I have lost count of the number of times someone starts a thread here decrying some aspect of Republican behavior.
I post (politely) asking if they mean to imply that the behavior or trait is limited to Republicans, and I get told to start my own thread to complain, accused of tu quoque, and all manner of absurd reactions.
Your reaction reminds me of the Cosby routine in which he imagines how the football coin toss approach would work in the real world:
OK, we’ve got the British and the Rebels. Call the toss, Rebels . . . . Rebels say, “Heads,” and it’s heads! What will you do, Rebels? . . . . . OK, Rebels say, they get to wear whatever they want, hide behind trees and rocks to shoot at the British; British have to wear red coats and march in a straight line.
Did I loss the coin toss? I have to conform my remarks to the high water mark, liberal voices get to do all sorts of shit with no complaints considered valid. Why is that?
Interesting. You do realize that the number of votes that would be involved there would be orders of magnitude higher than the number of in-person-fraudulent votes suspected of being cast?
So is your position something like “it’s OK if this suppresses turnout, because it only suppresses turnout among lazy people… but if it suppresses sufficient turnout, then it’s probably suppressing turnout among NON-lazy people, and thus is worth being alarmed about”?
(a) it’s not a “proposed solution”. As others have pointed out, this is a pit thread, not a “how do we fix this” thread
(b) My objective is not to get you to agree that some number of people were acting unethically, it’s to get you to decide that you were wrong in supporting the proposed laws back when they were proposed laws
What do you think about gerrymandering? Are you comfortable with the idea that significantly more votes were cast for democratic than republican candidates for the House of Representatives last election, yet the republicans won a clear majority of seats? (Note, I’m not saying “was that election invalid” or “was it illegal” or anything, I’m just asking whether you’re personally comfortable with that outcome.)
No because gerrymandering (and Federal law requiring election by districts) is an agreed-to tool by the Dems and Pubs to maintain power and lock out third parties. Surre the Dems lost out this time but I’m sure there have been elections where Dems controlled the House despite more votes to Pubs that particular year. It’s a feature and not a bug as long as “those people” i.e. 3rd parties and independents are not voted in.
“Addressable” is pretty meaningless in this context. The question is not whether it was POSSIBLE for everyone to vote, the question is whether it was made SUFFICIENTLY MORE DIFFICULT that noticeable numbers of people would in fact then not vote.
I’d argue that the government does have an obligation not to make voting MORE difficult, at least without some kind of truly compelling reason.
Why would I do that? What would motivate me to randomly pick a regulation about elections that has the claimed intent of reducing fraudulent voting, clearly a good thing, and spend hours and hours debating you about it?
A factor of this discussion that has not been touched on much is the “why now?” and “why Republicans?” side of things. Very little has changed in how elections have been run and how voters have been identified in past decades. Certainly the 2000 election was an exceptional set of circumstances, but that was well over a decade ago, plus it had nothing to do with fraudulent voters at all. And as far as I can tell, there’s nothing in the inherent philosophy of the Republican or Democratic parties that makes either one of them either particularly interested, or particularly NOT interested, in issues of in-person-voter-fraud, at least in a vacuum. And yet, suddenly, out of nowhere, Republican parties in many states* were suddenly very VERY concerned about the vitally important issue of requiring voter ID laws, and Democratic parties were suddenly very VERY opposed to those policies. You seem to be saying that the Republican concern was due (at least in you) to the wake up call of Florida 2000 and how important “voter confidence” is, and the Democratic opposition is due to, umm, it’s unclear. Don’t you see how unlikely that seems?
*I believe there may have been one or two states in which Democrats were in favor of voter ID laws, but that’s clearly the exception rather than the rule.
So, you agree that it’s a bad thing? Or you think that I should think it’s a good thing since you assume I’m a partisan Democrat? Or you think that Bricker thinks it’s a good thing?
What do you think is more of an echo chamber… the New York Times or Fox News?
A complete non-response to Richard Parker’s quite reasonable post.
Even if all of your analyses of what happens on the SDMB were accurate and fair in all ways, is there any reason to think that precisely the same dynamics wouldn’t happen in reverse on an imaginary version of the SDMB with the political balance flipped?
Yes, the SDMB is heavily liberal. Yes, that means that various dynamics of behaviors of crowds and human nature make life unpleasant for conservative posters here. That is absolutely ZERO evidence for any claim of the sort “liberals are different than conservatives in the following way…”.
I agree it’s a bad thing. Based on work I gave my stats class on political views the day of the election where D-leaning independents were assumed to vote D and R-leaning independents were assumed to vote R, the current House fails the chi-squared test. One reason is because more D should have been elected than R as you pointed out but also there would be 7 expected independent/3rd party House members and there are current 0.
I could perhaps simply repeat back your words from the post immediately preceding the one above.
But I won’t. Instead I’ll note that there are well over three thousand seven hundred posts in this thread. I’m far too lazy to skim through however many are mine just to make a minor point. The fact remains that your question was ‘asked and answered’. Then ignored.
It is a bad argument to point to a particular Republican misdeed and say that Democrats do it to, so it’s OK to do.
It is a good argument to counter the contention that Republicans alone do a certain thing to point out that Democrats do it to.
If you are attempting to do the second, and are mistaken for doing the first, then you’ve been misread and you should clarify.
As far as I know, you’ve never responded to my posts addressing this argument of yours, which you make quite frequently.
I understand your position: You think that there is great value in ideological allies criticizing each other because the criticism is seen by others as in good faith rather than just partisan mudslinging. You further contend that since you are on the receiving end of criticisms that would apply to many other posters, you are being held to a higher standard based on partisanship.
I think Bricker’s point has been:
SD Dem: Voter ID laws are created by Republicans to prevent Democrats from voting.
Bricker: I deny your premise. Democrats have passed Voter ID laws too.
SD Dem: Yeah but look at Pennsylvania
Bricker: Just because one state creates a bad VID law or even one written to disenfrachise Democrats doesn’t mean that all VID laws are written exclusively by Republicans to disenfranchise voters.
So in this case it is OK to point out that Democrats also have passed VID laws to counter the implication (or explicit statement) that voter ID laws are written for the only purpose of stopping Democrats from voting because if Democrats have a valid reason for passing VID laws, why can’t the Republicans get the same pass?
Prehaps the solution is to come up with a few “justifiable” voting initiatives of out own.
A couple that come to mind:
In order to save tax payer money it makes sense to place voting sites in the areas of densest population. Therefor we can close all rural and suburban sites and concentrate the sites in the inner cities where the greatest population can be served. While it may mean that those in outlying areas, which by an amazing coincidence happen to be mostly Republicans, might be inconvenienced by having to make a 2 hour drive into a major city to vote is a small price to pay for increased government efficiency. If they are too lazy to make the commute they shouldn’t be voting anyway.
As a second idea, given the increased danger of terrorist attack we should have security at all voting precincts. This would be cost prohibitive except for the generous assistance of a well known civic organizations who has offered the use of their members free of charge. As a result we will be sure to have two big beefy members of the black panthers armed with billy clubs at the entrances of each voting location carefully scrutinizing all those who come in. Any reduced turnout as a result of these measures were probably just terrorists anyway, so it’s all good.
I don’t see how anyone could object to either of these solutions as they both have very sensible non-partisan justification, and don’t disenfranchise anyone.
Yes, I understand your position. You’re suggesting that there’s a difference between actual tu quoque (Questioner points out B does bad thing; opponent counters by pointing out that questioner also does the same thing, so it’s not bad) and clarifying that while bad thing is bad, it’s done by two groups, yet questioner only highlights one group.
I would quibble with “highlights” (when in fact I’m talking about instances in which it is stated or suggested that the one group is the only one doing it, as in this thread), but that is otherwise correct as to my first point.
However, my question about you understanding my position was about the other point concerning you being held to a higher standard.
Here’s what I wrote on the subject in a prior thread:
Oh, I had my ID with me just in case anyone ever asked for it, but no-one ever has because there wasn’t an assumption of guilty until proven innocent, or Democrat until proven Republican, whatever.