# 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:** 333
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6641 "2014-10-14T15:39:07Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Um, then why don’t they place the resources behind getting people access to IDs instead of behind partisan outfits whose goals are to a) gin up fear of whitey going back to his old ways and b) heard their cattle into the voting booth? I didn’t realize you were a fucking idiot. My bad. ---
**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:** [October 14, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6642 "2014-10-14T15:45:11Z")
Just out of curiosity, can we establish a spectrum ranging from: “I am an American, endowed with civil rights and it offends me if my fellow Americans, _any_ fellow American, is unjustly deprived of those rights.” - to - “I am an American. FUCK EVERYBODY ELSE! I got mine and if you’re too lazy or stupid to get yours then you should just fall in a ditch and die, you useless piece of shit.” …and then place people on said spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6643 "2014-10-14T17:15:33Z")
It’s irrelevant to voter suppression but this thread has long since transmuted into “ **Wow!! Can you _believe_ how stupid the Brickhead is?!** ” I’ve found an interesting example in another thread. A subtopic was to compare headline and substance in this excerpt: > [@](#): > > **Settlers under Columbus sold 9- and 10-year-old girls into sexual slavery** > > This one he admitted himself in a letter to Doña Juana de la Torre, a friend of the Spanish queen. “There are now many merchants who go seeking for girls,” he wrote. “Nine or ten are now for sale; for women of all ages, there is a good price to be had.” (Bergreen, 312) Obviously, an editing or translation error has rendered headline and the sentence it summarizes inconsistent with each other. IANAL, but I _do know_ logic. (I was an expert circuit designer; and also constructed 5-star puzzles for _Dell Logic_ magazine.) There was only one ay to resolve the ambiguity, IMO; I Googled and discovered I was correct. **Bricker** , OTOH, was unable to do anything but what he does best: parse the English like a robot, the way his 5th-grade debating coach taught him, and post pedantic snark. He is unable to grasp that when faced with inconsistencies, one needs to try intelligent deduction. [Here is the relevant post from that thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17814434&postcount=25) Increasingly, it seems, those of us who’ve been calling **Bricker** a “moron” sarcastically were truer-to-the-mark than we knew. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6644 "2014-10-14T18:42:11Z")
There are a lot of good reasons to criticize **Bricker**. There are also a lot of stupid ones. But **septimus** there seems to have gone out of his way to find the stupidest criticism imaginable. Impressive, given some of the competition. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6645 "2014-10-14T19:37:39Z")
At the risk of hijacking this thread away from the abstract wilds of political theory or even the depths of friend **Bricker’s** moral turpentine, a heartening report from our good friends at _Talking Points Memo_. [http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/richard-posner-dissent-voter-id](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/richard-posner-dissent-voter-id) \*\* 9 Scathing Quotes From Judge Posner’s Dissent Against WI Voter ID\*\* > [@](#): > > It’s only been one year since Reagan-appointed Judge Richard Posner converted to the view that voter identification laws are tantamount to voter suppression. His change of heart has sparked a fiery judicial opinion against a ruling in favor Wisconsin’s voter ID law. > > Posner dissented against the decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals not to hold a full court re-hearing of a three-judge panel’s ruling authorizing implementation of the Badger State’s voter ID law. Posner clearly regrets his previous position on voter ID, writing in a new book that he now pleads “guilty” to writing a majority opinion “now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.”… > [@](#): > > …“As there is no evidence that voter-impersonation fraud is a problem, how can the fact that a legislature says it’s a problem turn it into one? If the Wisconsin legislature says witches are a problem, shall Wisconsin courts be permitted to conduct witch trials?”…" > [@](#): > > …“This implies that the net effect of such requirements is to impede voting by people easily discouraged from voting, most of whom probably lean Democratic.”… > [@](#): > > …“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud, if there is no actual danger of such fraud, and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”… Better late than never, I suppose. Not much better, but better. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6646 "2014-10-15T02:15:11Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I didn’t realize you were a fucking idiot. My bad. You’re an outright party stooge. What makes you more pathetic is you’re too stupid to figure out how to get paid for it. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Just out of curiosity, can we establish a spectrum ranging from: > > “I am an American, endowed with civil rights and it offends me if my fellow Americans, _any_ fellow American, is unjustly deprived of those rights.” > > - to - > > “I am an American. FUCK EVERYBODY ELSE! I got mine and if you’re too lazy or stupid to get yours then you should just fall in a ditch and die, you useless piece of shit.” > …and then place people on said spectrum. I stand up for every individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property. I do not stand up for their “right” to legitimize, authorize, and, by proxy, direct violence on other individuals. There is no such right. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Cattle? Really? :rolleyes: Yes. That’s how Democratic Party hacks view those that simultaneously vote for and get stomped on by the party. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Who is “they”? > And seriously… cattle? I know. It is despicable the way your party treats individuals of low means. First they keep them out of work by means of various protectionist schemes and shit education, then they ask for their vote and bus them to the polls. The days of machine politics are still here. “They” is the Democratic Party and their donors. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6647 "2014-10-15T02:26:59Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Winston Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947) . Churchill starved tens of thousands of civilians intentionally. If Ted Bundy made statements in support of libertarian anarchism, I wouldn’t quote him. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6648 "2014-10-15T02:53:12Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > You’re an outright party stooge. What makes you more pathetic is you’re too stupid to figure out how to get paid for it. I’m not a stooge. I think about my policy positions. You’re the one who believes utter nonsense. Look, you’re pissed because you believe RW myths. I understand. But you’re angry at phantoms. In the real world you end up just being a prick because of your ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6649 "2014-10-15T04:45:48Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There are a lot of good reasons to criticize **Bricker**. There are also a lot of stupid ones. But **septimus** there seems to have gone out of his way to find the stupidest criticism imaginable. > > Impressive, given some of the competition. Wrong. It was an excellent demonstration of insistence on legalisms, about his pedantry about the exact use of language. In the sentence which was inconsistent with its headline _there was strong internal evidence that it had been mistranscribed or mistranslated_. There was a jarring illogical mismatch in the quantitative adjectives. Someone interested in real truth or intuitive truth would have caught the error. A pedant intent on precise legalisms would miss it. I’ll concede that I exaggerated the extent of moronity needed to produce the faulty interpretation. _But it was a perfect metaphor for **Bricker** : All aboutr literalistic pedantry, no substance._ ---
**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:** [October 15, 2014, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6650 "2014-10-15T11:19:28Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I stand up for every individual’s rights to life, liberty, and property. I do not stand up for their “right” to legitimize, authorize, and, by proxy, direct violence on other individuals. There is no such right. Who is so directing? > [@](#): > > I know. It is despicable the way your party treats individuals of low means. First they keep them out of work by means of various protectionist schemes and shit education, then they ask for their vote and bus them to the polls. The days of machine politics are still here. > > “They” is the Democratic Party and their donors. Well, it’s not _my_ party, and Republican policies toward economics (namely, deregulation) and education (namely, cut funding to it while simultaneously interfering with it) are more significant than mere “protectionist schemes”, unless you’d care to expand on that. I’ve no objection to the idea that machine politics still exists. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6651 "2014-10-15T12:22:57Z")
[Interesting finding.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/14/whites-are-more-supportive-of-voter-id-laws-when-shown-photos-of-black-people-voting/) > [@](#): > > Sixty-seven percent of white Americans support voter ID laws, according to a new University of Delaware study of 1,436 U.S. adults. But when the voter ID question was accompanied by a photo of black people using a voting machine, white support for voter ID laws jumped to 73 percent. > > That six-percentage-point difference is modest but statistically significant. The images made no difference to black and hispanic voters’ preferences, although the authors note the sample sizes for those groups were considerably stronger. > > Among white voters, “the resulting increase in support for the laws happens independently of — even after controlling for— political ideology and negative attitudes about African Americans,” researcher David C. Wilson said in a release about the study. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6652 "2014-10-15T14:42:18Z")
So 67 percent of people favor Voter ID laws and have no invidious motives therein. Excellent news, thanks. Five percent of people are racists. That’s a shame, but five percent of people being general assholes is not much of a surprise. Anyway, Voter ID rocks! ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6653 "2014-10-15T15:05:48Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So 67 percent of people favor Voter ID laws and have no invidious motives therein. Excellent news, thanks. Of course, 67% of people don’t support implementing voter ID in a manner so as to provide partisan advantage to one party. Of course you know that, but you’re okay lying to make a point. > [@](#): > > Five percent of people are racists. That’s a shame, but five percent of people being general assholes is not much of a surprise. True. Some of them even manage to chucklefuck their way through law school. > [@](#): > > Anyway, Voter ID rocks! Especially when the GOP does it and it keeps poor people from voting? Anyway, nice to see you back in the thread. Did enough time pass that you think people forgot how utterly you’re getting your nuts stomped in this argument? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6654 "2014-10-15T15:24:00Z")
Not about voter id. Not about the wonderful popularity of voter id. About using voter id as a means for one party to gain undeserved electoral power over the other. Right there in the title of the thread, “suppression”. You don’t seem to be able to grasp that, you keep defending voter id is if that was the crux of the biscuit. But, of course, its not. And no comment to offer on that GAO report? What does that do to your “valid neutral justification” chant? Can a justification be valid and neutral when there is virtually no evidence of the thing it is supposed to “cure”, but solid evidence of damage? How can it be “neutral” in the face of such evidence that it targets one particular party? Is it that you don’t actually need evidence, since yours is a “faith based” analysis? Is that report not evidence of precisely the points we have been making? Did you miss it, would it help if I link to it again? What happens to “valid neutral justification” if it is not valid, nor neutral, nor justifiable? Because that’s kinda what is says, right? That these laws are having a direct political effect on elections, to favor one party over the other. You’re cool with that, does that “rock”? ---
**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:** [October 15, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6655 "2014-10-15T15:25:23Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Of course, 67% of people don’t support implementing voter ID in a manner so as to provide partisan advantage to one party. It’s entirely possible they DO, or at least they’d support implementations to give advantage to the party they favour. Personally, I figure a moral and ethical legislator would resist efforts to victimize the minority even if the majority wished it, and certainly not be egging the majority on. ---
**Author:** ![Trion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6656 "2014-10-15T15:38:24Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Anyway, Voter ID rocks! My dealer specifically told me that I would not get flashbacks to the MTV “Rock the Vote” PSAs from the 90’s. I want my money back. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6657 "2014-10-15T15:47:49Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Of course, 67% of people don’t support implementing voter ID in a manner so as to provide partisan advantage to one party. Surveys don’t lie, dude. People were asked about requiring Voters to provide ID. That’s what Voter ID laws do; that’s what they were asked; this is what they answered. That’s why these laws exist. My advice is move to Raratonga. There are probably no Voter ID laws there. Maybe there are, though. Still, the weather is nice, so you’ll have that going for you. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6658 "2014-10-15T15:48:50Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Not about voter id. Not about the wonderful popularity of voter id. About using voter id as a means for one party to gain undeserved electoral power over the other. Right there in the title of the thread, “suppression”. You don’t seem to be able to grasp that, you keep defending voter id is if that was the crux of the biscuit. But, of course, its not. > > And no comment to offer on that GAO report? What does that do to your “valid neutral justification” chant? Can a justification be valid and neutral when there is virtually no evidence of the thing it is supposed to “cure”, but solid evidence of damage? How can it be “neutral” in the face of such evidence that it targets one particular party? > > Is it that you don’t actually need evidence, since yours is a “faith based” analysis? Is that report not evidence of precisely the points we have been making? Did you miss it, would it help if I link to it again? > > What happens to “valid neutral justification” if it is not valid, nor neutral, nor justifiable? > > Because that’s kinda what is says, right? That these laws are having a direct political effect on elections, to favor one party over the other. You’re cool with that, does that “rock”? Crawford v. Marion County. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6659 "2014-10-15T16:02:20Z")
Plessy v. Ferguson. ---
**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:** [October 15, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/6660 "2014-10-15T16:03:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Surveys don’t lie, dude. People were asked about requiring Voters to provide ID. That’s what Voter ID laws do; that’s what they were asked; this is what they answered. > > That’s why these laws exist. To be fair, we should make a distinction between having a minimal requirement, and then increasing that requirement for no good reason. We’ve been a tad remiss in stating this distinction, but I think it’s been consistently implied. You’re pretending the distinction doesn’t exist and are crowing about it. For shame. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=332) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=334)