When you’re lampooning one side of a multiparty debate by thoroughly misrepresenting what their argument is, it makes a difference whether you’ve actually read the fucking argument. It makes even more of a difference when, instead of reading the fucking argument you whine like a smacked child after someone points out you don’t understand it.
So your solution to anonymity is the predictable Yahoo/news group tactic of making your posts superficial and belligerent? Again, bravo.
My plan ain’t all that great, John. I’ve no doubt at all it could be improved, sure of it. My underlying point is that its all kinda simple, a drug-addled hippy could come up with a plan, easy-peasy. Nothin’ to it!
The Republicans will not support a plan that expands the voter base. Doesn’t matter how cleverly and fairly devised it may be, they will think up a “reason” to oppose it. They already have pretty much all they are going to get, and the Grim Reaper is winnowing them down. Any broad expansion in the voter rolls is almost bound to benefit the Dems by two to one or more.
They did the math. They did the monster math. They would rather use their scrotum for piranha bait.
It’s hardly a new insight, either. Paul Weyrich in 1980:
There’s been a lot of whining going on here, but it ain’t me doing it, pal. I suggest you cool your jets and quit acting like the Thread Monitor. Leave that stupid part up to folks like Elvis.
That could all be true. I’m not quite so certain the Democrats are powerless to affect the outcome. But it doesn’t alter the fact that voter ID laws are the way of the future. If you feel that fatalistic about the inability of the Democrats to add amendments to make the ID procuring process easier, then you’re stuck with old fashioned, grass roots voter registration drives. No?
So, play a rigged game better than the guy who rigged it? Use the votes they don’t have to get the votes they ain’t gonna get without having the votes?
People already do this you dumb fuck. You have to provide proof of identity when you register to vote, you dumb fuck.
You know what prevents all of this? Reality. Cause none of this kind of thing happens in reality, you dumb fuck. That won’t stop conservatives from being afraid of it, though, because they are afraid of everything.
So you’ve opted to be a smarmy puss in this thread just for grins, then?
What you keep harping on is fucking stupid, and you’re making me repeat myself. Other countries have national IDs. They have had these for long periods of time. They use them for multiple purposes. It’s not problematic to use them for ID for voting purposes, but they still have mechanisms to allow people to vote without them.
It’s the implementation, stupid.
Of course we could have this here. This is evident in the fact that WE ALREADY HAVE A SYSTEM FOR IDENTIFYING VOTERS. It works perfectly; vote fraud essentially does not happen.
The only problem is that one party wants to change the system right in the middle of everything. They want to do this for short term advantage.
But you know all this. You’re intelligent. You also don’t suffer from Republican Brain Dysfunction. So your argument here is obviously disingenuous, bordering on trollish. I don’t know why, nor do I care whether you feel validated or not. If you want to be smarmy and disingenuous, it makes no difference to me if your handle is Shodan or John Mace.
Wow this sure came from a cultured gentleman!
Get the fuck over yourself, dude. What type of response do you expect from a post like this:
Did you check the forum we’re posting in? You insulted me, personally. And you know what? That’s perfectly OK, because THIS IS THE BBQ PIT. And I threw some shit back at you. Some very tame shit compared to what you threw at me. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.
Well, you can get out the barricades and the pitchforks, I suppose. Good luck!
Oh, come on. “Thread Monitor” for shit’s sake? You misrepresented the main argument against voter ID laws in a fundamental way and then got pissy when called on it. Since it’s also my argument, and since I and posters I respect have expended a lot of collective effort explicating the argument, I jumped on your case.
I generally find your thoughts on any random subject worth reading, unlike some others in this thread. But comparing you with one of the less deliberate or thoughtful types (after you’d kindly aligned me with one on my side of the argument) seemed rather appropriate. I should’ve realized you’d respond to a parody of my jibe rather than to the actual jibe itself, since that seems to be your new thang.
On the one hand, I like it when I’m understood, but on the other I don’t want to give up arguing and I don’t want to give up snarking. So I guess I’ll soldier on regardless of whether you’ve quite grasped the points or the insults.
OK, where did I “misrepresented the main argument against voter ID laws”? I’m frankly surprised that you would state there even was a “main argument”. You might have one, but why should everyone agree with you on what the main argument is?
BTW, don’t assume that the discussion about voter ID is limited to this thread, even though it’s stretching to almost 150 pages. If you think there are not posters on this MB, or even in this thread, who simply don’t want to hear anything about voter ID laws, no matter what, check out this thread.. Note that 30% of the respondents to the poll oppose voter ID “in principle”. If there is a “main argument” against voter ID laws, they are impervious to discussion about it, since nothing can be offered to address that argument. No safeguards are sufficient, no possible scenario can be envisioned where voter ID laws could be implemented without a net negative effect.
OK, they’re wrong. Why is that my problem? Or Xeno’s? Am I responsible for whatever anybody says if they are to the left of Calvin Coolidge?
Oh, so you offered a plan that does all that? Well, shit, hoss, let me pull up a chair and give it a listen! Let 'er buck!
You misunderstand me. I don’t care about being called names. (You would be right to call me of all people a hypocrite if I objected to someone saying mean things to me.)
What offends me are dumbass arguments, especially when they are blindly repeated. Your incessant “but other countries have IDs” argument is just such a dumbass argument and you keep making it, and you keep failing to address the reasons why it is so stupid.
I am a little surprised at this kind of thing from you. You’re at times wrong, but you’re rarely smarmy and stupid, and I’ve never found you to be disingenuous.
No, you are not. I never said you were.
I think you don’t understand. The disagreement is one of principle, not of just finding the right implementation tactics.
Let me offer an analogy:
You and I both oppose the death penalty, in principle. Right?
There is no need of anyone to show us a more humane or acceptable method of executing prisoners, because we hold the position that there is no acceptable method.
That’s what it means to oppose something, in principle. No?
I was one of the tiny number of people in that poll who favored ID if there was a 9-year delay. I was rather astounded there weren’t more. BTW, do the rational developed countries have special voter ID, or is it just another function of a general ID? The people in the U.S. who have trouble getting voter ID, may have trouble getting ID for other purposes (e.g. employment, check-cashing); why do people oppose ID?
But in the context of this debate, talk of good-spirited voter ID proposals is a digression. John Mace, do you agree that almost all the effort spent by GOP on recent voter ID proposals is primarily intended to stop likely-Democrat voters from voting? (Many Republicans have said as much in so many words.)
If you wonder Why have rational Americans become so hateful of GOP state governments as to oppose voter ID on principle? start a new thread, please. This thread is about GOP voter suppression.
All very well, John, I certainly have no objection to someone having such a principled argument. Somewhere else, maybe, some thread not titled about Republicans and voter suppression.
Now, I grant you that a particular poster has done his level best to* change* the subject like that, over the repeated and strenuous objections of the Moonbat Mob. Gotten on my nerves a bit, truth be told.
If you would like to host such a discussion, I cheerfully invite you elsewhere.
For what it’s worth, none of the offered options seemed to match my position (I think the OP was either trying to frame the question to get a result he wanted, or has some blind spots on the issue), so I abstained.
We have the capability, but due to the polarized ideological split, not the will.
I think a HUGE part of the problem is that a whole lot of people don’t identify with a whole lot of people that get by without ID or getting on a plane. A fuckton of people never travel outside their state. There are plenty of hotels that will take cash, although perhaps not ones you personally would patronize. And if you don’t know how to buy a bottle of wine without ID, I’m curious as to what country you grew up in.