I don’t know.
By that I mean you’ve linked to the Schoolhouse Rock “I’m Just a Bill,” song, which is indeed what is necessary for a federal law to come into existence.
But the confident declarations I’m talking about are the ones that claim a law can’t have the effect of making X legal voters’ voting more difficult unless the proponents can show that an equal X of illegal votes would be stopped. That’s a requirement that would challenge even Bob Dorough’s legendary composition skills.
When was that ever claimed as a necessary condition for the law to be passed or enforced? I can think offhand of a few instances where someone said in effect that this was a condition that should be established before the law is considered by an ethical legislator who actually cared about not creating more problems than he solved (and by implication, perhaps, of how that someone feels he or she would behave if ever elected to office and put in this situation), but this is of course an expression of idealism - I’m not sure who if anyone ever claimed it was actually part of the formal legislative process.
Is it possible the claimants you are describing exist solely in your imagination?
“In effect?”
I’d say that “in effect,” the reverse is true: they were omitting any mentions of “should,” in an effort to convey by tone, if not by explicit language, that this WAS the way laws must be judged.
But since I’m discussing tone, not explicit language, the answer is yes: it’s possible it’s in my imagination.
Well, that’d be a silly-billy thing for them to imply and for anyone to infer.
Not as much as you imply here, no.
The constant repetition of claims about what a law must have – mixed liberally with mentions of ‘constitutional’ or ‘poll tax’ when describing Voter ID – creates a generalized impression that somehow the Voter ID laws are not quite constitutional.
It is, in other words, a rhetor’s device to build support.
Am I? Isn’t this you:
Your ethical approach includes forcing a person without an ID with a current address to have another person vouch for their address in order to vote. I find that unethical. The Texas law that just got struck down only required a person to state that they couldn’t get an ID. Seems easier to me.
But whether or not something is “constitutional” is an opinion. For the typical American, though, the only time their opinions on the constitutionality of something matter are when they vote.
Superficially, your argument sounds like a pro-censorship one - “I know I’m not affected by this material, but there may be some ignorant people out there who could be.” If there’d been an outbreak of impressionable people reading this message board and then going on to appoint themselves as “voter security agents”, trying to protect voters from something or other… maybe you’d have a point that “a rhetor’s device” is something we should be concerned with.
That’s me, but your reading is still concentrated too narrowly on the “voter ID” thing. The “ethical approach” I refer to is the creation and maintenance of a specific nonpartisan governmental agency, Elections Canada, to manage things like voter rolls and district boundaries, i.e. it’s not under the direct control of the officials whose jobs depend on the outcomes of those elections, removing a significant temptation for unethical manipulation of those elections. It may well be that there are individual states who are even more relaxed about citizen qualification requirements than Elections Canada. Good for them. I was willing to take your word about Maryland voting, but your description of what happened in Texas sounds incomplete at best, so I’ll need a cite for that. The most recent case of a Texas judge striking down a voter law I know of is the August 2017 ruling of U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, on the basis that the struck law was based on a law that Ramos had earlier found to have “discriminatory intent.”
I may be misreading Ramos’s ruling, or you may be referring to a different ruling, but I’m not cutting you any more slack on this. Either bring cites in future or you may as well just declare victory in whatever little meaningless “gotcha!” game you were playing, because I’m moving on.
A thread often evolves and changes in its context, and its a good thing when trivial concerns like voting rights are set aside so that we can concentrate on the more important issue of proper and correct rhetorical form.
It discriminates against the friendless and anti-social!
And the homeless, but I’m sure they don’t mind. It’s not like any of them have ever done anything to merit being considered citizens, such as being army veterans or anything.
(Though I actually concede there are difficult problems with verifying the citizenship of the homeless. Assuming you care if noncitizens vote, they’re a knotty problem. I, er, kind of don’t care if they do, to be honest - though I’d prefer they didn’t vote twice. Or anyone, really.)
This is a good example of the fallacy of equivocation.
It’s an opinion in the sense that courts issue ruling styled, “The opinion of the court.” And it’s an opinion in the sense that it’s not a natural law, as opposed to, say, the number of hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water.
But it’s not an opinion in the sense that the general aspects of Voter ID laws not being constitutionally infirm are settled law.
And that’s precisely the rhetor’s trick here: to intimate that Voter ID laws ARE constitutionally infirm.
Can we say they’re poopy?
You’re really getting desperate. Of course it’s an opinion - it’s just that when it’s an opinion expressed by a particular government official (i.e. a judge presenting a ruling), it carries force of law behind it, whereas when it’s the opinion of a typical citizen, that citizen’s only expression of “force” is in letting his opinion inform his vote or filing a lawsuit claiming to have been damaged by an unconstitutional law, which will (eventually) get a judge’s ruling, describing the judge’s opinion of the matter. The rest of the time, the citizen can express his or her opinion freely but with no expectation of changing the laws by doing so.
There’s no fallacy of equivocation in play just because the word “opinion” could apply to the judge’s ruling *and *the citizen’s comment, unless you’re under the mistaken impression that I’m claiming the two circumstances are indistinguishable, in which case I think you need to read my comments more carefully and not project your own views onto mine while looking for “rhetor’s tricks”. If anything, you’re prevaricating because you’re trying to sneak in that “constitutionally infirm” reference at the end. Is there a practical difference between:
Is there an actual difference between these statements. i.e. anybody could say the (1), but the fancier verbiage in (2) is only supposed to be used by judges when formally ruling? Are we suppose to infer this difference? Are you trying some kind of lame rhetor’s trick, here?
It isn’t a trick, exactly. The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled yet, so the infirmity is still up in the air. As the baseball umpire said, “They ain’t nothing till I call them.” Schrodinger’s Constitution.
As a matter of fact, even once the Supreme Court has ruled…that isn’t the final word. A later court might reverse the decision. That depends a lot on the Presidents and the various Senates. They might enjoy a partisan majority and appoint/confirm Justices who rule one particular way…or another.
You’re currently celebrating a court decision that reversed a decision we celebrated. Fine for you, but please don’t deceive yourself that that makes it a matter of settled law, let alone constitutional reality. And most certainly don’t deny us the right to celebrate when/if a decision falls our way: you can’t have that joy both ways!
Circuit court decisions set precedent in their circuits.
So, is there a difference between:
Supreme Court decisions also set precedent…and can be overturned.
And, in fact, even circuit court decisions can set aside precedent, on the fig-leaf that “This case is slightly different than that case.” If the court is sufficiently activist, and if higher courts don’t hold them to account, nothing stops them from a reversal.
This is human activity, not mathematics. If the SC says, “Ceremonial deism does not violate the establishment clause,” then those of us who think it damned well does are SOL.
You’re riding on the high of a decision that went your way. Admit it – enjoy it, to be sure – but don’t pretend it’s “truth.” It’s just “law.” Tomorrow, the rest of us may be celebrating. The Rams moved back to Los Angeles; anything can happen.
SOL you may be, but as far as I know, you can still have the opinion that ceremonial deism is unconstitutional.
Or at least I assume you can. There seems to be some suggestion that you couldn’t before or afterward, and saying you do is some kind of verbal stuntwork, or linguistic chicanery or… what’s the phrase the kids are using these days… rhetor’s trick.
Exactly. My personal opinion and belief is that even ceremonial deism is prohibited by the Establishment Clause. I firmly believe that the Supreme Court acted in error in permitting this. (Also in giving corporations the right to donate money to political causes, calling it “speech.”)
There are certain ways in which these really are matters of opinion – and other ways in which they are matters of established law. Maybe the edges are kinda blurry. But we get to gripe! We get to hold our own views regarding constitutional interpretation.
What’s sad and scary is that the Justices themselves are free to express their opinions in their rulings, and sometimes they pull enormous boners. The fact that there are “liberal” and “conservative” wings of the court is, itself, a dead giveaway that this is not “political science” but, at least in part, arrant partisanship.