I don’t agree that voting should be painless. “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”
But half an hour is not painless. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable or unreachable goal.
But I do think that the public won’t support it. I think if the public is given a choice about cutting services or bumping taxes, even a little, they won’t. But I welcome the opportunity to be disabused of the notion.
Cheap dime-store Calvinism. Feh! We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed with their human rights at birth, they get them the same way they get their navel. Protecting those rights can be costly, to be sure, but they are there from the git-go.
Some of the public definitely won’t. You can probably depend that the residents of gated communities will not look with cheerful enthusiasm on their tax money being spent to ensure that riff-raff and radicals like me get equal opportunity to vote. But, you know what? Fuck 'em.
Everyone has ‘rights’, but others are ‘responsible’ to cover your costs so you can exercise those rights. Your statement kind of sounds like your rights only exist if someone is there to give them to you, don’t you think?
No. No, I don’t. Not even remotely. In fact, haven’t the slightest clue where you derived such an interpretation. You’re welcome to explain, of course, especially if you think anybody cares.
Well, I understand that Alzheimer’s affects people when they get old, but you said it just before my post. Underlining mine for emphasis:
And then you said this:
Confirming that they have to pay so you can vote. The responsibility for ensuring you can vote is theirs and they can get fucked if they won’t live up to their responsibility.
I guess I should point out for the excessively literal-minded that I don’t actually propose to have sex with them.
But you do expect them to pay, right? Even though they’re already paying so they don’t have to stand in line, you expect them to pay so that someone else a) won’t have to stand in line and b) won’t have to pay for it?
I’ve no doubt that elucidator is suggesting that we enact a tax solely on the residents of gated communities in order to pay for more voting machines in precincts that people live in who pay no taxes at all. No, wait. . .
What the fuck stupid kind of question is that? What has happened to the concept that we all pay taxes so that (in theory, at least) we all support the greater good of our society? Taxes are not a “what’s in it for me?” issue; they’re a “what’s in it for society?” issue.
Personally, I think there’s a middle ground somewhere between providing a dedicated voting machine for each voter, and letting people stand in line for four hours, but maybe that’s just me.
I’m sure that wealth, like rank, hath its privileges. For the most part, I shrug them off, the capacity to buy more loud shiny crap than I can does me no real harm. The ability to buy more political power, or to buy it more easily, that’s a very different kettle of piranha.
Even more to the point, the capacity of a political party to exploit that privilege to its own advantage, to gain political power that does not directly correspond to the number of people who agree with their agenda, that’s not no kind of no good.
I would have thought this obvious, and am rather surprised I need to explain it. After all, we alll pay to have our rights protected, by the military, by the police, so on and so forth. I don’t recall anyone suggesting that richer people have more right to protection by those institutions. Why, then, would I be expected to approve of richer people having a better voting opportunity?
Here in the People’s Republic of Minnesota, it takes me about half an hour to vote, and I always vote. If you were to tell me that if I were to take 45 minutes to vote, it would mean that no one in the country would need to take more, I’d say “Sure, go for it, small enough sacrifice”.
It does not escape my notice that more voting likely means my agenda becomes more likely to succeed. I think that is mostly because the other guy’s agenda ensuckens dead donkey balls. But the principle holds ragardless. As an American, I feel an obligation to do what I can to ensure my fellow citizens have equal rights and equal opportunity to exercise those rights.
Is there some sort of problem with that?
It is, and always has been, a fucking stupid concept, and the vast majority of people who claim to believe it do not, in fact, do so when it comes to them being the ones that have to pay.
Altruism is bollocks. Fortunately, it’s not necessary for a functioning society or government - whether left or right wing. Read up on social contract theory if you don’t understand this.
Also, progressive taxation exists so that everyone pays a reasonable amount, not so that some people pay fuck all and get a free ride. Seems like you lefties forget that rather often. If people want more from their government, they need to be prepared to pay at least part of the cost.
If everyone has an equal right to vote, and the voting process is supported by taxes, then the rich are going to pay more into the system than the poor. This notion may be highly offensive to your bootstrap-yanking libertarian sensibilities, but that’s the way it’s always worked and always will work, until we realize a new Utopia where votes are quite literally purchased and can be bought and sold en masse like stocks. No doubt even the poorest of the poor will still have an opportunity to vote via an attractive variety of short-term, high-interest loan options secured by a car note or promise of brief indentured servitude. Then at least we’ll know who’s serious about having their voice heard, versus the freeloaders who participate in the body politic only because it doesn’t cost them anything.
Lest we forget the sage economic advice of whom, exactly?
Friedman and Rothbard called for the abolition of income taxes (the latter, of all taxes), with Friedman proposing a negative income tax as a temporary measure.
And besides, the poorest in society contribute in the form of payroll taxes and sales taxes.
You said it is up to them to ensure your rights. It leads me to believe that those rights aren’t as self evident as you claim they are if they are the responsibility of others to provide for you.
Rather than say you have a right to vote, you should be saying that you have the responsibility to vote and no amount of skulduggery, financial circumstances, or other excuse will prevent you from doing so.
So, if it takes a rich guy half an hour to vote and you 2 hours, you won’t do it? What’s the cutoff? Stop the election because one guy in Alaska is 10 hours away by float plane from a voting booth?
And what agenda is that, Dennis Moore?
Warren Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary. Weren’t you around for the several times this was explained plainly enough that even imbeciles like you can understand it?
Mitt Romney paid less, percentage-wise, than a minimum wage earner pays, even with the temporary reduction of S.S. taxes.
I don’t think you right-wing morons will ever get your facts straight. If you could, you wouldn’t be so moronic as to be wingnuts anymore.
It is not the separate thread of Bricker-whining and Bricker-gloating you had promised, but it will do.
Even when the Republicans do something good, its on accident (or for the sake of evil)
Michigan Republican says they nixed vote rigging because it might have hurt Romney. So convinced were these guys that Romney was going to win (ha ha!) that they apparently pulled back the proposed bill to split the votes. However, due to their embarrassing loss, Republican Pete Lund wants to reintroduce the bill:
Right, closer to the actual vote. In a state where Obama ended up winning by 450000 votes, you want to give the loser of the state 9 votes and Obama 7, if this had been approved for the 2012 election.
Shit, these guys must think we’re a bunch of fools to even say this out loud in a newspaper. Used to be that people did this in the dark backroom of a smokey parlor, now they’re brazen enough to do this out in the open. It just shows that the Republican party as a whole has gone down this unsavory pit of corruption that is almost impossible to climb out of. Nobody should ever vote for a Republican again, but of course there’s a lot of idiots who will.
Seriously? Your use of “transgendered” in connection with insults or slurs is beneath you. 
I didn’t post this to the Stupid Republican thread, because these guys are smart. As smart as wily rapists or cold-blooded assassins.
It appears that five Justices (all appointed by Republican Presidents) will vote to overturn the law that helped enfranchise Blacks, with four Justices (all appointed by Democratic Presidents) dissenting.
I will be surprised if Roberts votes to overturn the contested provisions.
Heard some stuff about what “Fat Tony” Scalia is alleged to have said today, but it was so ridiculous and outrageous, gotta be lefty propaganda. No way he said that.