I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1)

The BBQ Pit
1581

Anyone who knows anything about implementing a change knows that you have to have a clear reason to do so. Some vague benefit of a Universal ID to bumpkins living in the backwoods of Texas won’t get much support and probably generate a lot of backlash.

On the other hand, if you really want a universal ID, then what better excuse to use is the oppositions own legislation? It is a clear message as to why requiring an ID to vote leads to the requirement of everyone having an ID (everyone who wants to vote, that is. You’ll still have tinfoil hatters not wanting to get one).

Who is implementing these new laws but these same representatives of which you speak? The ones who were elected before the stricter requirements for voter ID, btw.

You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet!*

1582

John, the Bush Administration found around a hundred cases of voter fraud over five years.

And 10% of the voting public doesn’t meet the voter ID requirements. So we have 30 million or so against 100. I was being nice when I said ten thousand times, that’s 300 thousand times.

Admittedly, not every state has the ID requirements and so on, so the number isn’t super accurate, but it seems to be in the correct order of magnitude or three.

Now you just said:

Does that apply to your denial of how many cases of voter fraud we have? Because the evidence we have for it says around 100 cases in five years.

Repeat again, the evidence we have says around 100 cases in five years.

Since that’s the case, doesn’t it matter that you’re keeping tens of millions of people from voting to stop 100 cases of fraud every five years? This would be a bad idea if it the numbers were equal.

Surely you can admit that, right John? I know you want to give the 'pubbies every possible break since the board skews left, but seriously. Bubbie. C’mon.

1583

No message; accidently posted before I finished composing.

1584

I guess if you want to call the right to vote that soldiers and civilians have died for eggs, that’s correct.
What you aren’t considering is that the Republicans are generating an advantage for themselves. Which makes undoing that advantage more and more unlikely with every election. Don’t you get that? Republicans will never allow universal ID because it would hurt their chances at the polls. And if you’re suggesting that you can trust their better natures, they’re the ones causing the problem that they are refusing to fix. It is in their interest to keep as many poor people as possible out of the booth.

So this isn’t a break a few eggs scenario. This is a self-feeding cycle.

1585

Well, no. Exposing people to different viewpoints is a consequence usually associated with educational processes, but it’s not the same damn thing. You went to school, probably had, say, a few economics classes. Did they teach those by exposing you to summaries of Adam Smith, J. S. Mills, Locke, Keynes, Rawls? Throw in a quote from Marx and aphorism from von Mises? Bit of commentary from Hayek?

Or maybe they concentrated a bit on the theories and their bases, and gave you classroom time for discussion. It doesn’t really matter if you wouldn’t have ordinarily chosen to educate yourself or sit through those lectures; had you not done one or the other, you wouldn’t have been educated about the subject and summary opinions wouldn’t have made you so.

You said earlier “I was adding to what Bricker was saying to elucidator…” in relation to that speculation, and then you said “when posters in this thread stop saying things like ‘if people knew what theses laws really do…’, then I’ll stop posting factual information that proves them wrong.” So forgive me for taking that to mean you thought you were disproving his speculation.

Why would I seek another opinion poll, when I’ve pretty well established my lack of interest in how a representative group of poorly informed voters responds to this sort of polling?

1586

I’ve considered it and rejected it, which I’ve stated many times. The law makes sense, now it is your turn to either leverage it to your advantage, or to continually whinge about a fait accompli.

1587

And “we” (whose “turn” it apparently is) have a pretty good GOTV (“get out the vote”) effort in presidential years, but “leverage the new unfair rules to your advantage” manages to be both cynical and nonsensical in a “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” sort of way. Congratulations.

1588

Hilarious. And here you are concerned about a small group of people who, for the most part, are either too lazy or stupid to get an ID in order to add their ‘informed’ opinion to the gestalt.:rolleyes:

1589

Why is their opinion on this issue illegitimate but their opinion on who should be governor sacred?

1590

You’re right counselor, I’m not confused at all. I will note that, although the Pit certainly allows gratuitous insults, it doesn’t require them. But you knew that. You resort to them because you just don’t have anything worthwhile to say.

1591

Their opinions are largely uninformed, and their voting choices as well. This is a separate issue from voting rights. I don’t have much respect for the major media sources of journalism, nor for the performance of either public or private schools in America regarding the teaching of civics or the sciences. But I do know we’re not going to fix any of those failings in this country by suppressing or restricting voting rights.

That you see some sort of hypocrisy or contradiction in this is more an indictment of Canadian education than a clever critique of my character. Enjoy your disdain for my “lazy or stupid” countrymen, you enlightened creature.

1592

Those polls got me to thinking, especially that part about how many Republicans think “voter fraud” is common. Meaning what, perzackly? Do they think that trivial incidents of voter fraud occur, but are of no real significance? Or has “voter fraud” become a part of the Republican mythos, an essential part of a belief system? I talked about this earlier in tones of mockery and dismissal, but maybe not.

Cherished Republican myth is their delusion of majority, that all real Americans agree with them. The elections of recent years ought to have dispelled that ghostly mist, especially Bush/Gore, where the “winner” won by minus half a million votes. And proceeded to govern as though given a landslide mandate.

(Did you hear that speech, by the way, the one Bush gave about how he recognized that the majority of American voters did not choose him, and he would be mindful of that lack, and adjust his modest program accordingly? No? Neither did I.)

So how do they explain it, amongst themselves, how could a nation, that is “basically center right”, as we hear so very, very often…how is it that the elections do not reflect such a view?

Could it be “voter fraud”? The number of Republicans who believe that the Dems are sending hordes of illegal voters to the polls has to be non-zero, if only because so many Republicans believe other things that are provably batshit. How many, I wonder, believe that?

The poll cannot help me, it makes no clear distinctions (so far as I can tell) between incidental and rare voter fraud, and a massive lefty conspiracy to thwart the people’s will. This would at least somewhat account for the furious intensity with which Republicans demand immediate action, absolutely and positively before the next election, emergency, emergency, aaaaarroooga!

Some Republicans, no doubt, see this simply as hard-ball realpolitik: trim away just enough Dem votes to win the coming elections. It has the tone of cold cynicism I’ve grown to expect from the corporate wing of the party. But what about the True Believers, the inmates who now hold the keys to the asylum? What do they believe?

This poll gives a hint, Republicans are about twenty percent more likely to believe that “voter fraud” is common or somewhat common. This is interesting, in a cognitive dissonance sort of way, seeing as how the Republicans have spent at least ten years and a metric buttload of money trying to root out voter fraud, which has proved to be a colossal combination snark hunt and clusterfuck. A piddling investment of evidence and a wholesale return in certainty. Put simply, there isn’t enough evidence of massive voter fraud to fill a midget’s thimble.

Can it be that a major motivating factor here is a widespread belief that cherishes the myth of a right-wing America to such a degree that it must find a rationale for election results? And it has seized upon voter fraud like a starving dog on a pork chop? When they answer that voter fraud is common, do they mean nickel and dime trivia, or a massive leftist conspiracy of illegal voters?

Merciful Og, just how crazy are these people? As always, I am pleased when I can answer a question at once, with certainty and without hesitation. I don’t know.

1593

:slight_smile:

1594

Because opinions are a dime a dozen, but voting is as close to sacred as our secular Republic has. Rather the point, really, its sacredness is precisely why it must be protected from the machinations of cynics. Supporting such corruption, excusing it, bad enough, but gloating over it? Can’t even begin to comprehend.

1595

To the contrary, I’ve laid out the principles on which my conclusion rests. You disagree with them; you cannot pretend they don’t exist.

1596

Yeah, excuse me? Lt. 'luc Columbo, again, yeah, sorry to bother you, just one more question and then I’ll leave you alone, but this has been bothering me, going round and round… Say, this coats a bit too well pressed, you have something more frumpy I can wear…

What’s bothering me is where the old time Republican strategists are with all of this. Is this really smart politics, or the prelude to a Pyrrhic victory/disaster of major proportions?

Numero uno, they can’t keep this up forever. What further laws to hamper the Dems can they pass, they can’t make them illegal. (Note to self: check with Bricker, make sure that is, in fact, illegal and unConstitutional) So, then what?

The demographics were already trending against them, slow but sure. This is going to piss off huge numbers of black voters, mos’ def. Already gone, you say? What about the black voters who weren’t pissed off enough to vote. Tell someone they can’t do something, surest way in the world to make them want to.

Hispanic voters can’t be thrilled. Even without specific accusations, they are likely to feel that the cloud of suspicion fostered by Republicans is an injury. Ah, that’s ok, your Latin types are a lot like Texans that way, quick to forgive an injury, just as soon’s they get even. White moderates and liberals who sympathize with them are almost all on board all ready, but is it going to help anything to rile up those that aren’t?

And the pendulum. Which will swing, life is change, how it differs from the rocks. Unless the Republicans have a plan for permanent hegemony (the horror…the horror…), sooner or later the Dems get in again, in the various states. And remember: they didn’t start this fight. Sooner or later, its gonna be their turn.

(Were up to me, I’d go straight for a full tilt, balls to the wall voter registration drive, with verified ID made available and convenient to whomsoever. Go the extra mile, reach out to the disenfranchised, verify them, register them, and give them The Card. It does my heart good to imagine how relieved our tight righty brethren and sistren will be, once they know that all of those thousands of new voters have rock solid ID! No more voter fraud, halleluja and frabjous day! They are just gonna be tickled half to death!..)

Maybe I got the wrong end of this, thinking about this as Republican strategy, born of minds vast, cool, and unsympathetic. Because attach all these points, and this isn’t very smart, long term. This is feeding your seed corn to the chickens, to get eggs to feed the pigs. This is sinking your retirement fund into a Nick Cage movie. This is Alamo style strategic planning.

And all of this happens even if it works, even if they gain a distinct advantage in this next election. What happens if it doesn’t? What if they try to pull this shit and they lose anyway? The trajectory of the shit will intersect the locus of the fan.

1597

What you are not considering is that they are allowed to do this, and that the majority of people polled are quite happy with them doing this.

As for the argument that ID needs to be universal, they are giving ID away free, and by law have to. If people choose not to take advantage of that, they are only hurting themselves. It’s not the government’s place to nanny everybody, it’s the individual’s place to take some fucking responsibility.

And don’t repeat the crap about having to travel 20 miles and spend a whole day to get it. How long is the ID valid for? At minimum it will be 4 years, but if it’s like everywhere else, 10 years is more likely. One day out of even 4 years, to get something for free, is an utterly trivial sacrifice.

1598

If “ha ha” were a principle, Nelson Muntz would be the most principled character in fiction.

1599

Those “principles” he claims do indeed exist, but only the imagination of the party that tells him what to think.

He’s who **Shodan **would be with a high-school education.

1600

Right.

Sure.

And when voting districts are gerrymandered to help Democrats, you also rise in righteous indignation?

No, you don’t. Your claimed principles don’t exist. Your real principle is: help your favored political advocates.

And that’s fine with me.