So you win by default by having a silly point refuted? Okay.
Regards,
Shodan
I’d say sometime between 1776 – or whatever the 18th or 19th century year of enactment happened to be in a particular state – and this 14th year of the 21st century. The contributing factors being improved levels of education, general social progress and enlightenment, and the evolution of a rationally grounded pragmatic approach to public policy rather than a primitive emotional one. It’s called “progress”, and some of us think it’s a terrific concept. Though in some places it’s taking longer than we thought.
So your move is to confirm my observation that no one has yet provided a single pragmatic reason for felon disenfranchisement. Thank you.
But they waaaaant it! They wantit they wantit they WANT IT! ! WAAAAAHHH!
…and so forth.
No, you are confusing “not agreeing with the reasons given” with “not being given a reason”.
Regards,
Shodan
Give me a reason and we’ll see. So far it’s been “punishment is punishment” and “we want to do it”, both of which strike me as lacking anything I’d consider reasoned.
My problem with you invoking things like “general social progress and enlightenment,” is that I think we have codified a way to indicate our general assent or dissent.
For example, suppose I say that general social progress and enlightenment mandates that we no longer kill unborn children. You, I assume, don’t agree.
How do we figure out whose view triumphs?
It’s a message board discussion. Popularity, if there’s any kind of triumph to be had.
If we go by the most use of Latin in posts, Bricker’s got a solid lead. We’re counting on Richard Parker to close that gap.
I’m waiting for the swimsuit competition, myself.
Well, if Bricker was asking how a bill becomes a law, I’ll happily refer him to the ground breaking case of * Schoolhouse v. Rock *, majority decision written by Justice A. Bill.
Pars ipsa loquitur.
Yes, and that’s been the key to whatever success your views have had. You’re advancing solidly liberal views on a solidly liberal message board. If that’s the standard, then I agree: you’ve proved your case. Down with felon disenfranchisement!
See post 209.
Your turn.
Huh. One rarely sees such an articulate expression of sour grapes. Kudos.
I presume you mean whose view triumphs in the real world of policy making. This is getting into deep waters of political philosophy but I think I can give you a brief answer.
Essentially what you’re asking is, how can we mitigate the fact that democracy is, as Churchill said, the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time – or in other words, how can we mitigate the fact that so many voters are so often drawn into a giant echo chamber of stupid?
Let me suggest three ways that have actually worked in the real world. Perhaps there are others.
First you lay out objectively factual arguments and evidence-based consequences of proposed policies, and you try really hard to distinguish them from the garbage of knee-jerk emotion, blind ideology, and superstitious claptrap. You enlist the aid of knowledgeable experts where applicable to help objectively guide the decision process. This is where public access to a free flow of unbiased information is so critical, but that’s a whole different and very large discussion (some of which we’ve had in the Fox News thread, if you get my drift).
Second, you observe what other jurisdictions are doing – other counties, other states, other nations. You observe their successes and failures and try to benefit from their learnings. What you particularly do NOT do is ignore those learnings when they run massively against your particular ideology and just declare that they don’t apply to you, because you’re special, dammit, and you’re going to do whatever the hell you want.
Third, we have all benefited from the usually well-considered judicial rulings in our high courts, which by considering constitutional issues and broad perspectives on basic human rights have often acted to protect the public interest when legislatures are in the grip of ideological fervor. Thus there was Roe v. Wade, while in Canada in 1988 the Supreme Court swept away all abortion laws as unconstitutional, and later declared laws against same-sex marriage to be a fundamental violation of basic civil rights, and today the UK faces a non-binding ruling by the ECHR against their felony disenfranchisement laws.
It seems to me that all three of these methodologies frequently tend to run against the desires of typical social conservatives, so they seem to generally prefer to circle their wagons, ignore the outside world, and do whatever the hell they want.
They should be able to vote while incarcerated. They’re wards/slaves of the state, they should have some small say in how the state is run.
I’ll look into how Canada (and Maine and Vermont) handle it, because I’m curious if a prisoner votes in the prison’s venue or in the venue he lived before incarceration or at the address he would presumably live at upon release… a small town with a large prison could have similar issues as one with a large university - residents outnumbered by a transient population with no long term local concerns.
Canadian procedure (excerpt):
Prisoners vote ten days before the general public does. Source. The body politic has not suffered a symbolism shortage of which I am aware.
I am skeptical of your allegiance to these methods.
Because Voter ID has been approved by the Supreme Court, enjoys strong public support, is in use in most states and most nations, and yet clearly none of these have managed to persuade the liberal crowd of its value.
It’s to keep people with the mental thought process and the morals of a politician from voting same.