# I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 12, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943 "2012-06-12T19:15:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 236
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4701 "2014-05-23T15:21:51Z")
Well, of course Dopers tend liberal, Dopers are fact geeks, lured to the message board by Cecil. A fact geek will see _A Thousand Facts You Didn’t Know and Nobody Else Gives A Shit About_ at the bookstore and can’t leave without buying it. A fact geek will be annoyed to discover that its just the same shit he got when he bought _Cromulent Chunks of Perfectly Useless Information_, like the name of that Welsh town that’s so long. Thousands of fact geeks contemplated suicide, but changed their minds when Google. Fact geeks will read random articles on Wikipedia, for fun. They prefer it to porn. There is no cure. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4702 "2014-05-23T15:23:39Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Ah, glorious disingenuity. Of course there’s no objective test for an opinion, just a consensus, and that can be easily dismissed by saying the whole message board is liberal biased. Well, let’s not be so quick to dismiss the possibility. It’s true that clarity in writing is not as objectively provable as, say, the relative proportions of the different naturally occurring isotopes of boron. But neither is it completely without evidence. Here’s one method that I’d say could work: each of us pick five Dopers who we believe would be fair judges and not known for their overt partisanship. If there’s overlap on our lists, then we ask that Doper to read a selection of the posts I’ve made in this thread, and offer an opinion on whether they are fairly characterized as fuzzy, opaque, cluttered, confusing, and hard to decipher – agreeing in advance to accept the finding. That would seem to dodge the question of liberal bias. And it dodges the question of gaming the system – frankly, if your side came back with **elucidator** and **BobLibDem** as candidates, you would be making an admission by that move. And of course, if I came back with **magellan** or **adaher** , I’d be making a similar admission. But I can come up with five names that are liberal yet not overtly partisan and yet still would (in my fond hope) answer honestly. What about an approach along those lines? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4703 "2014-05-23T15:31:16Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No, his problem is with \*content \*. He habitually, perhaps even unconsciously, misrepresents and filters facts and misuses logic in his attempts to present his advocacy for the Republican Party and his church, to whom his loyalty is absolute and unquestioning, as neutral analysis. When shown his errors, he ignores what he’s being told, and simply repeats his claims or simply denies that he’s done so, no matter how obviously dishonestly and amorally he’s done so. It’s a pernicious way of spreading rather than fighting ignorance, worse because it’s largely simple trolling as well. I suspect that this comes from his years as a defense attorney, in which the goal of argument is not so much to arrive at truth of guilt or innocence, but to use whatever rhetoric, technicalities, an obfuscations are necessary to get his client off. (and rightly so). That is not to say that Bricker is saying things he doesn’t believe, but rather that he sees the Republican party as his client, and it is his job on the board to defend that client. In certain cases the right thing to do is to plead no contest and throw his client at the mercy of the court. But once he has taken on his clients defense, all his resources are targeted towards putting up the best arguments available in his clients defense, and poking whatever holes he can in the prosecution. To admit in mid stream that his client was guilty as charged would open result in a mistrial and stern words from the bar association. I engage Bricker not so much with the goal of convincing him of anything, but rather with curiosity as to how he is going to handle this or that form of attack. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4704 "2014-05-23T15:34:30Z")
How about a competition to see who can come up with a diversion most irrelevant to the theme of the thread? Like, say, just to grab something at random…someone who insists on arguing how cromulent voter id is when the point of the thing is the misuse and abuse of such laws to gain partisan advantage? Say I start a thread on how my local police only give speeding tickets to black folks, and some guy insists on arguing about whether speed limits are valid safety regulations, and whether they inhibit interstate commerce. Stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4705 "2014-05-23T15:35:10Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I engage Bricker not so much with the goal of convincing him of anything, but rather with curiosity as to how he is going to handle this or that form of attack. Except that I, perhaps more than any other poster on these boards with a comparable level of activity, have publicly changed my stance on key issues as the result of argument here. How do you explain that? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4706 "2014-05-23T15:38:59Z")
You lost. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4707 "2014-05-23T15:43:00Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I engage Bricker not so much with the goal of convincing him of anything, but rather with curiosity as to how he is going to handle this or that form of attack. > [@Bricker](#): > > Except that I, perhaps more than any other poster on these boards with a comparable level of activity, have publicly changed my stance on key issues as the result of argument here. > > How do you explain that? > [@elucidator](#): > > You lost. Well, yes – I lost in the sense that my arguments were overcome by better arguments, and I was convinced by those better arguments. But there was no objective measure of my loss – I lost based on my own acknowledgement of losing, not a referee’s determination. In other words: I was _convinced_ by argument. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4708 "2014-05-23T15:44:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I, perhaps more than any other poster on these boards with a comparable level of activity, have publicly changed my stance on key issues as the result of argument here. > > How do you explain that? By your having been \*wrong \*more than any other poster on these boards with a comparable level of activity. :rolleyes: **Buck** , no doubt you’re right about why his regular mode of discourse is dishonest weaseling. The problem is that he’s so immersed himself in it that he doesn’t even seem to realize it anymore - he’s internalized dishonesty thoroughly. I do question the assumption that he’s simply adopted his party and church as clients, as an objective professional would do. His loyalty is absolute, on an emotional depth. A professional counsel would recognize and simply drop losing, faulty, failed arguments instead of doubling and quadrupling down as he always must. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4709 "2014-05-23T15:59:59Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Here in Baja Canada, the local head of the Feds was replaced by a young, aggressive graduate of Liberty University Law School. (Jerry Falwell, Asshole Emeritus). Never mind those trivial gun and drug crimes, get yer asses up to the Rez and root out voter fraud in the American Indian community. > > First result:_bupkiss_. Second result, mutiny. She has moved on. That was a very dark time for the Department of Justice. The politicization of the bureaucracy (particularly law enforcement) is cancerous to a democracy. Alberto Gonzalez and the bush administration did great harm to the credibility of the DoJ. > [@Bricker](#): > > I think I am. Well, I suppose its hard to see from where you’re standing. > [@](#): > > No. I, at least, am talking about illegally cast votes. These include but are not limited to votes cast by a felon whose rights are not restored, votes cast by a non-citizen, votes cast in the wrong jurisdiction, and votes cast by a voter who has already voted. OK so your belief is that they went after in person voting rather than absentee ballots because it was the politically feasible low hanging fruit despite the fact that it is virtually non-existent and a miniscule fraction of absentee ballot fraud? > [@Bricker](#): > > Except that I, perhaps more than any other poster on these boards with a comparable level of activity, have publicly changed my stance on key issues as the result of argument here. > > How do you explain that? I agree that you are capable of being convinced on some issues (which is more than I can say for most of the SDMB (or 99% of the rest of the world) but I think you have a blind spot when it comes to voter ID. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4710 "2014-05-23T16:08:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > OK so your belief is that they went after in person voting rather than absentee ballots because it was the politically feasible low hanging fruit despite the fact that it is virtually non-existent and a miniscule fraction of absentee ballot fraud? Yes – and of course some of them were also motivated by their perception that it would be helpful to their party’s chances. > [@](#): > > I agree that you are capable of being convinced on some issues (which is more than I can say for most of the SDMB (or 99% of the rest of the world) but I think you have a blind spot when it comes to voter ID. Well, if so, then it’s almost by definition that I won’t see the point. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4711 "2014-05-23T17:54:35Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Of course, again I point out that the year is 2014. Many states have had Voter ID laws in place for multiple election cycles. Of course those are not the particular laws that were being pitted in this thread, since this thread was pitting new laws. To repeat, no one in this thread is saying that the idea of requiring voter ID, in isolation, is a bad one. The issue has always been one of implementation, ease of access, and so forth. And because such details vary from state to state, it’s not necessarily particularly meaningful to try to predict the outcome in one state based on the outcome in another state. Furthermore, at least one part of this debate is “resolved: Republicans who proposed these laws are scumbags”. To the extent that their intent was to suppress voter turnout behind a veneer of voter confidence, they are scumbags even if their attempt fails. But to take a step back for a moment, let’s imagine that in 10 years someone does a study and proves fairly definitively that the number of votes “suppressed” by the recent spate of voter ID laws ended up being so miniscule as to be trivial. Does that mean that you were right and we were wrong? Well, partly. There are (at least) two threads of debate here. One is “will these voter ID laws suppress turnout disproportionately” and one is “if they are likely to do so, or intended to do so, then how should we react, how should we judge those who supported them?”. And even if you’re 100% right about the first part, that doesn’t necessarily affect the second part. And to repeat from my last post: > [@me](#): > > But my point is not “oh no, if this law passes then it’s 100% certain that the Republicans will always have control of congress forever and we will never be able to stop it and this is our only chance oh no!”. My point is that, particularly in an era when public opinion is so starkly and evenly divided, any effort to put a finger on the scales of elections is particularly likely to bear fruit and continue to bear fruit, and is thus particularly odious. And efforts of those sorts are NOT just automatically something that voters can correct 4 years down the line. > > Trying to antidemocratically steal elections like this should be viewed as exceptionally low. If a Democrat proposed a law that had a neutral justification that I kind of liked, but was one of a number of laws that, taken in their totality, suggested that that Democrat was really trying to make it easier to produce and sell kiddie porn, there’s no way in heck I would support even a single one of those laws, even if some of them, viewed purely in innocent-as-an-angel isolation, supported ideas or plans that I liked. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4712 "2014-05-23T18:15:14Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > His posts are fuzzy, opaque, cluttered, confusing, and hard to decipher. Disagree > [@](#): > > In over a thousand posts, he has never actually made his viewpoints clearly known to us. Partly disagree. Bricker writes with concise, logical and clear English. His faults as a poster are not an inability to communicate his ideas or to logically respond to other people’s positions. But to briefly address your second position, I have on multiple occasions observed a behavior from Bricker in which he does not go out of his way to make the full context of his position known… for instance, in this very thread, as far as I can tell, he believes: (a) many of the recent laws passed by Republicans that seek to limit early voting hours and purge voting rolls ARE in fact objectionable and he doesn’t support them (b) IF he were presented evidence that a particular implementation of voter ID laws in particular state did strongly disproportionately affect turnout (I think the figure 5% was tossed around), he would oppose that particular implementation (c) some number of the Republicans promulgating voter ID laws are doing so for cynical political reasons, and that is bad So, on the grand scale of things, his overall position isn’t THAT far from the general Liberal view. Still clearly distinct, but given the tone of this thread, you’d think that there was absolutely no common ground. I suspect that at some level Bricker likes being the heel. In fact, it’s hard to imagine him posting on the SDMB for as long as he has if he didn’t enjoy that role. Certainly he doesn’t go out of his way in his posting to emphasize areas in which he agrees with the left, even when he quite honestly or legitimately could. Quite the opposite, I’d say. I actually think Buck Godot’s recent description is an accurate one. In a court of law, when you’re trying to win a case, if someone says 3 things, and 2 of them are legitimate and interesting ones which really make you question your position, and will be tough to respond to and rebut, and one of them is more poorly phrased or poorly thought out or whatever, you should definitely attack the third one and hope everyone else forgot about the first two. Which is DEFINITELY Bricker’s MO. And that’s not something I would describe as “dishonest”, but it’s definitely something that fits into a “I am trying to convince a jury” mode of discourse as opposed to a “I am trying to better understand this issue, find middle ground, question my own positions, and engage in mutually respectful and polite discourse with people I disagree with” mode. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4713 "2014-05-23T18:57:16Z")
So, we should agree with a guy because he is smarter than us, which is proven by the fact that he is more open-minded than us. OK so far. But, of course, “Sez who?” Well, he does, the guy who is smarter and more open-minded than us. Which we should accept because he is smarter and more open-minded than we are. There’s something wrong with this, can’t quite put my finger on it, too complicated for a boor of little brain. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4714 "2014-05-23T19:08:37Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I have no idea where you’re getting that from. The guy clearly has excellent command of the language and of the ability to construct a clear paragraph. . . . I agree he has the ability; he often chooses not to exercise it. He seems to prefer to indulge in clogged and complex constructions that fail to shed light. The whole “close elections” issue came up because he posted a short, inconclusive, and uninformative sentence fragment, rather than clearly stating his point. He’s not trying to communicate ideas; he’s trying to obfuscate them. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4715 "2014-05-23T19:11:26Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4716 "2014-05-23T19:13:20Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > How about a competition to see who can come up with a diversion most irrelevant to the theme of the thread? . . . Technically, a “theme” is an organized arrangement of ideas; this thread doesn’t actually have a theme, only a foundational motif. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4717 "2014-05-23T20:29:27Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Well, let’s not be so quick to dismiss the possibility. It’s true that clarity in writing is not as objectively provable as, say, the relative proportions of the different naturally occurring isotopes of boron. But neither is it completely without evidence. > > Here’s one method that I’d say could work: each of us pick five Dopers who we believe would be fair judges and not known for their overt partisanship. If there’s overlap on our lists, then we ask that Doper to read a selection of the posts I’ve made in this thread, and offer an opinion on whether they are fairly characterized as fuzzy, opaque, cluttered, confusing, and hard to decipher – agreeing in advance to accept the finding. > > That would seem to dodge the question of liberal bias. And it dodges the question of gaming the system – frankly, if your side came back with **elucidator** and **BobLibDem** as candidates, you would be making an admission by that move. And of course, if I came back with **magellan** or **adaher** , I’d be making a similar admission. > > But I can come up with five names that are liberal yet not overtly partisan and yet still would (in my fond hope) answer honestly. > > What about an approach along those lines? Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to just to challenge Trinopus’s opinion. I suggest as alternative inviting one person not known to have a pro-Bricker bias weigh in. I nominate myself, I accept, welcome aboard. Trin: I have to disagree with the specifics of your criticism. I don’t think _clarity_ as such is an issue with Bricker’s posts or his posting style. Pedantics, sure. Willful ignorance, you betcha. A happy willingness to fall back to safe irrelevant ground, absolutely. A cheerful eagerness to disregard what does not fit his preconceptions, right-a-roony. Similarly, I’m not on board with Buck Godot’s comments in post 4703 regarding the stereotype of defense attorneys practicing willful obscurity as routine business. Rather, the legal profession has a jargon and when lawyers talk to other lawyers (and judges, of course), they use that jargon. Heck, I’m trained in statistical analysis, software engineering, military communications and am currently studying electromechanics. There are many conversations I could have with many people in one or more of those fields that would be obscure and incomprehensible to people not similarly versed. That said, it’s entirely possible for someone immersed in a particular field to have his perspective limited by their field. Legislators want to pass a strict voter ID law? Sure, fill out the forms, debate in committee, hammer out the language, add the issue to the majority leader’s legislative schedule (or whatever). Viewed as a strictly technical process, it might be quite satisfying and in that view, completely correct. Rather like engineering the various components to assemble an atomic bomb. Of course, the law (and the A-bomb) aren’t tidy little art projects to be stuck on a fridge door. There are real-world implications involved, and real-world people not privy to the process who are affected. Typical Americans are those people. By repeatedly invoking legislative process and ignoring concerns about real-world effects, Bricker is trying to remove himself to an unassailable castle, where he can stay for all I care. When he ventures out, he’ll get his symbolic curb-stomps. That’s my opinion of Trin’s (and Buck Godot’s) opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4718 "2014-05-23T21:03:40Z")
What if this were my stance? – “I support these Voter ID laws – regardless of the motive behind them, their likelihood to solving the supposed problem, or their accompaniment by other suppression tactics – because, in theory, it is possible to create and implement a voter ID law that has no suppressive effects and solves the problem that I think exists.” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4719 "2014-05-23T21:42:07Z")
Well, if you were cynically trying to get voter and donor support because you appeared to be catering to their xenophobia, I guess… well, you’d still be a creep, but you might be a _successful_ creep. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/4720 "2014-05-23T22:44:12Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > So you got nothin’. You’ve had your chance to support your silly claim and have failed utterly. Now go grow the fuck up, just a little, that’s a good lad. > > So your proposed solution to the low turnout problem is to lower it further. :rolleyes: So, you aren’t admitting that your ‘fact’ that democracy will be damaged because of voter ID is just your opinion? Why don’t you move along, lad. You’re the most dishonest poster here. I guess I understand why you call others liar, because it takes one to know one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=235) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=237)