What about those who are 100% supported by someone else? You dismiss them as if they don’t matter.
The term “housewife” may be considered sexist these days but they do still exist, as do househusbands, for that matter.
Those areas aren’t productive. Their population density is too low.
And comparing ACORN, which worked to get out the vote among the poor with attempts to make the poor have to go through additional hurdles in order to vote is seriously douchebaggy.
You sir, are serious douchebag.
No, because the OP’s argument seeks to persuade us that the practice us bad. If the OP believed this, we should see condemnation when anyone does it.
Since we don’t, we can infer that the OP is actually arguing that it’s bad only when the other guys do it.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14233916&postcount=124
READ IT. NOW. The fact that you can’t figure out why it’s okay to get people to vote but not okay to stop people from voting, motivation put aside, leaves me wondering how you’re smart enough to use a computer.
And yet they still exist, and they are still disenfranchised for no reason by these laws. And what about students, who don’t have or need ID?
And you didn’t answer my question.
Sir.
Yes, if democrats were attempting to cut voting stations in rural areas (forcing people to drive, say, 2 hours to the nearest city to vote), then we would be pissed just as much. But you know what?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14233916&postcount=124
Stop acting like this hasn’t been explained to you.
And even if the two were comparable, all you’re doing is pointing out that we’re hypocrites, and that we should therefore be ignored. That is, for all intents and purposes, the very definition of Tu Quoques.
Didn’t I? I did mention how they aren’t comparable, right? Enfranchising people is morally better than disenfranchising people, right?
I explained that urban settings have the population density, right?
I’m not seeing where I didn’t answer it. Is explaining why a question is misleading and poorly framed not an answer?
I guess the real question is have you stopped killing homeless people?
Not really. The ID laws, felon disenfranchisement, etc. being pitted are in my view good ways to stop people from voting who shouldn’t vote. There’s no perfectly just way to do it, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. It is also amusing to me how readily Democrats concede that their chances of winning vitally depend on this dingaling demographic. Aren’t they the ones always accusing Republicans of preying on the ignorant?
I am sure that somewhere in this vast country there is a person who is a legal, registered voter, well-informed on all the issues of the day and entirely competent to cast a ballot, who will be stopped from voting solely because of the ID laws. But I can also find a 14-year-old who is far better informed than the average voter. That doesn’t mean we should lower the voting age to 14.
The problem with that is that the two situation are not equivalent, as others have already pointed out.
Why shouldn’t felons who served their time be allowed to vote? Do you think a lifetime punishment is fair? Do you think that political decisions don’t impact them?
Voter fraud is practically nonexistent. It is a draconian solution without a problem.
Perhaps we should have a check to see if UFO aliens are voting. We should thoroughly check for them. There may none but we should install measures to make sure it is not happening. We should submit all voters to blood tests.
Or would that be a waste of time and money that would make voting more difficult for qualified voters. So is this ID law. Voter fraud is not a problem at all.
Because issues of voting and enfranchisement cut to the very heart of democracy, I think they should be viewed through an entirely different lens than just about anything else. If I propose some measure that statistically is likely to reduce voter turnout in a certain group of people by 5% or so, then a test which simply looks at the impact on any single individual, not on the group as a whole, is missing the forest for the trees.
First of all, who cares? That’s not the issue under discussion. You’re redirecting, and dodging the question of whether you personally approve (morally or ethically, not legally) of the actions actually being discussed in the thread.
However, you kind of vaguely touch on a good point. To the extent that ACORN received public funding, I believe it should conducted its activities in a fashion that was as blind to party lines as possible. If you could convince me that ACORN executives were making decisions as to how to allocate their efforts and resources in a fashion that was 80/20 partisan/not, and was doing so with public funds, then I would find that odious and inappropriate. But the analogy really breaks down for a number of reasons:
(1) actions of elected officials are different than actions of organizations, even organizations that receive public funds
(2) actions to encourage voting are different from actions to discourage voting
(3) more subtly, and I admit we’re getting into very hazy and subjective territory here, there is just no plausibility to the “oh, I’m so alarmed about potential identity-based voter fraud” story at all. On the other hand, it strikes me as quite plausible that “I think more people, particularly in traditionally disadvantaged communities, should register and vote” is a sentiment that someone could honestly have entirely independent of partisanship. Which of course means that someone could then plausibly PRETEND to hold that sentiment because it makes for a good cover story, yada yada yada. But, fundamentally, these voter fraud laws (and particularly things like restricting DMV hours in certain districts) fail the sniff test, ACORN doesn’t.
The point I’m trying to make is that if I were dictator of elections, and people came to me and said “here’s a way I’d like to change things” there would be times when I was like “you’re just trying to gain naked political advantage couched in something that vaguely seems like a good idea, gtfo” and there would be other times when I was like “well, that certainly sounds like a good and solid and fair and non-partisan idea. But running some statistical analyses DOES show me that it might have a greater impact on voter turnout for one party than the other. Huh”. I honestly don’t know where the lines should be drawn, it’s a complicated topic, but these fraud laws would very clearly be way way over the line.
In any case, please answer the key question: do you personally approve (morally or ethically, not legally) of the actions actually being discussed in the thread?
I have no idea what your point is at all. Clearly the recent national elections (particularly 2000 and 2004) have been nail-bitingly close. Each party depends on razor thing margins. How is it in any way a zinger to point out that Democrats would be very sad if their voter ranks decreased by even a very small number of percentage points?
So you think government-imposed pro-partisan laws and activity by private groups can be compared in this way? That if the private group ACORN follows a partisan direction, a Republican-controlled government office should be allowed to do so as well?
Wow.
I’ve long known that you were a two-faced hypocrite, happy to invoke morality if it catered to a particular prejudice but just as happy to conflate legality with morality when that suited your prejudice, but you’ve really [del]dipped your dinkie in shit[/del] put your foot in your mouth this time.
Wow.
Felons, including ones convicted of nonviolent crimes, face a lifetime ban on firarms ownership. Do you think this lifetime punishment is fair?
For the record, I use a firearm far more frequently than I vote.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/09/whistleblower-fired-after-revealing-wisconsin-voter-suppression/ This article explains clearly that the Repubs intent is to suppress votes, not make it fairer and cleaner. They fired an employee who wanted to tell people a voter ID was available for free.
ACORN was given the job of registering as many voters as possible. That is what they were paid for. Would they have signed up a lot of voters setting up a booth on Wall Street? Would they sign them up in a backwoods community of 500 ? They just went where the most people who were not registered may live and work. They did not ,could not, were prohibited from, asking party affiliation.
One thing everyone should remember about Bricker:
[
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12041602&postcount=246)He isn’t what anyone would call a good person. He’s a vile, dishonest, wretched piece of filth that cares about no one but the people in his life. And to the extent that he can pretend a jovial attitude, it’s a smoke screen. He has his and everyone else can go literally die, because everyone who makes less money than Bricker deserves it.
He calls himself a Christian and says the above. Christ would overturn his table.
Like this:
（╯°□°）╯ ︵ ɹǝʞɔıɹq
If I buy you some ammo will you sit out the next election? 
:rolleyes:
Based on the theory that a felon is more likely to commit a crime, and probably even more likely to do so if armed (assuming non-white collar crime (maybe we should ban computers for those people?)), I don’t have a large problem with banning gun ownership.
Now - what public good is maintained by preventing felons from voting? They need (and pay taxes for) all the same basic services as people with no convictions (and also those with misdemeanors). Although the US is locking them up at a fantastic rate, it seems unlikely that they would form bloc large enough to actually do things like defund prisons (or whatever the most likely pro-felon platform would be). Further, the potential loss of voting privileges seems unlikely to serve as much of a deterrent to commiting crime.
This is what I had been waiting for, that moment of naked candor. Does it trouble you, that the law is bent to partisan ends, that election law is warped to favor one party over another? Perhaps it does, and you just haven’t gotten around to mentioning it.
Does it?
Liberal hypocrisy! Everybody come see the liberal hypocrisy!
I have actually met and talked with people in ACORN, when I worked for a non-profit that gave them money. The answer is “yes”, they would. You wouldn’t believe these people, Bricker. So sincere, they make my teeth hurt, so earnest, they make me want to drink. They’ve got spunk! I hate spunk.
Of course, they believe that if more Americans vote, if Americans can be freed from the grip of the Apathy Party, the Forces of Darkness would lose. So there is an element of partisan cunning to all of this. A teensy bit.
But hey! I’m on board with the Bricker Plan! A massive, nation wide effort to register the non-registered, to empower the disenfranchised! All of them, rural, urban, gated communities! Let 'er rip! Of course, for the sake of efficiency, we will most likely concentrate a lot on the urban poor, because thats where the demographics are.
But you sold me! Let’s do it, the Bricker Plan! Can’t imagine why anyone would object, can you?