Then you aren’t participating in the discussion. Nobody has said the law isn’t the law. The discussion is about whether the law should be changed.
Then what a good thing such people can read these wise words, and learn a bit more about our government.
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Nonsense. The discussion is certainly about the effort to change the law via court decision – to claim that that the Voter ID law is unconstitutional. It is not.
But the discussion you now wish to imagine is much easier to have:
No, it shouldn’t.
Sure.
So you’re now acknowledging legitimacy and simply criticizing. Good for you. Keep it up; it’s good exercise for when you have a useful cause.
But saying “it’s the law” isn’t an argument that it is constitutional either.
I understand that a court can’t simply overturn a law because it doesn’t like the law. If that’s all your saying, fine.
With all dew respect, that is the conversation you wish this were about.
You and I, we’ve been through this, and this is not our fête. So, let us not talk falsely now… Yes, it is a common misnomer amongst the naive and idealistic that a thing that is clearly unjust can be described as “unConstitutional”. And, no, that is not so. Many’s the time that something utterly unjust has been held to be constitutional, until we grew as a people enough to know better. Other times, the Constitution has been perverted to drape a thin veil of legitimacy over something entirely repulsive, as in “separate but equal”.
So, yes, you are correct about the meaning of “Constitutional”. It is still wrong to stack the electoral deck in a partisan fashion. It will remain wrong regardless. If it were declared just and noble by the Archangel Gabriel, it would still be wrong.
And that is what our argument is about.
Well, that certainly settles that! Why appeal to authority when you embody the concept in your very self! But perhaps you have a sophistic and pedantic argument to explain why electoral cheating is perfectly OK in this instance, but the Great Massachusetts Massacre demands our fierce condemnation? Wherein “sordid” is not nearly enough.
I can forgive the dull and limited for their failings, they know not what they do. You have no such defense. You may stand athwart progress and scream for it to stop! but it will roll over you and pass on, leaving you to yell at it to come back. Shane didn’t, and it won’t either.
Yes…but it’s not a specific legal instruction. There is no law that says, “You may walk on the grass if necessary to save someone from a burning car.”
Instead, there is a general principle, known as the “reasonable man” exemption, that allows us to break the law when it is “reasonable” to do so.
(Ever been stuck in traffic when a signal is broken and won’t change? After a certain amount of time, it’s “reasonable” to ignore the broken signal and just go on through the intersection.)
However, this requires individual interpretation, on the scene, immediately, by persons not trained in law, with no guidance.
The imbeciles who took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge may have thought they were behaving “reasonably.”
The principle escapes being explicit; it cannot be explicit.
Since when have you been the United States Supreme Court?
Several state voter ID laws have already been declared unconstitutional. You’re displaying ignorance as well as absurd dishonesty.
:dubious: Of course I am. That is what this thread is for. That is what most of us have been doing here all along. The legitimacy, defined as constitutionality, of voting-suppression laws is perhaps debatable, but that debate would be incidental to the criticism of the purpose, justice and wisdom of such laws, all of which is at least as important as the constitutional question, and you are powerless to render it irrelevant or end the discussion by pegging such laws as “legitimate.” If they are, the discussion does not end but begins there.
I hope Bricker starts a new thread soon so that I can be the initial respondent and write “foist!”
That’s inarguably an overstatement. I’m sure that there have been people on the anti-voter-ID side of this thread who have made statements to the effect of “these laws are unconstitutional” or “these laws ought to be unconstitutional” or “I hope these laws are found to be unconstitutional” or what have you. But huge swaths of this thread have been about something else entirely.
Back during Jim Crow, there was a time when the various Jim Crow laws were clearly constitutional, and clearly enjoyed popular support. But they were always, well, something. Some adjective which combines some aspects of “evil” and “immoral” and “antidemocratic” and “sure as heck SHOULD be unconstitutional”. However you want to describe that quality, I’ve been trying to convince you that voter ID laws also share that quality, albeit to a lesser degree. That’s what this thread has been about for the past several thousand posts, at least from my perspective.
Ok.
Then: nope. Voter ID laws don’t share that quality. They’re good.
If that’s the sum total of your argument in favour, then I guess we win (for what that’s worth) on the preponderance of evidence front.
Your approach is very inefficient. If you were Himself, the Bricker Almighty, you could make a simple and direct declaration of total victory, and be done with it!
If you think that, you have lost not only your sense of moral judgment but your sense of smell. But, you don’t think that, you’re simply lying.
You’re back to saying Voter ID laws are immoral? Don’t you need to share a moral framework with someone before using a morality argument against them?
Do you feel the laws in every other country that require an ID to vote are similarly immoral?
Take a clue from Bricker and look at the context (the context in this case being election manipulation and not Bricker’s “lib’ruls are dum!” perspective, in case that was unclear).
Voter ID laws are about preventing fraud, not reducing Democratic voters.
“Religious freedom” laws are about protecting the rights of Christians, not discriminating against gays.
“Bathroom gender” laws are about protecting children, not persecuting transgender people.
The Civil Was was about states’ rights, not slavery.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
I thought the context was the immorality of Voter ID laws?
No. That’s the point. You have an opinion, and I have an opinion. Your opinion does not weigh more than mine does.