In what way is having a college ID related to voting qualifications?
Why don’t you ask Olentzero 'bout that?
Wait a tick, Karl Marx didn’t write Common Sense? You mean it was Engels?
No such thing in history. In physics, yes. Zinn was attempting a breakthrough, an alternative to an American history sanitized for your protection. Well, maybe not your protection. I think he succeeded, and if his work stirs debate, so much the better. A hundred flowers bloom, thousand schools contend, that sort thing.
I am nothing but a fan of the American Revolution. For its time and place, nothing short of a secular miracle. But we need not pretend it was accomplished by angels, or selfless men anxious to rid themselves of power. Personally, I think the miracle of checks and balances came about because nobody trusted power, but few of them trusted each other any further than Al Hamilton could throw “'Lil Jimmy” Madison.
What I mean is to address a natural surprise that voting rights are not as fully Constitutionalized as one might reasonably expect. But if the stunning ambiguity and contradiction of the Second Amendment is anything to go by, perhaps its best that they didn’t.
You could also ask, “In what way is having a motorcycle operator’s endorsed drivers license related to voting qualifications?” Both your question and mine obscure the answer by focusing attention on the specific type of ID. In fact, having a state-issued college ID is simply a form of identification that’s issued under rigorous enough state-controlled conditions to qualify as reliable ID.
Obviously the observation is relative. As compared to the general run of American voters, this board is leftist.
As compared to the average European, the board probably leans center-right.
As compared to Olentzero, it’s positively fascist.
Worth noting that there is one potential course that still remains for opponents of PA voter ID other than winning over one of the Republicans on the now 3-3 PA Supreme Court: the DOJ bringing suit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That doesn’t seem likely at the moment, but they did require PA to turn over a bunch of information that, judging by the Commonwealth’s conduct at the trial, they probably did not have or could not produce.
Forgive me for misreading your comment.
It never happened.
Can you elaborate on this? What information and what conduct specifically? Are you referring to them stipulating that no in-person fraud has happened or is likely to happen?
I’m referring to the 16 points of information sought in the DOJ’s letter [pdf warning].
Of special interest to fans of political cunning, skulduggery, and the Rovian arts of rat-fuck…and who isn’t?..this article posted by Talking Points Memo (without which no citizen dare hope to be well-informed).
It concerns the rise and rise of the Fraudulent Fraud Squad (not their real name), and concerns the efforts of a hearty band of Republican operatives to alert a slumbering America to the grave threat of voter fraud. Many of your favorite characters make appearances…Hans Spastickovsky, Michelle Malkin, and many others less familiar to fans of slime mold.
Of special interest to our subject, the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) which…
Further…
Well, no, one doesn’t scream about voter fraud when one wins, now does one?
Of special local interest in the People’s Republic of Minnesota…
The article is chock-a-block with links to sources, documents, all that sort of good stuff. Want to know how “voter fraud” became the obsessive figment of a tiny Republican imagination? Start here. Joe Bob **'luc **says “Check it out!” Immediately. At once! Put that down, and go read it. Tremble, and obey!
See also the Wikepedia page for this organization…
Were they now? The most respectable (if that) arguments in favor of your position relate to *motivation *to vote, performing the “reasonable” (your word, often repeated, self-justifying) means to obtain the ID you purport to require. When pressed, proponents have claimed, in effect, that if you don’t care enough to get an ID, you don’t care enough to vote, and some have gone so far as to play the “they’re just so lazy and stupid they shouldn’t even be allowed to vote” card.
Rationalizations for poll taxes included that a motivated person, or not lazy and stupid, would be able to afford it, and someone who lacked such motivation should not be allowed to. Rationalizations for literacy tests went directly to the lazy-and-stupid point.
But poll taxes, literacy tests, and ID laws (for a problem that effectively doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be addressed by those laws) were and are all still plainly manifestations of Jim Crow racism laws in particular, and class warfare more broadly. Someone able to grasp the meaning of earlier generations’ attempts at denying democracy *should *be able to grasp the current one as well.
There simply are no arguments in favor of these laws that can withstand either logical or attitudinal scrutiny, even from a bunch of pseudonyms on a damn Internet board. Let’s not pretend there are two sides to this argument. There aren’t.
And this just in…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444270404577607160943756548.html
(Note: quote is taken from Daily Kos, referencing the article cited, but the article is behind a pay wall. Cite offered in deference to concerns about liberal cooties…Further quotes are from Kos)
And why, you may well ask?
To date, there is no indication that she was kidding.
So what can the Justice Department do in response to this kind of stonewalling? What are their options short of sending in federal troops?
Is there some law that Pennsylvania officials are flouting? What would be the possible justification for federal troops?
Try to remain calm, Bricker, as I very much doubt if federal troops are a plausible option, or that friend davidm imagines that they are.
None. That’s why I said “short of”. It was hyperbole to make a point.
States have some level of obligation (not necessarily legal, but ethical) to be cooperative on an issue like this. Why would Corbett balk at handing over the requested documentation? As far as I can see, the Justice Department is asking for existing documentation and is not asking for any new studies or new compilations of information.
Here’s the letter requesting the information: http://bradblog.com/Docs/DOJ-Letter-on-Pennsylvania-Voter-ID-Law_072312.pdf
So why is this such a problem for Corbett? Surely all existing documentation exists as computer files and emailing the files or burning them to a CD should not be a huge drain on resources. I work in IT and I’ve had to help in complying with similar requests due to court cases a couple of times over my career and it’s not difficult or time consuming and consumes very few resources.
I don’t know how accurate his gripe about “tens of thousands of documents” is but even if it’s accurate it’s not difficult to find and copy that number of documents with modern information technology. It sounds like he’s simply throwing around big numbers to make it sound like the state is being unduly burdened by an oppressive Justice Department.
So it seems like Corbett is being stubborn either for the sake of being stubborn or in an attempt to run out the clock. As a public official he should be willing to comply with Justice Department requests, especially when they don’t impose an unreasonable burden.
Actually I was considering storm troopers. 
I’m sure the well-regulated militia is up to the task.
Why, it seems to me that transparency on those facts and records would be a marvelous boon to voter confidence! Like that “780.000” number, now that just has to be an exaggeration, its probably much lower than that, perhaps only a few dozens of thousands. But, you know, in a very close election, that could prove to be very important, as the Counselor has so tirelessly insisted.
Shirley anyone truly dedicated to the sacred principle of voter confidence would be eager to have all these facts and evidence before the public eye! So that all these silly notions be put to rest.