I think that’s nonsense. No story has come out about any problem that wasn’t addressable. The government has no particular obligation to make voting easier to compensate for a lack of ability to communicate in English. Dealing with government bureaucracy is similarly a fact of life.
In short, I believe you’re creating problems where none truly exist in any meaningful way.
So how much is all this addressing going to cost? Is it more than whatever economic losses result from low “confidence”, whatever that means?
Speaking of which. . .
No.
No, Halloween is over and I’m back to being a single corporate entity <sigh>.
I’d ask for cites, but if the races really were that close, I repeat my comfort with shrugging my shoulders and declaring them a toss-up in which either side has just as much – and just as little – claim as the other. But if Bryan’s right about 2004, then this truly is another instance of you ignoring the “motes and beams” problem.
As for what you care or don’t care about, it doesn’t serve any of us to play that game. And if you are simply demonstrating that people can be persuaded by a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign, including such distortions as I referred to in Uzi’s statement, well, I’ll have to agree. Propaganda does indeed sway public opinion. Are you segueing back into neener-neener territory again?
As for the characterization of “lazy”, well, others have made the point already and I’ll briefly reiterate. There are plenty of scenarios common to economically disadvantaged people that would interfere with their obtaining new ID materials that have absolutely nothing to do with laziness. But you knew that, you just like characterizing them so because it serves that propaganda purpose I mentioned earlier.
Finally, I note that this threat is a pitting (check the title of the OP) and not a call for ameliorative action. I’ll not bother to describe my suggestions for further actions because I have already answered this question from you, as have others, but you ignore those and roll back to thumbing your nose at us. Then asking again. So be it.
And you are in a discussion about a country that doesn’t. Where each state has their own rules and is about as inefficient as can be imagined in doing so.
Even in Canada if you show up with a different name on your ID than on the register, they are going to question you and potentially stop you from voting. Really, don’t deliberately be dense.
That just means I can be objective.
And smug. I can be smug.
I’ve never actually been asked for ID any time I’ve voted. I give them my name and address, they have a list of the electorate in the district, cross off my name, hand me a ballot. Weeks before the election, cards are mailed out that say (more or less) “Our records show that at this residence, the following persons are eligible to vote in the upcoming election. If there are any errors, report them to…” The mechanism to correct errors is built into the system - we don’t get rude surprises at the polls, or at least I’ve not heard of any such cases.
My point is that we have an agency that is working to make voting easier for everyone. We don’t have anyone deliberately trying to make it more difficult for people who might vote “wrong”. Our confidence is high. You’re a damn fool.
Oh, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to show your work on this one.
You owe me one irony meter.
Why should I? What have I to prove? The laws are already passed. Who do I need to persuade by showing my work?
Maybe just mention the post number in which you described your suggestions for further actions, then. I’ll go back and re-read them myself.
Indeed. One wonders why you post here at all. You goal is not to persuade, it is only to provoke. It’s just entertainment, correct?
I post here on the SDMB, in general, to subject my own convictions to a test in the crucible – I seek the antithesis of an echo chamber, a motivation foreign to many liberals, who seek the comfort of knowing that they hold all the correct, best opinions of enlightened people, as described by the New York Times.
You keep saying this, like it isn’t true of most humans including most conservatives. I think it would be interesting if you subjected this particular idea to the crucible–i.e., start a thread asserting that liberals are more ideologically sheltered than conservatives, and see what the actual evidence has to say on that subject.
You don’t need to persuade anybody and as far as I can tell, you have not. Your unsupported assertion will just have to take its chances in the environment of public opinion as exists in this thread.
For what it’s worth, I’ll offer my own observations:
We are given the vague idea that some voters somewhere in the U.S. lack “confidence” in the election system to some extent because some votes might be miscast. Can we quantify, even theoretically, what effect this actually has on American society or economy or the Mets’ chances at a pennant or anything else?
We are also given accounts of voters who get delayed or even turned away from polling stations because of problems with identification, as well as accounts of long waits to get acceptable identification in the first place. This can be quantified to some extent - lost productivity and such. Heck, there are statisticians who just love to calculate the economic effects of downtime.
Bricker, when asked if the impact of (2) is greater than the impact of (1), offers a blunt “No.” When asked to provide specifics, Bricker seems to take personal offense at the idea.
In a later post, Bricker says he posts here to face a “crucible.” I sense a contradiction in his behaviour, or at least that he likes a crucible that’s not too cruciblish. A crucible that’s not too high in temperature. A hot-tub crucible, as it were, a bit intense but not uncomfortable, with a hardwood deck and cupholders and maybe a sound system.
Can’t see how that will help anything, those of us who are “ideologically sheltered” (whatever the heck that means) will most likely deny it, and those who aren’t will deny it as well.
As well, a progressive is stuck with an inherent vagueness. We cannot actually know which of our policies will certainly advance the equality and well-being we want for our people, uncertainty is in the very nature of change. The conservative has no such problem, they resist change, period. I have become convinced over time that this is more a matter of personality and outlook than any actual ideology. Perhaps more to the point, ideology is the clothing that personality wears, the typical conservative is cramped, Calvinistic, and constipated. It is clear to him that wealth and power is in the appropriate hands, that things as they are is identical to things as they should be.
Feh! as they say in Lubbock. Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot!
From the git-go, with the very Founding Fuckups, the notion that political power should be reserved for the propertied and monied classes was more or less presumed, it was the common wisdom. Thank you very much, Mr. Paine, for your helpful efforts, now kindly step aside and leave actual governance to those whom God has chosen.
From that very beginning, Progressives have sought to advance and promote the rights of free citizens to participate on an equal basis, from that same beginning conservatives have resisted. This fight we are having here has been ongoing for better than two hundred years. Has there ever been an initiative to expand the voting population that was not resisted by conservatives? Ever?
I don’t need to – I need to merely link to every freaking thread on this board.
And bonus points for my highlight of all the times liberals say, “Many of us feel that…” as a perfect emphasis for how their opinion is bolstered by the safe knowledge that their ideological brethern are solidly behind them.
Now, is it true also of most conservatives?
Yes, probably. I don’t really hang out on conservative-themed discussion arenas, because the chorus of agreement is useless to me. But they exist, and are populated. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t lack for listeners. So, yeah, my best guess would be that this same trait exists for many conservatives.
Yeah, it sounds like one of Raymond Smullyan’s logic puzzles about knights and knaves, wot? The key is to phrase your question along the lines of: “If I asked that liberal which political philosophy was safe, what would he say?” It lets the denials of reality cancel each other out.
So stop implying it is limited to or more widespread in liberals.
That’s a very polite way of describing Bricker’s comments.