He’s entitled to believe any weird-ass shit he wants, and I’m entitled to keep pointing out how his weird=ass shit isn’t the actual state of affairs in the real world.
But he can’t bring himself to actually say what the real world’s current state is. He can allude to the “wrong” ruling but he can’t just say, “Right now Voter ID is constitutional.”
You know who’s to blame here? BG. Mistitling his Pit thread. Clearly, the thread should have been titled “The Constitutionality and Crunchy Goodness of the Republican Voter Confidence Enhancement Program”! Which is clearly what its about, the crux of the biscuit being the precise definition of “constitutional”.
But BG screwed it up again! Dragging in this completely irrelevant side issue of “voter suppression”, like anybody cares about that!
Good thing Bricker was here to set us straight!
If you’re discussing my opinions on constitutional law, I happily admit that while I know slightly more than a turnip on the subject, I know much less than a legal-lookup bot “knows”.
I discover that I’ve used the word “unconstitutional” in this thread a total of exactly three times. Here are the three occurrences:
I think your parser copes with sentences ending in question mark…
This one referred only to a hypothetical Doper…
There was one post in which I did state an opinion that a law was unconstitutional.
… But this one was SARCASM aimed at Scalia and the Scumbugs. Sorry your bot-programming misparsed it. Next time should I put SARCASM in caps? Link to an image of a Confederate flag with gold braid? We’re trying to help your bot programmers work out the bugs; give us some feedback.
If it helps, much of what I post here is my “opinion” rather than “verifiable fact.” For example I haven’t “verified” that you’re a computer bot instead of a human being.
In fact that opinion is just an act of charity. Sadly, if I had to bet I’d bet that you’re NOT a bot but ARE human. :eek: This is a very dismal conclusion to make. Your views in this thread expose you as a despicable and pretentious right-wing hypocrite in the same mould as Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. The difference is that Coulter and Limbaugh are probably sane human beings who pretend to be anal-retentive morons in order to make money. Are you being paid for the slime you post here, Bricker? I hope so for your sake, as otherwise you are a very very sad excuse for a human being.
Why, that’s exactly how we feel about you, Bricker.
I gather that in his opinion, it is not. Is that difficult to grasp? Are you confused about where his opinion ends and where his understanding of the role of SCOTUS begins?
I get that you’re attacking this pathetic little hill and seeking to plant your flag on it, but geez…
You’re once again discovered to be a liar. I have said that a number of times in this thread. “Right now, Voter ID laws are constitutional.” Right now, Abortion is also a constitutional right. I’m sure that sits perfectly well with you, and you have no disapproval or disagreement whatever with every woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
The word “constitutional” has a number of meanings, as Max the Vool pointed out. Under two (or perhaps three) of these, Voter ID laws are unconstitutional. Under one of them, they most certainly are constitutional.
Your efforts to pretend there is only one definition of the term is weak, especially in light of your stated pro-life beliefs.
As above, kinda “yes and no.” I believe that voter ID laws that contain strong voter suppression content and especially those that were intended to suppress votes of one party over another are unconstitutional…under two (or perhaps three, or perhaps four) of the various offered definitions of the word and most definitely under the “equal protection” clause of the document itself.
Four U.S. Supreme Court Justices also stated that the Indiana Law was Unconstitutional. They were outvoted by five others, but I take some comfort for being in pretty good company in declaring my agreement with what they said.
And, as elucidator noted, this is all a silly side-show anyway, having little to do with the original complaint, that the Republicans are attempting to use these laws to suppress the votes of blacks, other minorities, students, and even members of the military. That’s pretty fucking pit-worthy!
The trouble with being vague or ambivalent or just reasonable about the issue that is it gives Bricker an opportunity to distill an obscure formulation where he can be technically correct.
The best kind of correct!
And of course this comes after he grudgingly admitted but seemingly immediately forgot that he didn’t have any evidence of what he was claiming - that dozens of people in this thread were maintaining that the laws were unconstitutional in all forms and regardless of any judicial rulings. I mean, he was talking like there were hundreds of examples - so many that even citing one was a waste of his precious time.
I knew, of course, that the majority of what you post is not verifiably factual, but I appreciate the concession.
The cry of the leftist. “I can’t refute your arguments, but I have OPINIONS! And my opinion is you’re an awful human being!”
Am I micro-agressing you, buddy? You need a safe space? A calm place built with recycled, carbon-neutral loclly sourced materials where you can say, “Most of us feel differently,” and be right?
Yes, your legal analytical skills are right up there with your first grade math skills.
Tell you what: you name the four Supreme Court justices that voted to find Indiana’s law unconstitutional, and if you can correctly do so, I’ll give $500 to a charity of your choice today.
But if you can’t find those FOUR justices that supposedly agreed with your view of Crawford v. Marion County, then you give $50 to a charity of my choice today.
Do we have a deal, genius?
Let’s take a break from Republiopathic Stupidity as Performance Art to ask a question about vote suppression.
Greg Palast alleges that millions of names have been compiled of (preferentially black or Hispanic) people voting twice. These are used to purge voter rolls, to turn away voters unlikely to vote for the Republiopaths.
Not only does this exclude peoplw like Joseph Black — who could imagine that more than one American has that name — but even people whose middle names don’t match.
What’s the straight dope on this? (Palast also alleges that thousands of black Floridans were purged similarly just before the 2000 election – an allegation which has been mentioned, with no rebuttal, here at SDMB)
It’s a trap! That case was decided 6-3, not 5-4.
But it seems that Trinopus’s point – that actual Supreme Court Justices agree with him – is still at least partially valid:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Justice David Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, filed a dissenting opinion, which would have declared the voter ID laws unconstitutional. Souter argued that Indiana had the burden of producing actual evidence of the existence of fraud, as opposed to relying on abstract harms, before imposing “an unreasonable and irrelevant burden on voters who are poor and old.”
Justice Stephen Breyer also filed a dissenting opinion arguing that Indiana’s law was unconstitutional. While he spoke approvingly of some voter ID laws, he found that Indiana’s procedures for acquiring an ID were too burdensome and costly for some low income or elderly voters.
[/QUOTE]
Methinks the legal-lookup bot found a 6-3 decision. Whippeee!! The question is, Why does it think this is such a big deal?
Unless it’s just playing sophomoric Gotcha, it may find it impressive that one of the human Justices occasionally votes with the Scumbags. If so, it’s a telling admission — showing that he understands the court has a moral or partisan split.
Just an illustration of the keen skills of reading, math, counting, and basic comprehension that dominates the reasoning abilities of Trinopus.
“I might be factually wrong, but I have morals!!! And stuff!”
Huh, fully one-third of the Supreme Court found that the law was unconstitutional. Not insignificant, I think.
But Roe v. Wade stands as a shining bulwark of unchallenged correctness, despite it being 5-4?
I have no love for Roe v. Wade results, but I always make certain that in disucssing it, I acknowledge it’s the law of the land.
Apparently that was an error on my part. If a 6-3 decision is meaningless, how much less meaning does a 5-4 one have?
Four judges found otherwise, huh? Not insignificant, I’m sure.
Your point escapes me. Even the people who you imply have the sole and exclusive right to use the terms “constitutional” and “unconstitutional” can disagree among themselves.
And your parade is well into the planning stages, I swear.
But Democrats haven’t been losing after the fact. Remember Democrats won in 2012 despite massive efforts at voter suppression by the Republican party. IIRC, you agreed that many of those methods were bad but were somehow able to distinguish voter ID laws as good (presumably because there is a case that covers voter ID laws) despite the fact that the vast majority of voter fraud revolves around absentee ballots.
In the aftermath of these voter ID laws, do you think the Supreme court would or should want to re-examine the assumption they made in their prior opinion?
You should read the constitution about the subject of voting. it leaves a shitload of discretion to the states. In fact we have 4 amendments to the constitution to abridge the state’s discretion on who can vote. A state cannot deny or abridge voting rights on account of race color or condition of previous servitude (15th amendment), gender (19th amendment), failure to pay a poll tax (24th amendment), or on account age for those who are over 18 (26th amendment). They further passed a law called the Voting Rights Act that was meant to counter all the more surreptitious ways of denying the vote.
Doesn’t this mean that while Voter ID laws are an affront to the constitution, other foundational documents and the ideals of our democracy itself the voter ID laws are not really unconstitutional unless they discriminate against race, gender, age or the payment of a poll tax?
They tried and tried to show racial discrimination and it was not easy. The concept of disparate impact hasn’t really bled into this area of the law.
In other news, Governor McAulliffe of Virginia is reinstating the voting rights of all of Virginia’s ex-convicts in a move that seems calculated to throw a few hundred thousand votes towards Hillary Clinton.
Is this move any less cynical than Voter ID laws?
Are ex-convicts, who have completed their sentences and been released from all probationary oversight, not fully citizens of the republic?
Also, how do you reckon Clinton gets “a few hundred thousand votes,” net, out of a little over 200,000 total voters?