Thank you for the invitation to review your posting history. I decline. Hard enough to read them once.
Nonetheless, I accept as fact that, at no point, did you use the words “crumble” and “smoking ruin”, preferring, as you often do, to insinuate and suggest dire consequences that you do not actually specify.
I will go now to the river, to perform the Ancient Albanian Ritual of Self-Abasement, accompanied by a chorus of bitter virgins, intoning dirges of woe and humiliation…
Original 4840:
Second draft:
True. And in fact, that may be where the discussion ends. We are starting from different premises, those having to do with how we weigh the relative harms and the extent to which I am willing to impose individual responsibility on voters, which imposition you do not characterize as falling under the rubric of “responsibility” at all, but rather as a barrier not justified by any benefits.
Alas, I am unavailable, and lazy.
I don’t recall the discussion, almost certainly didn’t participate, and am disinclined to take your word for it that yours was the voice of reason within it. Did somebody suggest as a possible metric checking rates of obesity and diabetes, i.e. the population of Philadelphia might be eating more fruits and vegetables than before? That’s what comes to mind for me.
What’s the before-and-after metric for voter ID laws? We know of two possibly illegal voters 16 years ago and now we can’t find any? Great, I’m sure there a Fields Medal in it for you.
Maybe eating more Philadelphia fruits and vegetables will boost your energy.
Of course, we’ll have no way of knowing what effect they have, if any.
“Not justified by any benefits”, huh? Meh, the second I agree that this draft is accurate, I expect you to incorporate it into some future claim that I believe that illegal voters don’t exist, a claim you’ve directed against opponents in this thread several times already. Then I’ll have to repeat that I recognize that illegal voters exist but their impact is outweighed by the impact on legal voters and we’re back to where we started, the discussion going nowhere.
Just for laughs, I’m now going to review my earliest posts in this thread, using “Who posted?” function. All text prior to the use of the asterisk symbol will not be edited regardless of what I find. You’re free to not believe me if you choose.
My first post in this thread, almost a year ago, was proposing the idea that voter registration be linked to filing tax returns, as is the case in Canada.
My second post was mockingly suggesting that Americans who’d likely resist such a linkage were probably going to vote Republican, so suppression efforts at likely Democrat voters would at least balance out.
My third post was my first direct reply to something Bricker said, and it pretty well matches my later views - he’s okay with giving the go-ahead to put burdens on the voters and letting the voters sort it out. Apparently if the voter doesn’t sort it out in time, fuck’em.
I’m sure this effort has been edifying to nobody but myself.
No. Not justified means simply what you said: that there are possible benefits, but the harm done by the Voter ID law outweighs those benefits.
So is my summary accurate?
I have no idea what this proves.
(sigh) Bricker, you are pretty much the only one here who insists on discussing voter ID in a pristine vacuum. Could voter ID be installed and implemented in a beneficial, or at least harmless, manner? Of course! If that is your only point, then congratulations on your triumph in a debate nobody else is participating in.
The tactics that offend us are the tactics that should offend you. And the situation got totally out of hand, as extreme Republicans greedily sought even more advantage than the relatively modest gains available by the immediate imposition of voter ID laws. Reversing early voting regulations, seeking to restrict and even criminalize voter registration efforts, canceling “Sunday voting” customs, the list goes on.
These are not the actions of responsible citizens working to protect the all important voter confidence, but the actions of irresponsible partisans seeking to protect and preserve undeserved political power.
They could have done this in a reasonable and responsible fashion. They didn’t, for the most part. Their actions reveal intent, their intent reveals character, and these people are not to be trusted.
I stand ready to praise such Republicans as have forthrightly opposed this sort of sordid skulduggery. I would be pleased to have such allies against the perverse plans of “some” Republicans. Christ Jesus, in Barry Goldwater’s party, there isn’t even one? Not one who will stand up against the batshit baboons who appear to have seized control?
OK. Good.
Those tactics are offensive.
But unfortunately, I cannot abandon the party over them, because there’s not another party with less overall offensiveness for me to support.
As I believe I mentioned earlier, I regard the Republicans in this matter simply as the cleaner cockroach under the sink.
This is why some people suggest that your communication is crafted towards obfuscation and not clarity, you deceitful piece of shit. You’ve been advocating incessantly exactly for these tactics.
For instance, when it was pointed out that one state had oddly restricted the hours of availability for a particular location (generally serving an urban area) you suggested that a reasonable solution would be to tell people they could simply drive to the next closest location. When it was observed that many people would not have the time to make the trip, you in essence suggested that someone could drive 60 miles an hour over surface streets in order to enact your reasonable suggestion.
Again, this is why your communication style is called out for being less than clear. The goal is not that you abandon the party. The goal is that you stop advocating for the loathsome partisan deceitful shit you’ve been advocating for.
Look around - the only cockroaches under the sink are you and your ilk.
Shit, Bricker, 90-odd pages of fury and fire against liberals and lefties when, for the most part, you pretty much agree with us? And the most you can say against the authors of this sewage stew is that “some” Republicans may have malign motives? Heaping insults on people who did nothing but oppose this crap, while all you have for the actual culprits is a “Tsk-tsk, that’s not very nice.”?
You see? Do you see why you drive people nuts?
Actually, the more I read it, the more nitpicking potential I see in it, but the summary process is a waste of time. This isn’t a middle school where we get assignments to write book reports - I don’t care if you can or cannot summarize my views in one paragraph and I have no interest in summarizing yours in one paragraph, or multiple paragraphs or whatever. I am confident I have spotted flaws in your arguments and articulated on same, and your responses have not demonstrated that my counterpoints are groundless.
As a suggesting regarding “starting premises”, I suggest the main starting premise that should be universal to anyone discussing the issue is: election results should accurately reflect the will of the electorate.
From that, we might define “electorate” as eligible voters within a particular venue who are free to cast votes (or choose not to) that will all be given equal weight and counted accurately to the most exacting standard feasible.
Then we start getting into slightly more tenuous grounds like what requirements, if any, should a voter present to prove that he is an eligible voter. This is where we start to differ, I gather, in that you are apparantly greatly concerned with (in statistical terms) a Type I Error (an ineligible person gets to cast a vote) wehile determinedly ignoring or downplaying the inescapable Type II Error (an eligible voter doesn’t get to cast a vote).
The Type I Error is shattering to confidence, apparently, while the Type II Error is more “general” and can be ignored.
If anything, the people who disagree with you, myself included, seem to have a greater understanding of the issue than you will permit yourself to have.
Anyway, this “summary” (if it can be so called) is just a rehash of earlier points raised and ignored.
The “just for laughs” premise should’ve indicated that it was not an exercise in strict analysis. It was pretty much entirely for my own edification, as I was wondering if in fact I had shifted my position from my earliest participation in this thread, engaged in goalpos-moving or mental gymnastic to doublethink away contradictions in my views or to dismiss valid evidence.
I feel confident that I have not. I feel my integrity is intact. That said, I can describe potential standards of evidence that might prompt me to alter my views to favour stricter ID standards:
-Evidence that voter impersonation is significant, at least as significant as tabulation errors on the part of people who count the votes.
-There was a political movement to secure the integrity of the electorate for the pure sake of accuracy with no regard for how the electorate votes, so long as they (the electorate) are accurately defined and their votes are accurately counted. Alongside this, determined efforts to - if an ID card requirement is proposed - ensure that every eligible voter can get one with truly minimal (ideally no) effort.
-Statements to the effect that modifications to how the electorate is defined and/or identified will benefit a particular party or particular candidate are widely criticized, including by the subject party or candidate (or their supporters) themselves.
As I see it, the onus is on government to prove its eligibility, not on the people to prove theirs. Also, even if a legislature can pass a law if they find a “rational basis”, I have little trust in their ability to resist legislating to their own benefit at the expense of the people. I’m mostly satisfied with the Canadian version of election policy. Elections Canada is not a perfect agency, but the influence of the people who stand to most benefit (i.e. Parliament and the various Provincial Assemblies) is at least buffered.
It’s pretty clear to me that you lack the ability – the wit, if you will – to distinguish between advocating for the legality of a practice and advocating for the desirability of a practice.
I say you don’t understand the points I am making, and this is evident in your frequent misstatements of my argument.
You are welcome to refute that claim or not, as you see fit.
Can I try?
[QUOTE=Bricker’s point, as guessed by Contestant #14]
If a hypothetical party proposed a hypothetical voter ID program which would not discriminate against a class of voters, then some citizens might feel greater confidence in the integrity of the hypothetical elections. Hypothetically speaking.
(Of course that hypothetical party is not today’s GOP. Moreover, any increase in confidence would be far far less, in the real world, than the confidence destroyed by malicious Republican voter suppression.)
[/QUOTE]
Did I get it right? What do I win?
For your next thread hijack, why don’t you post in the V.A. thread about the confidence-instilling power of adding stairwell handrails.
Well, voter confidence certain is subject to metrics we can gauge, it is just seems interested in looking into it. It certainly is convenient as relying on general public reaction allows you to count those who feel “it’s a reprehensible action but what are you going to do, the other guys are worse” as supporting your position. Ah well such is politics.
And we certainly solve these little disagreements at the ballot box but public discussion is just as important a process which is why I assume you are posting in the thread. As you often say, testing your ideas against the opposition is a great way to clarify your own position, encounter new ideas and so forth. He’ll, I’m not even ideologically against voter ID. Canada has voter ID laws that I’m quite happy with (of course there are certain cultural differences that make things a bit easier here).
That’s a terrible summary.
My suspicion is that you don’t want to surrender your tactic of misstating my arguments, so you refuse to really summarize them; you know that if you do, you can no longer misrepresent them in argument.
I, of course, am able to correctly summarize your arguments, because I have no interest in misstating your position.
Well, you can ARGUE about it, just as I can ARGUE about your overall reaction to the topic in general. My hesitation to actually picking a state and diving into the details is threefold:
(a) I really don’t have the knowledge base necessary to do that kind of analysis, and I’m at least skeptical that you do, although it’s quite possible you know more than I do. If we pick a random state and see that it requires citizens to get IDs at the DMV within certain hours and with certain guidelines as to what paperwork they need ahead of time, well, then we need to know what percentage of people HAVE those papers ahead of time, demographic information about how far different groups live from their nearest DMV, etc. Basically it requires a bunch of skills AND a bunch of data I don’t really have.
(b) And even if we did have a really successful part (a), and we did a ton of the kind of analysis that usually takes a professor with a bunch of grad students, and were able to demonstrate that the average time and money to get the necessary ID was X for liberals and Y for conservatives with a certain standard deviation etc., well, it’s at least possible that we’d just end back up where we are now, with me saying “gee, that sounds like a sufficiently disparate burden” and you saying “no it doesn’t”. Until we pretty firmly sort out how to decide whether a particular burden is sufficiently offensive to make the law a Bad Thing there’s not much point in trying to somehow figure exactly what the burden is.
(c) How do we pick which state to analyze? If various different states have different laws and different demographics, and we did a huge amount of analysis of one state and then it looked like maybe one of us was right about that state, well, there are still a bunch of OTHER states, so what have we actually accomplished?
I realize it sound kind of like I’m saying “gee, I have my opinion, I don’t actually want the FACTS to get in my way”, but in this case I just don’t see how we really COULD get the facts.
Absolutely. I’m in no way suggesting that you should leave the GOP over this issue… but I am suggesting that if you are offended by their handling of this issue in a larger sense you could certainly make that clear from time to time. I think it would make it more likely that meaningful communication can occur if people have a better idea of your overall position.
And, for the most part, that’s what is going on in this thread, although I do agree that this argument would benefit GREATLY from a well written and comprehensive analysis of one of these laws from a liberal viewpoint, so we’d all at least agree on which state we were arguing about and which precise details are the troubling ones.
Which extra difficulty is not unreasonably great? Here’s where you lose me… are you saying “no one has shown me that the extra difficulty is unreasonably great in any particular state, and I start with the assumption that the burden is not great” or are you saying that you actually have done that kind of analysis for all the states which have passed ID laws in recent years? Or are you saying “given what I know of society, no law requiring voter ID possibly COULD unreasonably add unreasonably great restrictions unless it had ludicrously insane provisions, and none of these do”?
A fine idea.
What i’m wondering now is how many Republicans totally believe in voter fraud, and believe that it is why they don’t win elections.
Its an article of faith among them that America is essentially center-right, that the majority of Americans are aligned with them. Cognitive dissonance, the number one threat to the Republic. So how do they explain that to themselves when they lose? What can explain such a disparity? There’s not a lot of options, are there? People go to polls, the votes are counted, and they lose. How can that be.
Voter fraud solves their problems neatly, doesn’t it? The logistics and practicality of voter fraud are totally ridiculous, but no matter.
I mentioned this before, how the Bush Administration declared war on voter fraud. Would they have done so if they didn’t believe it? Would they have sent all those Federal attorneys on a snipe hunt, just for the sake of looking silly? They found nothing, there was nothing to find. Isn’t it obvious that the people who are most concerned with voter confidence are those who don’t have that confidence? People who need to believe that somehow, some way, the Democrats are cheating their way to victory? If you can believe that, how hard is it to believe that ACORN, CASA, and the League of Women Voters are conspiring to steal the elections?
They’ve been on about this for years, even before the opportunity for political advantage arose. Every time there is an effort to expand voting and make it easier, they object, and why? Voter fraud. The reason they don’t get upset about absentee voting fraud is because they don’t believe its important, the real culprit is brown people and DFH sneaking into polling booths. Apparently, by the millions.
Because all the real Americans are on their side. Everybody knows that, America is a center right country. So, there’s no way they could lose elections unless they are being cheated.
Shirley, not all of them believe that. But how many, I wonder…
I’d rather see you support it. My refutation would just be a repetition of comments I’ve already made.