see as aligning with your position. You must shepherd all others or you are not acting in good faith!”
Comedy gold, Jerry!
The only ridiculous assumption I made was reading and quoting your words, it seems, since you’re now backing away from them at nearly lightspeed.
So do me the favor of restating your position now. Let’s forget all that’s been said. Hi, Ms. Whatsit; great to meet you. Nice weather we’re having. Little warm for this time of year, though. Say, crazy about these long voting times, eh? What do you think we ought to do?
I put her words in quote tags. If you believe I changed them in any way, you ought to report me.
“Face of Eve?” Are you for real with this?
I will make this as clear as I possibly can for you: Before implementing a solution, we should analyze the costs involved, as that will undoubtedly be part of choosing an effective solution. But even if all solutions turn out to be equally expensive, or some people would rather not pay the costs involved, “not fixing it” is not acceptable.
It must be fixed; in the process of fixing it, analyzing the cost of various solutions is appropriate. Not fixing it is not appropriate or acceptable.
I imagine that you are probably embarrassed about your posts in this thread right now, but that is no excuse for failing to understand something this simple. You decided to make up a hypothetical situation (“the solution might increase taxes by 50%!”) based on absolutely nothing at all, and then you started responding to other people’s posts as though they were debating your pretend hypothetical situation with you instead of the actual topic of debate. And then you have the temerity to accuse me of not being clear. Give me a break.
Like I said, I’m glad you concede that I’m right. I’m going to go watch Mythbusters now.
What is a reasonable amount of in person voter fraud? How much would it cost to implement voter ID laws?
I think it’s pretty easy. She said this:
Which is not all that different from this:
IOW, without actually doing the math, you both made statements about costs. She’s certain there is a way to “fix this” that isn’t prohibitively expensive just as you are certain that folks won’t be willing to pay for it.
So once again Bricker is a complete bitch and disrupts an entire thread and then pretends that he’s the wide-eyed innocent.
If Bricker had to wait in line for three hours he’d be indignant. But a poor Democrat having to wait? That’s just what they have coming for raising Bricker’s taxes.