What I see is mostly bad faith in a discussion coming from you, can you see that when you told us that “The Supreme Court decides what the Constitution means” It was just counting on me not knowing what took place. As in if I had not known what took place you expected that I would then just shut up?
Well, I knew that indeed what the supreme court decided was it was the fifth article the one that was declared unconstitutional, and indeed it is not the end of the story, the courts did found in the Texas case that:
Your professor’s name is Daron Shaw. A campaign worker and consultant for G.W. Bush and Rick Perry, and also active in the campaign of Gov. Abbot. And, of course, his testimony appears to be founded exclusively on his own research. He also is apparently a familiar face over at Fox News, judging from a quick glance at his google.
Know the strict standards for impartiality that you encourage in others, it was instantly clear to me that you had simply neglected to advise us that your source is a Republican political operative. No doubt the urgent need to remind us, yet again, of the function of courts and legislatures.
@** Bricker** – Human beings would find you less alien and less offensive if you could debate like a human, rather than a lawyer.
Like some asshole Esquire prattling “Does not fit … Must acquit” you’ll seize on one factoid, often irrelevant, and use it to ignore relevant facts.
You’re on record as claiming that the criminal Bush-Cheney War against Gog and Magog, based on deliberate lies and plans to help Halliburton etrc. profit, which wasted a million lives, trillions of dollars and destabilized the Middle East, was less criminal than Monica-gate. Why? A smirky legalistic argument that one President was impeached, the other wasn’t.
Here you babble about the “Supreme Court said” as though its words were those of Yahweh etched in Stone.
I understand that a SCOTUS decision, even if by a vote of 5-4, becomes the Law of the Land. But we’re not discussing the Law of the Land; we’re trying to distinguish Right from Wrong. (I don’t think you even understand the concept of Right v. Wrong or Good v. Evil except in the context of bamboozling a jury or judge.)
And with twits like Thomas, Scalia, Alito on the Court it’s hard to give its rulings much respect. If these twits were eviscerated and sent to the Circle of Hell where they belong most of your “Natter natter natter, Scotus agrees with me–ee” would fail.
What? A legalistic argument used to determine which act was more criminal?
That’s as crazy as using a scale to determine which of two objects weighs more!
Forget it. You and I will not agree on matters of right and wrong, because we share no common framework to judge such questions. I don’t concede your ability to correctly discern right and wrong; you’re willing to adopt and advance moral wrongness in all sorts of circumstances to serve your warped political ideas. You doubtless feel the same of me.
So put that idea out of your mind: we are NOT meaningfully debating right and wrong. Your ideas of right and wrong are useless.
But in this country, we recognize that we may not agree on right and wrong. And we have all agreed on systems to craft laws even without unanimous agreement.
So if you wish to declare your moral position supreme here, you go right ahead; to me, it’s as impressive as a sudden attack from a soap bubble. As long as you understand that the actual legal effect of your declaration is zero, and that the actual legal effect is what I care about, since it, rather than your utterly groundless attempts at moral posture, actually affects the process we follow in this country.
Then your argument is based on flawed premise and is critically wounded as a result. Do you at least acknowledge the existence of Republicans who believe and have publicly stated that adding restrictions to voters is for them an electoral strategy?
As expected, Bricker hides behind rhetoric, unwilling to admit his own immorality and ignorance.
[QUOTE=Google Dictionary]
crime krīm noun
…
an action or activity that, although not illegal, is considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong.
Ex.: “they condemned apartheid as a crime against humanity”
[/QUOTE]
:smack: If you’re that ignorant why don’t you defecate at Yahoo Answers instead of here.
[QUOTE=George W. Bush, as quoted by Jacques Chirac]
Jacques, you and I share a common faith. You’re Roman Catholic, I’m Methodist, but we are both Christians committed to the teachings of the Bible. We share one common Lord. ***Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. *** Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a new age begins.
[/QUOTE]
I stand ready to praise and applaud those Republicans of conscience who would not sign off on this wretched scheme. Indeed, I have even urged you to provide us with their names, that we can heap our approval upon them. It seems you are too busy offering us elementary school level explanations for how our government goes forward.
These honest Republicans would be, in my estimation, fully honorable inheritors of Barry Goldwater’s stature, but I have no names. Is this list of worthies too long to post?
By their actions, you shall know them. If the Republicans had wanted to put the *kibosh *on voter fraud by supplying voter ID easily and conveniently, they could not do it? Its impossible, no such scheme could exist? Several such plans have been offered here, best I can tell, you are not interested, nor is the Party.
If the Republican Party had wanted to ensure voter identification without any hint of injustice or partisan advantage, they could have done so. Indeed, they could have had the complete and unwavering support of Dems. They did not, and for a very good reason…
You’re mistaken. I think the reason you’re mistaken is that you’re confusing a verifiable fact (“Republicans exist who have advanced Voter ID as an electoral strategy”) with a balance of harms (“This fact is sufficient to reject current laws.”)
I certainly concede the first. I don’t concede the second, and you cannot claim that the second is a matter of objective fact.
So on what specific objective matter do you contend I am willfully blind?
I guess we need to nail down “systematic.” Obviously there are people who seek to limit the voting of those populations they believe will vote against their party.
I described the thought processes of some people, who indeed support the scheme for wretched reasons.
But there are also people who support the scheme for the valid, neutral reasons such as the ones I have explained countless times in this thread.
The scheme itself is not wretched. Supporting the scheme in order to gain political advantage is wretched.
Bullshit. It was a Republican legislator who proposed that New Mexico consider the use of fingerprints as Voter ID: utterly free to each person with at least one finger. And it was the leftist Electronic Frontier Foundation that objected, saying that voters should not have to trade their privacy and biological data in order to participate in democracy.
Owning a firearm is a constitutional right. In fact, it;s actually mentioned in the Constitution. Find me the honest Democrat who has objected to requiring photo ID (and other more expensive barriers!) before permitting the exercise of that right.
There are probably a few. But none of them are you.
No, you’re mistaken. My position is that the circumstances do not justify the creation of tighter voter ID laws. Your justification for these laws is not only baseless - i.e. you believe the public might lose confidence in the validity of close elections - it represents willful blindness to much larger sources of electoral error, defined as outcomes that do not represent the will of the electorate.
That said, legislatures of course have the job of legislating, even if what they’re legislating is useless or even actively harmful.
Enhanced voter ID laws are designed to, some members of the Republican Party have publicly acknowledged, give an edge to Republican candidates. You’re not recognizing this as a possible outcome, i.e. you’re implicitly saying those Republicans are engaging in sheer fantasy. I content you are determinedly not recognizing the intended outcome, clinging instead to the tenuous notion that these laws are needed to address a nonexistent problem, which you further insulate yourself from adding a pointless buffer zone:
Voter fraud is a nonexistent problem.
But your concern is that public perception is that voter fraud is a real problem, therefore it is fair to pass legislation with the goal of addressing public perception rather than voter fraud.
There are of course better ways to address concerns about election fairness, based on what we know to be actual problems with how votes are cast and counted, but you absent yourself from having to consider those, in part because legislators aren’t pursuing those options, because legislators don’t benefit from those options.
Are the people pushing for these laws elected officials? If so, they are by definition part of the system, hence their efforts are indeed “systematic”. The more petty your nitpicks, the more confident I become in your loss of the argument.
But I wonder what definition of “the electorate” you’re using in that sentence. Mine? Or yours?
No. Merely because some have acknowledged this does not make it true. In fact, they are designed to add a measure of confidence and non-repudiation to the authentication of the voter. The fact that some Republicans also expect that this will result in an electoral advantage for them does not change the design purpose.
Yes. Correct.
I don’t mind considering other options.
What are they, and why haven’t Democrats proposed them? (I assume they have not, since you say that “legislators aren’t pursuing those options.”
That’s not really the impression that the word “systematic” conveys. Indeed, by your proposed definition, there is a systematic effort afoot to make the American public believe that the island of Guam is in fanger oif physically capsizing and sinking into the sea due to the weight of additional armed troops being housed there. This concern was voiced by Rep. Hank Johnson, an elected official and thus part of the system.
Has anyone on Bricker’s side tried playing the “you can’t prove that thousands of people are losing their chance to vote, so stop suggesting it” card? I’d just like to know if it was ever juxtaposed with his “the outcome of ultra-close elections” stance.
I don’t know what definition you have offered of the term. I don’t believe I’ve ever offered such. Does it matter, or is this another nitpick to stall for time?
If the “design purpose” was as you describe, I’d expect there to be no resistance to the idea of making voter ID easier to get, of setting up more government offices to distribute these IDs, of making as deliberately low-burden on the voters as possible, and also that support for the idea wouldn’t drawn so starkly along party lines.
I’ll admit using “legislators” a tad sloppily - my intent was to say something along the lines of “legislators who are pushing for enhanced voter ID can claim to be doing so in the pursuit of election accuracy, but they are not pursuing other more effective means because those means do not - or are less likely to - give their particular Party a slight edge.”
That said, a casual search of “election reform” shows that there are indeed efforts underway. Ohio’s anti-gerrymandering amendment will take effect in 2021, so we’ll see how that goes. California and Oregon now have automatic registration, which could be interesting, and New Jersey would also if Governor Christie hadn’t vetoed it, citing concerns about fraud that I can’t quite see the basis for.
Take all the time you need to adjust your impressions, then. I’m not sure what you think you’re gaining by citing Hank Johnson’s insanity. Had he managed to convert his views into actual legislation restricting travel to Guam, you might have a point instead of yet another stall for time.
The point though was that indeed what the supreme court did was to only remove the “pre-crime” fifth article, as the Fifth Circuit showed that that does not mean that the courts will look away when some states are still discriminating against minorities. Whereas their intentions were pure or not.
I have to add that this is looking like the relatives that enable alcoholics, they are not willing to see who they are helping.
