Why the fuck is there a pink golf pencil hanging from your belt… Jesus dude, put that thing away!
While you both seem to share the same infatuation, it appears that you and Elv1s have had quite different baselines.
I sense this discourse has devolved somewhat.
I don’t agree. Manifest injustice is something voters of all stripes will respond to.
When the 19th Amendment was being debated, women couldn’t vote.
Yet it passed.
Certainly those are fine ideas. But surely you agree that it’s inappropriate to set up such an organization on your say-so. So stepping back one more meta-step, my question is: who should decide the question of how we run elections?
Do you see the problem yet?
That’s funny, for two reasons. One is that ensuring voter confidence was the state interest advanced by the state of Indiana when defending their law in the courts. It is thus a major interest and rationale in support of the laws.
The second is that that you have already expressed your refusal to learn about issues that do not interest you. Why should I be particularly swayed that you have not heard about this issue?
Absolutely disagree.
In general, agree. However, there are special cases in which the refusal to express an opinion is tantamount to expressing an opinion.
Generally agree. But it’s quite important to discern what the actual argument is.
When the argument against Voter ID laws includes a claim that the rhetor is personally offended by any tactic that would use the law to swing advantage to a particular party, then testing that claim becomes relevant.
Is that really a question? It went on for a while.
As a general rule, when someone says they are offended by something, I tend to simply take their word, as I have neither the means nor the inclination to test the sincerity of their claims.
When I say I am offended by the use of legislation to advance the power of a political party, I expect such an obvious reaction to be accepted as sincere, but you are as free to question that sincerity as you are free to go pound burdocks,
To be strictly honest, I would find the latter to be vastly more entertaining, as the former is a commonplace, a standard** Bricker** tactic when reason and evidence are against you.
I’ve started a GD thread to continue this part of the discussion, as it has fairly little to actually do with voter ID laws in specific.
You have decreed that reason and evidence are against me.
I have determined that the laws are still in place.
So I’m perfectly satisfied. You decree whatever you please. It’s good exercise.
Sure, but its one of those Phallic Victories, where you win but then shrink drastically in size.
Former Florida GOP Chair Jim Greer says they were actually planning to disfranchise blacks.
Mmmm, yes. “Erroneously”, of course. Has anyone actually seen the long-form death certificate? I didn’t think so…
Declarations of victory might be a bit premature. There are numerous lawsuits in action about Republican democracy-suppression tactics.
I admit I’m not up on the details, but on the face of it, this is incorrect reasoning. Just because the state of Indiana pretended that some bullshit concept “x” was their “interest” doesn’t mean it IS “a major interest an rationale” (much less their major interest and rationale).
Just replace the words “is thus” (in the last sentence of yours I quoted) with “was claimed to be,” and you’re good to go.
Certainly going to wonders for the “voter’s confidence” amongst those voters insulted and hampered by this bullshit.
I don’t think the scenarios are by any means analogous. For one, the purpose of early voting is to increase turnout, not reduce it. In fact, Republicans in Florida restricted early voting (despite turnout of over a million). It’s pretty clear the equality under the law Democrats seek is in order to increase the democratic validity (as measured by how best Congress matches the population) rather than reduce it, by extending the early voting laws as best they could. According to wiki, suits were filed in Maryland because early voting could lead to fraud, which is the same motivator for voter ID laws (except mail-ins presumably wouldn’t require ID).
Edit: Not to mention, I haven’t heard of any comment from Ohio Democrats saying “restricting military members from voting will guarantee an Obama victory” or anything comparable.
I (obviously) disagree with a fair bit of your post, but this one kind of takes the cake, for me. Here’s a brief summary of two situations:
(1) The Dem-controlled state legislature of MA, which makes laws concerning what happens when a US Senator from MA needs to be appointed/elected in the middle of a term due to a sudden vacancy, changed the rule from “appointed by the governor” to “special election” when it looked like it might matter, and the governor was a Republican, and then changed it back again when it looked like it might matter, and the governor was a Democract. In neither case (as far as I know) did they offer any particular justification. (Note: I can’t remember whether they switched A->B->A or B->A->B. Seems like 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, as long as they were doing it for partisan advantage each time.)
(2) Republican-controlled state governments are making laws which increase the requirements for ID required for voters in elections in various states. They claim that this is to address the issue of voter fraud and to increase voter confidence. Critics charge that those are both basically non-issues, that the proposed changes wouldn’t address them anyhow, and that the real Republican agenda is to suppress voting among Dem-heavy demographics by adding additional hurdles before they can vote
Do you agree that those are both fair descriptions? If not, why not? And if so, then how on earth do you think those are so close to identical that someone MUST have the same reaction to both of them? I mean, I can (if you wish) list several important factors that are present in either one of them but not in the other. I’m not saying that I can prove what someone’s opinion should or should not be, I’m saying that I’m sure as hell not arrogant enough to state that someone HAS to have the same opinion about both.
So if we’re arguing about some topic X, and I say “hey, what’s your opinion on Y, I’m going to use it to prove that you’re a hypocrite”, where Y is some other topic that you know a general outline of, and it seems to you that Y, while having a few gross similarities to X, is really entirely different, and thus not relevant, and you say that it doesn’t matter and you refuse to get hijacked onto the defensive in that fashion, then (a) I can then conclude that I know what your position is, and (b) that you’re a hypocrite, and (c) refer to you as intellectually incurious… all of that without my even having to put forth a single bit of argument as to why X and Y are similar in the first place?
Wow… I did not know I could do that. I can’t wait to give it a shot!
It was certainly not a single question, it was part of: " here are some positions I hold with respect to the voter ID issue, and the larger issues of electoral fairness and hypocrisy. Please express your opinions on each of these positions…"
If anyone wants any insight into how Bricker can be so regularly dishonest:
Are you aware that Obama and the DNC don’t actually want to restrict anything? In reality they want everyone to be able to vote early all the way up to Monday before the election. Ohio didn’t give the military 3 extra days, they took 3 days away from the civilian population in 2004. Guess which group of people used to vote in large numbers on the Sunday before the election? Guess which group was in power when that option was taken away?
We get it. The Republican party doesn’t want blacks to vote. Keep pretending otherwise all you want.
As an aside, comparing the actions of politicians isn’t really germane to the problem most of us have with Bricker and his ilk. I want fair and easy voting for all, even if that costs the Democratic party every election for the next 50 years. So do most of my fellow liberals in this thread. If the Democratic politicians fought to make it difficult for pro-life, gun-wielding, homophobic white supremacists to vote, I’d call them on it. Last I checked, Bricker isn’t a politician, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit about helping ensure that everyone can vote and will happily lie his fucking ass off defending a bogus excuse for reducing the number of black, Hispanic, and poor voters, as long as it gets his guy elected.
If anyone wants insight into why illegal voters would vote even though the risk of being caught exists, read the above link.
Thanks.
Oh, and sorry to hear about your getting fired, Lobo. I had no idea you were a CFO.
I’m self employed. I can’t fire me! I quit!
Not sure I follow you here, Bricker. Are you offering a potential motivation for people who aren’t doing what isn’t happening? But if they were, that might be why?