Man, Ohio is FUCKED UP!

[Spavined_Gelding]

I am posting as an ex-Ohioan, a product of the Logan County Public School System who as a kid thought that the death of Bob Taft was a harbinger of the Apocalypse. As a kid I don’t think I knew a single Democrat – there may have been a few in our little town of 1200 but they all kept quiet.

Point One is that it is futile to argue with our friend Bricker when he gets into nit-picking mode. It is a lot like cross-examining a psychologist. You immediately get into a discussion of semantics and you get precious little useful information.

Point Two is that the suppression of voter turn out is a pretty standard GOP tactic. The country club guys and farmers who use to be the mainstay of Republican power (now joined by the publicly pious) cannot hope to make up an electoral plurality if all the people of an opposite persuasion turn out. The more people who can be scared away from the poles by negative attacks and the more people who can be turned away from the poles by technical objections to qualifications the better. This is why the GOP so strenuously resisted efforts to make voter registration simple and convenient. What the GOP wants is a restricted electorate. The fewer people who do vote the better chance that the party of privilege, the party of the free lunch, the party of public social convention will be successful is achieving its apparent goal of a tax free America with wide open Robber Barron capitalism.

Point Three is that it should be no surprise that there is an effort to restrict the franchise in as strategic a state as Ohio. When it comes to prevailing in a political contest as important as this one we are very much is a situation where any tactic and all tactics to suppress and to turn out the vote will be used. The best response to all this is to give the efforts and any hint of underhandedness full publicity in the hope the proponents will have a sense of shame (unlikely) and that publicity will energize the targets of disenfranchisement.

Incidently, what has happened in Alabama (I think) where some guy has challenge the eligibility of a most of the Spanish sur-named residents of his county? The last I heard there was supposed to be a hearing of the election commissioners last Thursday night to allow the challenge registered voters to show that they were eligible or for the challengers to put up or shut up.

[Spavined_Gelding]

To follow up, here is a story from this morning’s Washington Post on the question.

[Liberal]

Since Democrats have been willing — indeed, enthusiastic — participants in the formulation and passage of onerous ballot access laws and other disenfranchising practices (such as bipartisan debate commissions) designed to stifle efforts of third party, independent, and dissenting candidacies, I don’t think they should preach about the evils of disenfranchisement.

[Brainiac4]

*Re: my use of “strawman” *

@Bricker

It’s not a strawman. Do you understand what a strawman argument is?

A strawman argument is when I imply, or state, that YOU have argued “X”, and then I rebut “X.” It’s so named because I have built a false man, a straw man, of your argument to defeat, rather than actually addressing your argument.

The murder business is an analogy - it’s intended to highlight the fact that old laws are not, per se, undesirable laws. Now, this may be a valid analogy, or you may find reasons to distinguish the analogy from the real facts, and expose it as a False Analogy, another type of logical fallacy. But it’s by no means a strawman.

I do indeed understand what a strawman is. I saw your characterization of the position as “you’re saying that all old laws are bad and useless” (a strawman) rather than "but see, not all old laws are bad and useless. In reviewing the course of the discussion I see that was not your intent. My apologies.

Re: 80# paper

@Bricker

I think in the panoply of voter registration sins, that’s a very tiny one, especially if the local boards approved the form and the voters were relying on that approval. I think that’s the only example, in the entire list, of an official abusing his discretion, and I agree that forms which substantially comply with the requirements and were approved by the local boards should be accepted.

If, as you have noted, you agree with the reversal of this, why then did you originally celebrate the full list of tactics, saying “good on the GOP for working within the law to ensure that only legitimate voters get to vote”? Is this a shift in your position, or were you unclear, or did you miss this item the first time around?

*Re: Democrats and illegal voters *

@Bricker

Of course. The vast majority of Democrats are honest and reputable citizens, and have no desire to encourage illegal voting. I was specifically referring to that tiny subset of poor and befuddled Democrats that seek to register illegal voters. That’s why I said, “Too bad for the poor befuddled Democrats, who can’t get their illegal voters to the polls in such high proportions.” No harm and no foul to the vast majority of Democrats who, as a matter of course, eschew such tactics.

Your original sentence had two characteristics that indicated it applied to all Democrats, not a subset. First, the presence of the comma, which prevents the qualifiers (“poor befuddled” and “who can’t get their illegal voters to the polls”) from combining across it. Second, it followed your statement earlier in the paragraph that “…the Democrats were apparently too stupid…”

I’m apparently not alone in this perception.