I urge my readers to respond to my posts with their own thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Is that foreign to you? This isn’t a courtroom, it’s a discussion board. And we’re trying to have a discussion, not resolve a dispute involving damages and equities.
Says you. And saying so is perfectly legitimate as part of that discussion. What isn’t so legitimate is turning every discussion into an analysis of some legalism that can be settled by citing case law and/or precedent.
Really, there are times when I am grateful for your professional explanation of what some esoteric legal concept or statute says. But not every thread is simply ‘settled’ by a definition. This thread, for instance, is much more about peoples’ impressions of what the law may do, and whether or not that is acceptable to the poster, than it is about our failure to understand or accept the manner by which laws are enacted.
And that’s the end of it for you? So long as proper procedure is followed, it is wrong to impute false motives or intent or to decry what might to one person represent injustice?
The Supreme Court found the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II to be legally enacted and constitutional. Does that mean we now have no place in decrying those who enacted and enforced and upheld such laws?
Even if a law is duly passed by a legislature and signed by a governor and found constitutional by a supreme court, it still might be legitimate to accuse those who enacted that law of being bad people with bad motives and intent. Do you really disagree with that?
Hey, me too! What you’ve read here have been my own thoughts, ideas, and opinions.
Not every discussion.
But a discussion about an actual law? Yeah, in discussing an actual law, I say that analysis of legalisms is really what one might call a key element.
This thread started life as a GQ, asking a simple question: how, if at all, does the Texas LAW requiring voters’ photo ID violate the Voting Rights Act, also a LAW.
I don’t blame you for wanting to steer the discussion away from that question, and towards a more friendly clime. But it baffles me how you feel you have any more privileged position than I to decide what this thread is about. I say it’s about the debate that arose from the factual question in the OP – a debate about a law. You say it’s now transmogrified into a more touchy-feely discussion of people’s impressions.
Why am I foreclosed from treating it as the factual debate it is? If you feel it should be considered as something else, go ahead and respond as you see fit. But that’s not enough for you: you need to shut down my version, as well as promote your version.
Perhaps the problem is twofold, Bricker. First, you’re pushing for a partisan scheme in order to gain political advantage. If you lose, oh well, no harm in trying.
People on the other side are fighting for a principle. If they lose, it is an injustice and an injury to the country.
Secondly, most people here think that the concept of justice is not identical to our system of laws. Most people can point to injustices that had the full weight of the system behind them. Systems of moral reasoning (e.g. Kohlberg, Gibbs) generally posit that doing things because one should comport with the law reflects a lower level of reasoning than doing things because one should comport with universal principles.
You on the other hand tend to regard the right thing as being whatever the court decides it is.
That may be why you are struggling to understand others’ points of view here.
Well, your partisan scheme is his principle and vice versa. I think that Bricker has been clear in the principle that he is supporting; that of preventing illegitimate votes tainting a razor close election thus preserving voter confidence.
I’m sure that he would agree that at least some of these laws are being proposed out of an attempt to gain partisan advantage but the fact that they conform to his principle allows him to comfortably support them. I also feel that he would support measures to contain or identify fraud in absentee voting even if these measures would make it more difficult for traditionally Republican voters to vote. Personally, if I were in a Democratic leadership position, I would jump on the voter confidence bandwagon and start proposing laws to limit absentee voting while waiving verified cases of fraud around as my justification.
Cyros, I think you quite effectively argue against your own premise. Principles usually don’t apply only in special cases, such as to in-person voting but not to absentee voting. Partisan advantage typically does.
Which is why a principled stand taken in favor of ensuring the right to vote would be contrary to your suggestion to go after absentee voting.
Also, as you imply, this solution is for a problem that simply does not exist.
This is not partisan advantage vs. high ideals. This is my ideal of a representative democracy vs. your idea of a system of government that somehow is structured to hand you the result you want every time: legitimate as long as you like it, but when you don’t, you are entitled to claim an “injustice,” and reverse the action.
Now, I fully believe in a system of universal principles. But you do not share my universal principles, and I do not share yours. I am not entitled to demand laws which apply my universal principles – I am not even entitled to demand that a list of my principles be displayed on public buildings. Why do you think your universal principles should supersede our neutral, secular lawmaking process?
Which is why I suggest that Bricker would support efforts to curb fraud in absentee voting regardless of the effects on Republican voters.
You’re assuming that my operating principle is ensuring that all who are eligible to vote are able to with a minimum burden. Perhaps I am operating on a principle of tit for tat. I’ll start off by offering the vote with minimum burden but as you begin to argue to burden my side I will find ways to burden your side.
You appear to not know what “universal principles” means, silly. I say this because you allude to the 10 commandments (stating that you are prohibited from placing your principles up on the side of a public building).
In fact, your whole discussion of “your” principles versus “my” principles indicates a fundamental ignorance of the concept.
The 10 commandments are not universal principles. Universal principles are not universal because you think that everyone else should follow them. If that were the case, “Don’t pee in the pool” would be a universal principle because of course nobody should pee in the pool.
Universal principles don’t apply to everyone, they arise from everyone. Each person has the right to be treated with dignity would be a universal principle. I am the Lord thy God is not a universal principle.