When you *can *find “the Democrats doing the same thing”, do please let us know, will you? That’s a good lad, now run along.
But it’s not the same thing. It’s not remotely the same thing.
It’s SOMETHING, I agree. It’s an issue worth discussing. It’s a troubling and nontrivial situation in which it may in fact be the case that the Democrats acted wrong. I don’t know TOO much about it, but the stuff I do know makes me, as a generally liberal supporter of democrats, feel troubled. But at the same time, much of what I know about it is the way it is framed by you, so of course is not necessarily totally objective.
If you want to start a thread entitled “here’s what the dems did in MA, discuss it”, I’ll participate in that thread. If you want to start a GD thread entitled “voter IDs… is it comparable to what the dems did in MA?” I’ll participate in that thread. If you want to start a thread entitled “Elucidator is a pompous jerk, and here’s evidence for it”, you might even be able to convincingly somehow bring that up as a data point. But it just. Is. Not. Relevant. To. This. Current. Issue.
When you die and (assuming your beliefs are true) go up to heaven and meet God, and you and he are discussing what you did right and wrong in this life, and the issue of your position on voter ID laws comes up, there is no possible way that the discussion between you and God will EVER come around to what Democrats did or did not do in MA.
OK. Then let’s first direct your attention to a somewhat well-known, and reasonably regarded as politically neutral, source: Politifact.
There are plenty of other resources you can read on the issue, but since you feel reluctant to stake out a position based only on my recitation of facts, perhaps this will help.
Now moving on to the problem with this antiseptic view that you urge above, to consider each case wholly apart from others… here’s the difficulty I have with that approach: we are not simply discussing the merits of the Voter ID issue, as both you and elucidator have been emphasizing. Your point is that it’s unconscionable to use the power of the legislature for partisan political gain. Implicit in that argument is the claim that you don’t object to this simply because it’s Republicans getting an advantage over Democrats – you object because the action is fundamentally, ethically, morally flawed. And again implicit is the idea that you’d object no matter which party benefited.
I’m entitled to rebut that implicit claim.
I say that your real objection here is that Democrats are losing an advantage. I say that if the Democrats had the chance to come up with something similar, your reaction would be muted or non-existent.
And to support that claim, I show a time when Democrats did such a thing, and did so to tip control of the US Senate their way. And, as should be obvious from the reactions here, nobody is remotely as furious about that event. Not one person has said that the Massachusetts Democrats were worthless motherfucking liars with the civic virtue of a sewer-rat’s tapeworm. And let’s be honest about it – it’s because, when the Democrats do it, it just doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to you guys.
Yes. And if a Republican operative wanted to host a registration effort in The Hamptons, that would probably benefit Republicans … and they are welcome to it.
On the other hand, if the Democrats were demanding that only people who took the bus to the polls were elligibel to vote, you might approach an analogy.
I don’t think the 2 day limit is right, but what I’m saying is that once the law is passed, the motive is moot. Complaining about it doesn’t address the issue. If there are people that don’t have ID and therefore can’t vote, I say use the same mechanisms in now in place for both registering voters and getting them to the polls to ensure people have the ID they need.
Bull. Shit. you lying sack of pus. That is exactly and exclusively what we’re discussing here. And only one argument against it is using the power of the legislature for partisan political gain, which is such a vague fucking concept in the first place that we could argue all fucking year about zillions of examples from both major parties in every statehouse across the country and never finish finding examples to trot out.
But you fucking damn well know that is not what the crux of the issue here is. Fucking. Damn. Well. Know. It.
It’s voter suppression, which is vile and filthy and evil in a democratic republic like we have.
Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) on Wednesday criticized his successor, Gov. Rick Scott (R), and other Republicans for using “shameless” tactics that suppress voting rights, including requiring photo IDs, preventing felons from voting and purging voter rolls.
“The concern really is on sort of a closing the door on democracy. … For example, they’ve already changed the policy as it relates to former, non-violent felons. We had established a policy where they would have their rights automatically restored, give them the opportunity to vote once they had served their time and paid their debt to society. … That has now been changed under the new administration. … In addition, they’ve also said that early voting — which is a great tradition is Florida — has been reduced from a 14-day period before the elections to eight days before, making it again more difficult for legal citizens to have their right to vote be heard. … Any time that you put more impediments into a citizen’s right — a legal citizen’s right to vote and make that more difficult, you impede the natural right of democracy and a citizen’s right to have their voice heard in important elections.”
“It’s just plain wrong,” Get that, shameless asshole?
It’s just plain wrong.
Stop justifying and deflecting and finger pointing.
It’s just plain wrong.
And you should be ashamed of yourself for even defending it, let alone supporting it. Contrary to what another poster opined would happen upon your death, my bet is you’ll end up burning in hell for how you advocate treating people.
Are you of the opinion that the laws in Massachusetts do not represent the will of the people who live there? If not, whose will do those laws represent?
They do so better now than they did before the legislature fixed an antiquated law, yes. A Senate vacancy is now filled via democracy rather than cronyism. Is that not clear to you?
As to the second question, if you really are not aware of how easily and often the political process can be hijacked by special interests of all kinds, then there really is no hope for you.
First of all, a few general comments:
(1) Even if your entire line of argument is logically sound (and I don’t believe it is), it also is kind of pointless. That is, if we establish a general principle of “any time anyone expresses any kind of opinion, positive or negative, about any political figure or issue, we will not accept that opinion until that person demonstrates that their opinion is entirely objective and in no way biased, via cites of similar claims they have made in the past”, well, that’s going to make it pretty damn hard for anyone to ever say anything about anything
(2) Along those lines, I think we all realize that it’s sadly somewhat rare for SDMB threads to actually really satisfyingly result in well-meaning people with differing opinions sharing different viewpoints on the world in the respectful marketplace of ideas, or what have you. But it does happen on occasion. But ask yourself how likely a thread is to actually end up achieving that ideal if the thread changes from being “let’s discuss topic X” to “let’s discuss whether the liberals who are discussing topic X are hypocrites”.
Nonsense. If I say “here’s my opinion about X”, I’m saying “here’s my opinion about X”, not “here’s my opinion about X, and by the way, I’m a paragon of objectivity”. If I make a claim about X and present some arguments in its favor, and then a similar thing happens with the parties reversed and I present arguments in precisely the opposite direction, well, that’s good evidence that I’m a hypocrite, but it doesn’t prove that BOTH of the arguments I made are automatically invalid and wrong. If you really want to address someone’s motivations in making an argument, I suppose you are free to do so, but doing so does not in itself have any bearing on the validity of the argument itself.
Absolutely crucial point, and one which, if I were the sort of pompous person who liked making pronouncements and naming them after myself, I might call “MaxTheVool’s First Law Of Posting Motivational Irrelevance”: you can’t judge people based on WHETHER they choose to post on the SDMB. It’s one thing to say “X happened, and you said it was terrible, then anti-X happened, and you said it was just fine”. As should already be clear, I’m not a fan of that style of argument, but I agree that (at least in a platonically perfect example of that), you could in fact use those posts to make a claim that someone had a double standard. But that’s very different from “X happened, and you chose to go to the SDMB and post about it, and then anti-X happened, and you did NOT choose to go to the SDMB and post about it”. None of us signed contracts saying that we would express our opinion about every topic that ever comes up. There are plenty of reasons to NOT post about something, ranging from “I was busy doing other stuff” to “I never even heard about that event on the news in the first place” to “I think my ‘side’ acted poorly in that event, but don’t really have anything to say about it”. Let’s face it, we post here for fun, and it’s more fun to say “that guy from the other party did something evil, ha ha ha” than it is to say “that guy from my party did something evil, and I renounce it”. Even if some people might come close to being perfectly objective when it comes to the judgment they pass on situations, NO ONE is perfectly objective when it comes to whether or not they actually participate in discussions of various topics.
And one final comment: for me, at least, what I find disturbing about the voter ID thing is not just a simple “hey, someone in a legislature did something to gain political advantage”, it’s “hey, someone in a legislature did something that seems remarkably close to poll taxes and disenfranchisement” for political advantage, and those things are odious and unAmerican. Even if your analysis of the MA situation is 100% correct, it’s missing that factor. Is it reasonable and not unAmerican for replacement Senators to be appointed by the governor? I guess. Is it reasonable and not unAmerican for replacement Senators to be appointed by special election? I guess. Is it weaselly and ethically questionable for the party in power to try to switch back and forth between those two at the last minute? Yes. But in neither case is something anywhere near as inherently evil as suppressing voter turnout happening.
I’ve asked this a couple of times now, and here it is again. Part of the concern about having voter ID laws is that it would disproportionately affect one side. The reasoning is that minorities are disproportionately poor, and they would have the hardest time doing what’s needed to get the ID. There is also the assumption that minorities, or specifically, poor minorities, tend to vote Democrat—which I think is true.
But, as comes up every time the phrase “welfare queen” comes up, the fact is that there are more poor White people in America than poor Black people. And poor white people probably vote more Rep than Dem. So, actually, it may be a net gain for Dems if some portion of poor people found it too burdensome to vote.
Also, as I mentioned, poor Blacks tend to be concentrated in cities, and poor Whites in more rural areas. Upthread, people were pointing out how some poor minority might live over a hundred miles or such from a DMV office, making it quite difficult to do what is needed to get the ID. But, since poor Blacks tend to be concentrated in cities, it is markedly easier for them to jump through the hoops than the poor White rural folks who are more apt to be 1) further from the appropriate government offices and 2) have less mass transit to carry them there.
So, what is the level of confidence people have for a voter ID law negatively affecting more Dem voters than White ones? And by what rationale?
Also RAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTT!
Where did I say that 10% is insignificant? I said it wasn’t ‘substantial’ based upon anyone with an honest bone in their body’s definition. Nor did I say that 10% of the people would be adversely affected by these new requirements. Yet when I said that, I’m called a liar. I’m called a liar because someone accused me of saying that your side of the argument stated that all the 10% would be affected by such laws. So, what is the purpose of you saying 10% if not to mean 'all of the people without IDs"?
Really, I’m tired of being called a liar, even if by some pinhead, just so he can attempt to shut down debate. Kind of like he is accusing others of doing by implementing ID laws. And not one of you is willing to call him on it.
It does? And all those other countries that have such laws who all have higher voter turnouts than the US have such problems? There isn’t one of them who has a lower voter turnout than the US. Not one of them. Zero.
Again, why do they have such laws? Why do the majority of people in your country want such laws? Even if you are correct and it doesn’t prevent fraud, what is the reason? Could it be that it makes them more confident in the system? That’s the only reason I can think of. Come on, think of a better one.
Now you can’t even be coherent. Those other countries already have national ID’s, fool. We have many people who want such laws because they’ve swallowed the lies that voter fraud is a real problem, and that ID"s would fix it if it were. They have reduced confidence in the system because of those democracy-undermining lies.
Which has all been explained to you at length. To pretend it hasn’t is to lie. If you’re not pretending, then you’d have to be as thick as magellan01. Is that your claim? It’s certainly possible.
Now, do try to support this remarkable claim about the numerical definition of “substantial”, if you want the laughter to die down, that is.
While your stupidity is deep, broad, and legendary, do you really have to advertise it so gleamingly by intimating that someone is obligated to be convinced because you “explained it [to him] at length”? Yeesh!
Also, regardless of the latest maniacal dance of the squirrels in your head, nothing your pointing to equates with a “lie”.
Somebody who has had the facts explained to him IS under obligation to act as if that is the case, yes. Somebody as thick as you, however, which is the way the evidence points in Uzi’s case, may simply be unable to grasp them. Which, as you note, may not be lying, but instead requires admitting such thickness.
However, it is also true that the thick are often unable to recognize their own thickness, as the recent thread on the Dunning-Kruger Effect demonstrates. That is, unfortunately, the way the evidence points in *your *case.
And you’ve had it explained to you that they all don’t. Shall I start calling you a liar using your own criteria for what constitutes one?
That is not the standard I’m proposing.
If you wish to attack the Voter ID laws on the basis that they are unwise, or fail to achieve their supposed goals, then my argument is unavailing.
But if you (or your ideological brethren) add the claim that your objection is not grounded in which party benefits, and arises from your deeply felt convictions that politicians should not use political process for partisan gain, you open the door for refutation in the way I have refuted you.
See, you’re stuck. You can’t claim a lack of popular support. You can’t claim unconstitutionality. The laws are legitimate. So you have to claim some sort of principled outrage, and then you’re stuck explains why those principles only appear when your ox is the one being gored.
Yes, it des, because you made it part of your argument.
True.
Except that in this case, this very thread has provided ample opportunity to discuss the issue. I agree that saying, “You never posted about this,” when there’s no showing that the subject was ever brought to someone’s attention, is unavailing.
But here, in this thread, it’s right in your face. And you still haven’t shown nearly the same ire against the Massachusetts Dems as you have against the Pennsylvania GOP.
And we both know why. You simply don’t see it as all that bad.
And we both know why.
Way ahead of ya. Good luck-I certainly didn’t have any.
Preface: Earlier today I was thinking about posts that someone else in this thread made, and I was thinking to myself “geez, this guy. At least with Bricker, even when I totally disagree with him, even when I think he’s taking the thread off on a tangent and being all lawyery and weasely, at least he writes things where I clearly see the point that he’s trying to make, and the things he say do in fact support that point, although obviously I don’t always agree with those conclusions”. That said, this time, you’ve totally lost me.
My position is that voter ID laws, as discussed in this thread, are unethical and antiDemocratic (with various bits of additional subtlety that I’ve already posted about at great length). If there’s a difference between “those laws are bad” and “those laws are bad NO MATTER WHICH PARTY BENEFITS”, I don’t see what it is. Of COURSE that’s my position, or at least my claimed position. How could someone ever be arguing otherwise? Is anyone in this thread (or any thread in the history of the SDMB) arguing “those types of laws are bad, and I do care which party benefits”?
And there you go again. I have not made any of those claims, I have made specific arguments about why I think those laws are antidemocratic and unethical, and why I think the system that allows those laws to be arguably legitimate and constitutional is flawed. Absolutely no part of any argument I made has had anything to do with which party benefited.
You’re just wrong, and given that you’re making claims about my personal motivation, I’m quite sure you’re wrong. This thread is NOT the place to discuss the MA issue. This thread is for discussing voter ID laws. The MA issue is an interesting one, and one which I’m quite willing to concede seems very likely to reflect poorly on Democrats. But I don’t know much about it, and you have no right to request that I jump through the hoop of learning about it just so that I can win a gold star of Bricker approval and you’ll deign me intellectually honest enough to debate with. My posting record speaks for itself. If you don’t want to engage with me, then don’t, I can’t make you, but I’m not going to be your monkey.
I think you also missed some subtlety in “MaxTheVool’s First Law Of Posting Motivational Irrelevance”: it’s not just that sometimes people just haven’t heard of an issue, and thus you can’t use their never having posted about it to prove anything. There’s also just a question of motivation, which is that people post on the SDMB when and if they find it entertaining. It’s not a job, it’s a hobby. So I’ve never posted any condemnation of Democratic Congressman William J Jefferson. Does that mean I tacitly approve of what he did because he was a democrat? Is my silence giving him a pass? Not at all, it’s just silence. Besides, what would I say? “Corruption is bad?” Heck, I’d feel sillier saying “hey, I’m a democrat, but just piping in to say that corruption is bad, mmkay” than I would not saying that, as that’s kind of some weird bit of SDMB political correctness.
I will post in threads and argue about issues that entertain me to talk about. I at this point have no desire to argue about the MA issue because it has not particularly piqued my interest, at least, not enough to hijack this thread. Certainly, that’s partly because it’s more fun to be on the righteous side than the apologetic side, but there’s a HUGE difference, that you don’t seem to recognize, between “I’m more likely to actively want to discuss and debate a situation in which the Republican is the bad guy than one where the Democrat is the bad guy” and “I’m more likely to claim that it’s bad when the Republican does it than when a Democrat does it”.
One final point: very complicated real life issues are very rarely actually analogous or comparable. Occasionally you’ll have a D and an R congressperson both involved in very similar corruption scandals, or very similar tweet-pictures-of-their-genitals scandals, and then it’s at least not hilariously silly to think that honest people should react the same way to each. But in the real world, that’s pretty uncommon. For instance, I’m still really pissed off about the Bush/Gore 2000 election debacle and the supreme court decision. Am I pissed off just because my “team” lost? Well, I don’t think so, and I guess it might be useful to find the same situation happening in the other direction and see how I felt about that… except that the same situation, with similar enough details that it’s very closely comparable, will NEVER happen in the other direction. The odds are astronomically against it. So if we want to assess the validity of my position, I guess we’re stuck actually discussing the facts of the case.
It’s really a waste of time. But I doubt he’s lying. I think he’s genuinely too stupid to understand one side of an argument, never mind the two required for a lie. And I’m sure the irony of him trying to associate anyone else on the planet with the Dunning-Kruger Effect :rolleyes: escapes him completely.