I daresay the U.S. had a chance to abandon or at least marginalize a lot of its base impulses regarding racism and superstition, but the Southern Strategy exploited and then sustained these impulses.
Seeing as how you refuse to recognize that the issue is about the implementation of voter ID laws and not the concept itself, I see little reason to participate in your little game.
I am an independent who is a little tired of the way some people use “liberal” and “Democrat” interchangeably, as if everyone who votes for a Democrat fits Limbaugh’s sneering and vicious straw man portrait of the Enemy Liberal, out to destroy America. What if a guy has a science education and understands that climate change is not a hoax, and that it is an absurd like to even suggest it is? Or understands that being a Bible beater doesn’t give someone authority over scientific conclusions? Or is well read enough to recognize a demagogue, or to wrap their head around the separation of church and state? What if someone simply has the math skills to grasp that cutting taxes does not increase revenue, or that the Earth is not 6000 years old? Does not being utterly credulous and easily led make someone a liberal? Really??
Anyway, I tend to vote D. The only time I voted for a Republican in a national election was Barack Obama.
As to when we became so hateful, it goes back to Colonial times. The elites purposefully sowed racial divisions to keep the people from finding common cause and overthrowing the elites, who have been fucking us over the whole time. That behavior has its roots in the Ancien Regime, which goes back to Rome or earlier… It is basically human nature.
All I can say is, watch out. The Bible beaters turned Rome into a Christian country, it turned against itself and fell within decades. The Bible beaters were happy to preside over a millennium of Dark Ages, and I think they’d like another.
Sure, but making it easy would defeat the real purpose, sadly for democracy.
What, btw, do you see as the problem that is solved by ID? In-person voter fraud is effectively non-existent, despite the campaign of lies. There is a worrisome problem with false or multiple registrations, and a known and substantially larger problem with absentee ballots, but there are no proposals from the ID-law proponents to deal with them.
Exactly, instead of talking about how to ensure our democracy is truly representative, we get pulled in to this weird debate about, I’m not exactly sure, but it sure is t about voter ID laws undermining democracy.
First, it is a response to your question as to what the point of voting is, if you live in a state where you don’t effect national politics.
And, to be honest, local politics can get pretty nasty. I am fortunate to live in the city I do, where people are a bit more reasonable. My business is in a township that has some real crazies.
I like going to my local city council meetings, but I’ve been to some of these township meetings to support friends or other business owners, and there is quite a bit of hate to be had.
Right, it is much more complicated, bt I like to boil it down to that. The people I elect in local politics have effects directly in my life, more direct effects than that of national or even state politics.
I also have far more influence over those than I do over state or local.
Do you feel that the state of Delaware has reasonable requirements?
:dubious:
Inconsistency, for one. That may not be a problem for you, but it is a problem for me. The idea that we look the other way when it’s a D state, but freak out in an R state is bothersome to me.
Those who believe we got “so hateful” after a long history of genteel political disagreement, would enjoy the chapter in Barbara Tuchman’s “The Proud Tower” about Tom Reed, the turn-of-the-century Republican Speaker of the House, and his successful battle to defeat Democratic efforts to stymie legislation by showing up in the chamber but refusing to acknowledge their presence during roll call, thus preventing the House from achieving a quorum. One day he decided to count them regardless, and the reaction was a sight to see (and hear). My favorite was the Texas Representative who said nothing but sat there ominously sharpening a large Bowie knife on his boot.
Anyway, my side is never partisan for the sake of obstruction, and my Congressman and Senators are models of ethical and patriotic behavior, unlike all of their colleagues. You people should really vote your reps out of office.
Once again, are you aware of what the voter ID laws in your state require?
Yeah, sure. When somebody asks me for my ID it doesn’t even cross my mind that they aren’t looking for a state issued ID, but, if some somewhat official document with Name and Address matches up with that on the voter rolls, fine. I’m a little disappointed that a utility bill, or paycheck passes muster, but hey, it’s something.
Basically whatever you’d need to buy cigarettes or hooch is what I’d prefer, since voting is WAY more important than that in my opinion, but I gosh I wouldn’t want to put anybody out.
You already pointed that out, so yes.
You are claiming that there is some hypocrisy here, because D states require voter ID, so how can they criticize R states?
I am pointing out that there is no hypocrisy, as D states require some sort of ID that shows residence, and R states are requiring Photo ID.
You know, I have a data point on this. A few years ago, on another site, I ran across quite a number of RW-types who told me that I thought of Barack Obama as my messiah. Your study sounds like BS, IME.
The difference is that the ‘we’ who got so hateful is not a group of politicians but huge segments of society at large.
I’ve long noticed on this board a tendency for my liberal brethren to point to Republican politicians as a refutation of or counterbalance to complaints made about the liberal populace at large.
Not the same thing. Not even remotely.
So you’re saying elected representatives aren’t representative of the people who elected them?
Judean People’s Front…[/sneer]
Sometimes half the people voted for the other guy. My district tends to be pretty close, but, because of how it is draped across the mountains, the Republican is going to win. By a percentage point or three in an open race, by ten or fifteen if it is the incumbent. That amounts to a lot of people who voted for the other guy.
Not at all. What I’m saying is that it’s the same as if some of the board’s liberals were arguing against the claim that they favor socialism and then I come in with a post from Maxine Waters forthrightly in favor of it and then behave as though that either nullifies their argument or proves it wrong. Clearly, Waters’ statement says nothing about what most of the country’s liberals favor, and it’s the same when some Republican politico’s comment or position is used to broad brush mainstream conservatives.
It’s a specious tactic and one that the board’s liberals use all the time.
Where are you getting the “Maxine Waters forthrightly in favor of [socialism]” hypothesis? Waters is a member of the Democratic Party and AFAICT has always been fully on board with a left-of-center version of its standard mixed-capitalist-economy approach.
You may be mixing up classic centralized-bureaucracy-commie-socialism with the sort of leftism-lite democratic socialism espoused by Bernie Sanders and some of his fellow members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Waters. That’s a melange of progressive positions that a lot of liberals do favor to some extent, but it’s far closer to the Republican Party—even to the Republican Party’s current wackadoodle incarnation—than it is to actual communist-type socialism.
You may also have been misled by various loopy rignt-wing media sites that can’t or won’t bother to tell the difference between generic progressives, democratic socialists, social democrats, etc., on the one hand, and outright Soviet-style communists on the other. Just because those media call a politician “socialist” doesn’t make it so.
In any case, it’s kind of telling that your attempted analogy with Republican politicians explicitly supporting specific right-wing positions, which you claim Republicans in general don’t agree with, is a generic hypothetical about a Democratic politician potentially endorsing a vaguely defined word that Republicans think sounds scary.
How are these “Republican politicos” achieving and maintaining their political offices if “mainstream conservatives” aren’t in fact supporting them, at least at the “broad brush” level?
Why are you and your fellow conservatives putting up with being represented by a bunch of right-wing extremists in your party whose positions you claim to find repugnant?
If you and “mainstream conservatives” in general resent being ideologically identified with your chosen and elected representatives because you don’t agree with their far-right ideology, then maybe you need to get some representatives who do a better job of representing you. If you don’t like being lumped together with the folks you picked to lead you, it’s on you to kick them out of your lump.
I’ve skimmed the thread, so apologies if this was mentioned upstream. We are “so hateful” now for the same reason that “chivalry is dead.” Chivalry as a concept is a social contract among elites, but is seldom observed in their dealings with the peasantry. By the same token, well-to-do elites (and in the US, this overlaps with white male Christian pretty neatly) have traditionally afforded one another a modicum of respect. Now that they are contending with the interests of women and minorities of many different types, they don’t feel constrained in their behaviors toward the representatives of these interests.
Ahem…here’s that loopy right-wing media site Snopes on the subject.
For the same reason that NOW members voted for Bill Clinton and that many people who detested Hillary voted for her. You go either with the candidate closest to what you want even if they’re still 80% away from it, vs. the candidate that will do 100% the exact opposite of what you want. Was it really necessary to spell that out?
See above.
Please. The Democratic party has been full of crooks and miscreants for…ever. And contrary to voters kicking them out the usual course of action is to keep voting them in until they get sent off to jail.
But all of this is really just sound and fury in an attempt to draw attention from or refute my comments to Miller. But not a word you’ve said has changed any of any of it. I might have used Waters’ name merely as a hypothetical and the truth of my comment would remain the same.