State GOP leaders are putting a new voter ID requirement at the top of their legislative priorities, saying they fear that illegal immigrants are being registered to vote.
House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, pointed to “potentially thousands of those registrations out there, so it is important that we protect the integrity of this next election,†he said.
But there’s no evidence of illegal immigrant voters undermining the polls in Kansas — not one documented case.
Of far greater concern is the certainty that new photo ID requirements actually would dampen turnout by legitimate U.S. citizens. The fact is, many elderly who don’t drive and low-income residents have trouble producing or locating the right kind of identification.
Shouldn’t the goal be to help more people vote, not make it more difficult for them?
Vote ID supporters need to offer more proof that there is a real fraud problem. So far, it just sounds like more immigrant fearmongering.
179 Comments
You mean voter suppression might be on the KS GOP list? That would be a new priority, wouldn’t it?
All I care about is getting rid of the “fancy” electronic ballot boxes. I want to fill in a bunch of circles and then watch them being counted in front of (no matter how long it takes).
This entire issue is a bunch of fabrications from both sides. One side says we need ID’s because of “potential” voter fraud–that has never been proven. The other side claims that requiring ID’s will decreasing voting participation among “certain” groups. Another claim with absolutely no basis in fact, just supposition.
Two opposing views–neither of which has any type of fact or proof to back them up. Oh boy, let’s waste lots of time, taxpayer money, and effort on a total NON ISSUE.
“The fact is, many elderly who don’t drive and low-income residents have trouble producing or locating the right kind of identification.”
BULLSQUAT!! How do you cash a S.S. check without I.D. ???
“Of far greater concern is the certainty that new photo ID requirements actually would dampen turnout by legitimate U.S. citizens”
Try “to offer more proof that there is a real ” problem with voter supression due to having to offer the same type of ID to vote as is needed to cash a check.
“Shouldn’t the goal be to help more people vote, not make it more difficult for them?”
No, the goal should be to insure the integritty of the voters and of the voting equipment.
If you aren’t responsible enough to be able to produce a valid picture ID, you are not responsible enough to be casting a vote.
Taz you ever watch Cpsan? Kansas is just following the Congress and Senates lead, if they are not passing meaningless Resolutions they are passing laws that are based on “Maybe, kind of, might go’n, could someday, if the sun comes up in the West, If a Terrorists name happens to be Joe, if they mail a letter in Pakistan and it is routed through Bombay on its way to Iraq and happens to come with in the spherical rotation of the sun at night and carried by a postman name Fred. Bills all day long when their not arguing over who thought of some silly thing first. No wonder nothing important gets done!
Isn’t Voter suppresion like they propose with the voters ID a form of voters fraud. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard the Republicans come up with, well one of the most ridiculous anyway. I don’t think we have a problem with illegals trying to vote, I think if we had that problem it would be apparent to the public, because we’re the ones going out to the polls, not the crooked corporate fascists.
Outlander, so you are a believer that the majority of America is too stupid to vote. Also a big supporter of the electoral college? I think the Eagle is right, peoples indivdual vote dosen’t count for very much to begin with, so we should encourage the system to get more people voting, not suppress it.
I would guess the reason for voter registration ID is the same reason Welfare workers want ID now.
That is, people were/are using the names of children that weren’t theirs to get benefits. People were using addresses that weren’t theirs and they never lived to show a depressed neighborhood – to get more benefits. Lot of fraud out their in this world, including Medicaid fraud where there are Medicaid wranglers that round up people, tell them how to fake an illness, so the Wrangler, the doctor and the fake victim can collect money that should have never been spent.
Voter fraud, of course it exists. Not hearing or reading about something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
“Outlander, so you are a believer that the majority of America is too stupid to vote.”
No WE, not the majority. But being able to come up with a photo ID is a reasonable measure to prevent fraud, and additionally is a good test of responsibility. Personally, I don’t want my vote diluted by fraud and people that don’t have a clue.
“JIM CROW” BY ANY OTHER NAME! Rep. Nuefeldt is nothing but a rehashof the KKK in kansas.
The Courts will probably support any law we come up with, in this regard:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010908R.shtml
Jim..
How is this a “Jim Crow” law. Are you saying that blacks do not have id’s? Are you claiming they are forbidden from having id’s? Are you saying having to show an id will prevent blacks from voting?
If you are saying those things..then prove it. This is a bogus issue, on both sides. There is absolutely NO verifiable proof of any of this garbage.
The people of Kansas aren’t as stupid as the CONs think they are.
No way are they going to have an intrusive government law forced down their throats to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.
Michigan requires photo ID – or you have to sign an affidavit. Seems kind of pointless. Does not hamper voter turnout though. This is our second year with the restriction.
Why bother? Seriously, the leadership has about a million other things they could be focusing on and they’re worried about illegal aliens voting?
On a list of priorities for a person who has entered our state illegally, do they honestly believe that voting ranks anywhere on the list? I would think that procuring, food, shelter and money would be up there, but voting? We can barely get citizens to do it. Why would there be a rush of illegal persons presenting themselves in a situation where their status may be revealed? Doesn’t make much sense Mr. Speaker.
Is an ‘honest’ vote important in this country or not?
I think we can all agree the answer is absolutely YES, right?
Unless of course someone WANTS to illegally alter an accurate vote outcome.
Then how can anyone with any honesty say we should not know the person voting is in fact the person they say they are, and in fact entitled to vote?
One has to have identification to do anything in this country anymore, and rightfully so with all the fraud present. It makes a mockery of the vote to not require people show they are rightfully entitled to vote.
Evidence of voter fraud is difficult to show if there is no means to catch them…pretty basic concept don’t you agree?
How do you catch them if there is no requirement to prove legibility? You can’t.
It is no hardship to have some type of identification to vote as identification is so universal a requirement for any transaction or activity. What individual could even be capable of voting and not have identification?
There is an agenda going on here, a very dishonest one, among those advocating no system to insure and require an honest vote process. Even if someone, somewhere, were left out it is their problem for not taking action to comply, and the result of not guaranteeing an honest vote is much much worse and would destroy the credibility of the vote and create chaos.
As someone who works with Hispanics on a regular basis at a financial institution you can be assured
that the “illegals” that are out there go out of there way to avoid scutiny. They want to stay off the radar. Anytime an issue comes up about proving
citizenship and or getting documentation to open an
account that is the last you hear from them. So I agree with the idea that the voter id will only keep legitimate people from voting. Also how does one who wants to vote by mail show their ID?
dave
Posted January 15, 2008 at 10:33 am
“They want to stay off the radar. Anytime an issue comes up about proving citizenship and or getting documentation to open an account that is the last you hear from them.”
GOOD !!! That’s what we want and if that would protect the vote that’s GREAT.
In most cases and states, a current driver’s lis. is the main ID required to register to vote. Question—- How many people with fake ID (driver’s lis.) have registered to vote?? Until we get a secure ID, and use the E-Verify system for preemployemnt screens by employers we will never HAVE THE ANSWER.
John,
I am afraid there are many that don’t want us to have the answer. Their political belief system is such that the end they believe is best justifies anything to get there even fraud, lying and deception.
Dave – They don’t have to show their ID when voting by mail. However, since their ballot is sent to their address, with their name on it, I guess they just assume that the person sending in the ballot is the person who requested it and is registered at that address. And that is apparently the loophole to the ID problem anyway, mail ballots. No proof of ID needed then.
Yes John, absolutely, after getting a fake ID, the very first thing I would do is vote. :::eye roll:::
Jobs, food, car insurance…screw that. I’m going to go to the election office and register to vote. I’m going to participate in an election rather than buying a quart of vodka to take to my friend’s party this weekend, even better, maybe I’ll sign up for military service.
Back to reality here folks. I think there is a gross overestimation of the urge to vote here. IMHO, illegal aliens are very, VERY unlikely to be voting for the reasons I have stated previously. And people who are getting fake id’s, I can nearly guarantee you aren’t doing it so they can rush to the nearest polling place. They’re either trying to get a job, a place to live, or a case of beer, not vote.
“How do you cash a S.S. check without I.D. ???”
Direct deposit.
You have to have some form of ID in order to register to vote, either a state ID #, or the last 4 digits of a SS #. If you’ve registered to vote, then you receive your voter registration card prior to election day with your polling place listed. Upon arrival at said polling place, you have to announce your name, and then sign next to your registration info in the book. If your information, (ID # or SS #) have not been verified up until the point you sign your name at the polling place, then you MUST provide identification in order to cast a ballot.
I know it’s not fool proof, but let me toss something out and see if the cat licks it up. Is it possible that the people who would go through the trouble of registering, showing up or casting a ballot by mail, are simply engaged citizens who are voting because they are legally allowed to do so? For people who seek to stay under the radar, namely illegal aliens and criminals, where is the virtue in voting? What do they get other than a paper trail that leads right back to them?
I understand and agree with the need to make sure that the voting process kept legitimate. I’m just not sure that “illegals might be voting” is the strongest argument for requiring photo ID at a polling place. I’ve yet to hear a better one and since our Constitution is predicated on the idea that you have to have a pretty solid reason to make a law, I just don’t think this one passes muster.
There have been convictions for voter fraud, all over the country.
It is easier to convict, perhaps, if we have some evidence.
Hard to do when anyone can walk in and claim to be someone else.
Hard to do when anyone can register to vote, without proof of identity.
http://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/press/Release.ECVoteFraud.OCTconvictions.html
Watch the group called ACORN, they are behind lots of fraud cases:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003808207_votefraud27m.html
Anyone with any political campaign experience knows the Republic Party always tries to suppress voter turnout. They pray for rain or snow in November, figuring the elderly (who overwhelmingly vote on Social Security and Medicare issues) will be reticent to brave bad weather. There are a lot of theories as to why lower voter turn-outs help Republic Party candidates, but facts are facts.
The recent Kansas GOP memo bragging about their (illegal) “caging” efforts offer further evidence that the Republics don’t want representative democracy.
Despite absolutely no evidence of Voter Fraud, the GOP’s making it an issue is merely another slab of red-meat to throw into the thinly-veiled racism and xenophobia of the immigration issue, the English-as-official-language straw man, S-CHIP cutbacks, et cetera, et cetera.
If anything, it’s a far bigger problem that only a small percentage of eligible voters bother to show up on election day. There have been efforts in many states to uncrease voter turn-out — moving elections to weekends, twenty-four hour polling hours (say, noon-to-noon, from Saturday to Sunday…) and everywhere those efforts are fought tooth-and-nail by the Republic Party.
So why are we Dems against this terrible voter ID law? After all, this would affect only the illegals and those who don’t think voting is important enough to get an ID. Bingo. That’s a big part of our base.
If we can load ‘em up and get them to the polls, there is a good chance they will vote for whoever is giving away the most. That’s us.
Econ101
Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:16 am | Permalink
Hard to do when anyone can register to vote, without proof of identity.
Hate to disagree with you there Econ, but read again,
You have to have some form of ID in order to register to vote, either a state ID #, or the last 4 digits of a SS #. If you’ve registered to vote, then you receive your voter registration card prior to election day with your polling place listed. Upon arrival at said polling place, you have to announce your name, and then sign next to your registration info in the book. If your information, (ID # or SS #) have not been verified up until the point you sign your name at the polling place, then you MUST provide identification in order to cast a ballot.
http://www.kssos.org/forms/elections/voterregistration.pdf
The GOP clearly wants to suppress the votes of the young, elderly and minorities. If their motives were not so transparent, I could see some of their points, but like Iraq, they are fixing the intelligence around the policy.
My philosophy is simple – ever since impeachment, never trust a Republican further than you can throw him.
The young elderly and minorities are capable of holding and ID in the hands the last I checked.
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Dummocrat
Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:19 am | Permalink
So why are we Dems against this terrible voter ID law? After all, this would affect only the illegals and those who don’t think voting is important enough to get an ID. Bingo. That’s a big part of our base.
If we can load ‘em up and get them to the polls, there is a good chance they will vote for whoever is giving away the most. That’s us.
Believe it or not, there are people for whom purchasing a state ID is very difficult. It’s not about being lazy. It’s hard to imagine that person couldn’t afford to drive down and drop $19 for a DL, or $18 for a state ID ($14 for senior citizens). But these situations do exist. When a person has to choose between buying groceries and paying the water bill, getting a photo ID wouldn’t seem to be very high on the list of priorities. Do many of these same people vote? I don’t know, but they ought to be able to if that is their wish. Or do you believe that there should be a minimum income level in order to exercise the right to vote?
As for illegals, I’ve already spoken to that, but to re-state, why the hell would they bother?
You clearly missed my point regarding the motivation of the GOP, rfl.
It’s not just illegals, it’s not even primarily illegals that we are concerned about voting fraudulently. It’s people in general that want to vote fraudulently. People voting under the names of the dead, shut ins, etc. They leave the voter register wide open at my polling place for all to read as you come in. I could say my name is anyone’s name I read in that register looking down on it I wanted from a space unsigned and the old volunteer wouldn’t know or think to even care. I was once ask to sign in the space where my son’s name was. He didn’t vote then, I could have voted, come back later and voted again using both spaces if inclined to do so.
It’s insane not requiring I.D., period.
And it’s no more a hardship than anything else this society requires.
There’s a feisty little old lady on my block who has voted in every election since 1932, most of those elections in the same church basement polling place. She’s 96 years old and toddles down to vote every time there’s a ballot.
Everyone knows her and it’s kind of a joke at the precinct that the election is “official” once she shows up.
But suppose she were to show to vote without her purse. Under this proposed law, a Republic Party poll-warcher could deny her access to a ballot. Because that’s what Republic Party partisans do.
Oh come on!!! Why not let illegal immigrants vote without presenting an ID! It would make the race more interesting. Hey, you never know, they might actually show up to vote unlike the 50% or more of those already entitled to!
OK, WS..I am going to call your bluff on this one. “The GOP clearly wants to suppress the votes of the young, elderly and minorities” PROVE that requiring id’s keeps people away from the polls.
Do you have even a shred of evidence that is verifiable? Can you document that statment that requiring an id keeps peopel away? Any proven examples of substance? ANYTHING? Other than your claim, that is???
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AgHawk
Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:35 am | Permalink
“It’s not just illegals, it’s not even primarily illegals that we are concerned about voting fraudulently. It’s people in general that want to vote fraudulently. People voting under the names of the dead, shut ins, etc. They leave the voter register wide open at my polling place for all to read as you come in. I could say my name is anyone’s name I read in that register looking down on it I wanted from a space unsigned and the old volunteer wouldn’t know or think to even care. I was once ask to sign in the space where my son’s name was. He didn’t vote then, I could have voted, come back later and voted again using both spaces if inclined to do so.
It’s insane not requiring I.D., period.
And it’s no more a hardship than anything else this society requires.”
Like I said, I understand that the integrity of the process must be upheld. It would also bear out that there are at least a few instances of fraud (likely unintentional). But to affect any real change in outcome, this would have to happen on a much larger scale with multiple parties involved and with the system we have now, it would be found out very quickly. It I’m just not seeing the logic in adding one more step to the voting process, especially when it is a step that can make it more difficult or even impossible for a person to vote. We have enough trouble in this country getting people to participate in the election process. My reasoning is telling me that the only thing to be gained from a photo ID requirement would be more disenfranchisement.
Moreover, who wants to vote fraudulently? Seriously? What do you get by going in and casting a ballot that isn’t yours? There’s no money in it, no perks, no fame or glory, just a sticker. Do people really covet those little stickers that much?
The effort to require an ID to vote is a direct result of certain groups in their efforts to ‘get out the vote’. Specifically, it’s groups trying to get laws changed to allow the illegal aliens to vote in elections. Their logic is usually something like “they sent their kids to the schools, drive on the roads, etc. so they should have a voice in the government.”
It’s not all that different to the suggestions in foreign countries that those countries should be able to vote in U.S. elections, since the U.S. is so powerful and effects the world as it does.
The movement to allow only verified citizens to vote is an direct result of those efforts.
“My philosophy is simple – ever since impeachment, never trust a Republican further than you can throw him.”
‘Nuff said.
It is soooooooooooooo difficult to get a photo ID.
I’m so tired of hearing this crap.
Not one documented case of an illegal immigrant voting.
Huh.
How in the H*LL are you going to document ONE SINGLE FRICKIN case without requiring a photo ID to vote???????!!!!!!!??????
This big objection to a photo ID is all about the Democrats packing the voting booths with illegal immigrants, who are promised welfare handouts and amnesty if they pull the Democrat Donkey lever in the voting booth.
Too dificult to get a photo ID.
That’s a bunch of crap.
Let’s raise taxes then to pay for special little buses to go around the country, driving those who can’t get a photo ID, to the local drivers license station to get an ID for identification purposes only.
Use tax dollars to pay for their free ID’s too.
Also, use tax dollars to get them copies of their birth certificates so they can get a photo ID.
Make sure they also provide their SS Card, which HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVIDED FOR THEM.
Then wipe their noses, kiss their a*ses, and deliver them to the voting booth!
IS THAT SO DIFFICULT?
I’m not familiar with the groups you’re speaking of Proudman. Could you be a little more specific?
It is soooooooooooooo difficult to get a photo ID.
I’m so tired of hearing this crap.
Not one documented case of an illegal immigrant voting.
Huh.
How in the H are you going to document ONE SINGLE FREEGIN case without requiring a photo ID to vote???????!!!!!!!??????
This big objection to a photo ID is all about the Democrats packing the voting booths with illegal immigrants, who are promised welfare handouts and amnesty if they pull the Democrat Donkey lever in the voting booth.
Too dificult to get a photo ID.
That’s a bunch of crap.
Let’s raise taxes then to pay for special little buses to go around the country, driving those who can’t get a photo ID, to the local drivers license station to get an ID for identification purposes only.
Use tax dollars to pay for their free ID’s too.
Also, use tax dollars to get them copies of their birth certificates so they can get a photo ID.
Make sure they also provide their SS Card, which HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVIDED FOR THEM.
Then wipe their noses, kiss their little tails, and deliver them to the voting booth!
IS THAT SO DIFFICULT?
The only two examples of voter fraud in Kansas I’ve seen is Pat Roberts and Phill Kline registering in places they don’t live. I once asked three Republicans who support voter suppression if they could provide any accounts in Kansas of voter fraud. I only received one response and I was pointed to an example in Missouri.
So even the Republicans can’t find any problems in Kansas. So rather deal with actual issues they create a phony issue and deal with a non-existing problem. Let’s hope there is actually a problem with immigrants illegally voting Democratic in the next election so we can throw the do-nothing bums out and focus on real issues.
It is not difficult to provide a photo ID. All those receiving food stamps must have one. Don’t give me that crap about the elderly – THEY GREW UP WITH PHOTO ID’S!!! They used to drive.
One of the greatest dangers facing a democracy is doubt by the citizens in the election process. All parties have spoken at length about voter fraud, the dead voting, multiple voting, bought elections, bad counts, and the Captains cry of “stolen elections”.
Put up, or shut up. Photo ID’s will
This whine about not having photo’s is truely a NITWIT crying in the night.
Lynx,
Try this: http://www.immigrantvoting.org/legislation/legislation.html
I only read the first one about San Franciso today. However the wording of the proposed law would allow for illegals to vote. Since all you need is to show you have a child in the schools.
Max,
Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I know it’s really hard for you to fathom a life where you couldn’t afford to go get an ID. It’s not a life anyone would want to imagine living. You’re lucky you don’t have to.
As for this little gem:
“This big objection to a photo ID is all about the Democrats packing the voting booths with illegal immigrants, who are promised welfare handouts and amnesty if they pull the Democrat Donkey lever in the voting booth.”
Cite your source. I’m a Dem, I’ve participated in voter registration drives, and every effort to register voters was completely above board. If you think that we don’t recognize the word “illegal” and you honestly believe that it’s possible to trade votes for amnesty or welfare, then no amount of talking from me would likely persuade you otherwise. But I’ll say this: you’re full of crap.
Lynz
Your logic is a bit screwed up.
If they have to have ID to register, where did that ID go, between registration and actually voting?
Also, the “requirements” for ID, at registration, are weak.
Lynz
ACORN is a group involved in voter fraud, all over the country.
I have already posted the information you requested, just now, from another poster.
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Econ101
Posted January 15, 2008 at 12:24 pm | Permalink
Lynz
Your logic is a bit screwed up.
If they have to have ID to register, where did that ID go, between registration and actually voting?
Also, the “requirements” for ID, at registration, are weak.
If a person does not have a state ID, then the last four digits of a SS # are acceptable, luckily everyone gets one of those. My logic isn’t screwed up, I’m offering that if you’ve registered with your SS # because you don’t have or cannot get an ID, then that same information should be acceptable in at the polling place. My beef isn’t with proving who you are. A person should be able to present a utility bill, or a SS card or some other form of ID that verifies their address, or that they are the same person who filled out the voter reg card. I was listening to a debate on this topic on NPR the other day and there was mention of a state who’s law operated this way. Couldn’t tell you which off the top of my head, but it seems like a good compromise that achieves the same goal without undue burden.
I’d like to see one case of someone who was prevented from legally voting, because they couldn’t afford a photo ID.
Where’s the Evidence?
Show me the Evidence!
(Full financial disclosures will be required. Someone not under oath, lying and crying in front of a news reporter’s camera, is NOT evidence)
Even JR can afford a photo ID.
There are 46,000 people who are registed to vote in both Florida and New York.
In fact, if you eliminate the “snow birds” and those who illegally vote in two states, in the same election — George Bush would have won Florida by an even larger margin!
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/16/how_to_steal_an_election/
Last four digits of a SS number are acceptable to vote, per Linz.
Here’s mine: 1, 2, 3, 4
Now I’m legally registered to vote!!!!!
Say Econ, how many Dead People are registered to vote?
Weren’t there 400 Dead People or so in Washington State who voted in 2006?
But maybe they DID have photo ID’s!
Geez isn’t turnout for voting suppressed enough?
ESPECIALLY around here?
They limited the number of polling places. And a lot of the ones left are in churches that will happily evangelize to you while you are in line waiting to vote.
Now they want ANOTHER hurdle?
It is fairly clear just who it is wants less voting.
The GOP knows that the more people who vote, the worse it is for them. Deal is? They can’t hoodwink so many folks these days. They know that the GOP is on the verge of going into obscurity.
REAL Americans want more voting not less.
Hey
Equal rights for dead people!
It is “deadism” to deny the vote to the dead!
If a voter ID is required in order to vote then it must be provided at zero cost otherwise it qualifies as a poll tax which the Supreme Court has said is unconstitutional. Therefore taxpayer funds will have to subsidize the creation of driver’s licenses. Naturally the Republicans are going to whine that the state budget will increase to provide this expense.
So which will it be Republicans? More government spending or elimination of your voter ID law?
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Econ101
Posted January 15, 2008 at 12:26 pm | Permalink
Lynz
ACORN is a group involved in voter fraud, all over the country.
I have already posted the information you requested, just now, from another poster.”
I’ve read about the ACORN case, which is different than what Proudman was referring to (thanks for the link btw)
This was a case of people who were paid to get voters registered. And instead of doing what they were paid to do, which was find unregistered people and get them registered, they took a short cut and simply made up names and addresses. No one attempted to vote under said names and since it was so colossally stupid, it was fairly easily found out. The link you provided is the only case I’ve heard of. Do you know of others around the country?
And Proudman,
Interesting link, I hadn’t heard of this before. But the operative word in illegal immigrant is “illegal.” It’s one thing to introduce bills that would allow illegals to vote, but my instinct tells me that they would have a tough time getting passed. Moreover, I seriously doubt that such a bill would ever be introduced in our own legislature. Like I said, interesting though, I’d like to dig a little further and see about the constitutional questions involved.
The GOP is the same sort as those who counted black slaves as 3/5ths of a person as to state representation….
….while denying those same folks not only the vote but even status as a person.
Why does the GOP want to limit voting?
Why do they want to make it more difficult?
Why does right wing radio LOUDLY lie and tell Democrats that their voting day is the next day after the election?
Why more standards on voting? Right wing radio shill Neal Boortz wants to make people PAY to vote!
It is not the left that tries to stop people voting.
Why is the GOP afraid?
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Max
Posted January 15, 2008 at 12:35 pm | Permalink
Last four digits of a SS number are acceptable to vote, per Linz.
Here’s mine: 1, 2, 3, 4
Now I’m legally registered to vote!!!!!
Not just per me, Max, read the voter reg card yourself:
http://www.kssos.org/forms/elections/voterregistration.pdf
Ya’ll are so snarky. Ugh. I don’t think I have much else to offer to the conversation, so have a nice day everyone.
Yeah, ’cause if I were an illegal alien working in the US, my main goal would be voting in elections.
No downside to that at all . . .
What is so hard about producing a valid ID?
Capn, with amnesty on the table, you can’t be ignorant to the prize of an illegal voting for the right candidate can you?
“Max” posted –
“I’d like to see one case of someone who was prevented from legally voting, because they couldn’t afford a photo ID.
“Where’s the Evidence?
“Show me the Evidence!”
You might remind yourself of the title of this thread, “Max.”
The supposed threat of voter fraud is a bunch of partisan Republic Party whiners spinning wild-eyed fantasies of might happen someday somewhere. “Regular” even offered the position that lack of evidence some how proves voter fraud exists!
(Better go shoot that grizzlie bear on your front porch, “Regular.” Just because there’s no evidence of one, it could happen!)
None of the Republic Party partisans can refute the GOP’s long record of seeking to suppress voter turnout. It was the Florida Republic Party that sent out official-looking notices to Democratic households claiming that, “…because of anticipated high numbers of voters, Republicans are instructed to vote on Tuesday and Democrats are instructed to vote on Wednesday.” A pretty juvinile attempt, but pureblooded Republic Party hanky-panky.
In 2004, Jim Ryun’s campaign contacted elderly voters and, once they determined someone was voting for Boyda, offered them a ride to the polls. Came election day, no rides arrived. (A friend who works at the Topeka Presbyterian Manor saw this ploy firsthand.)
Now if I remember right you have to provide ID to REGISTER to vote. So what’s the problem with providing that same ID when you go to vote?
Nothing, except it interferes with attempts by ineligible people to vote. And who would benefit from that????
Sol–
Get real.
If you were illegally working in a foreign country, Switzerland let’s say, you’d want to stay as far away from the authorities as possible.
Who benefits from supressing the vote heckler?
Heckler–
You hit it right on the head. The ID’ing part has already occured. You don’t need to do it every time you vote.
The safeguard is already built into the system.
Showing ID slows down an already slow process.
American Way
Posted January 15, 2008 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
“It is not difficult to provide a photo ID. All those receiving food stamps must have one. Don’t give me that crap about the elderly – THEY GREW UP WITH PHOTO ID’S!!! They used to drive.
One of the greatest dangers facing a democracy is doubt by the citizens in the election process. All parties have spoken at length about voter fraud, the dead voting, multiple voting, bought elections, bad counts, and the Captains cry of “stolen elections”.
Put up, or shut up. Photo ID’s will
This whine about not having photo’s is truely a NITWIT crying in the night.”
That was worth quoting in it’s entirety, excellent!
I might add also that the youth by the time they are old enough to vote are going to have SS#s and other forms of ID., and most probably a drives license if eligible to have one.
I am absolutely convinced those objecting to voter I.D. have an agenda dedicated to fraud.
Capn,
A very calm and rational explanation for you.
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v528070zZAFMCmt
Capn
Slow it down? You’re likely to have to wait in line to vote anyway, the 15 seconds you spend showing a voter ID isnt going to slow anything down.
Lynx,
The law proposed in SF didn’t give enough detail to say if steps would be taken to prevent an illegal alien from voting. Only that it allowed non-US citizens with children enrolled in the school district. Being SF, I don’t imagine they would strain themselves looking into who is legal. That also appears to be a proposed law from 2004 which was not enacted. However, I believe that those efforts are the actual reason for the push to have real voter IDs.
As for this discussion, I find it interesting that typically those who are against having to prove your identity to vote are also those who favor secured logins to participate in the WEblog. This is especially true of the thread starter. Who must have logged in/proved his identity or the system would not have allowed him to create a thread.
JR
How will showing an ID suppress voter turnout? Show me evidence that would be a problem.
The only people it will suppress is people who aren’t eligible to be voting anyway.
Why has the number of polling places been reduced?
Why do I have to vote in a church?
The various shenanigans of the right to limit turnout are well known.
Why is the right afraid of more voting?
JR
Prove that showing ID suppresses legal voting!!
You got nothin so you change the subject.
It is not my side trying to limit voting there heckler.
Why does your side want to?
Is it because you are afraid?
J R
Posted January 15, 2008 at 1:17 pm | Permalink
Why do I have to vote in a church?
Will you burst into flames if you enter a church? Sounds like donated real-estate to me. Got a problem with churches being charitable? Why do you hate churches?
Proudman, how much money does a secured login require?
And perhaps you never heard of voter registration , which is required in all 50 states. Oh well.
Also:
Georgia’s law was challenged by Rosalind Lake, an elderly black woman who was left partially blind after being nearly electrocuted in her home, is unable to drive and could not easily obtain a voter ID, her attorney said.
The lawyer, former governor Roy Barnes, argued that even though the state offered to deliver an it could not do the same for everyone who is similarly challenged.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901382.htm
And since such IDs typically cost money, it’s also an unconstitutional poll tax.
I also note the contrast here. While I suppose I’m painting with a broad brush, its seems that Democrats are concerned about people being denied the vote, while Republicans are concerned about people being given the vote who weren’t authorized.
Which is more harmful to democracy? Think about it.
P.S. By the way, how delightfully Orwellian that the Help America Vote Act made it harder for people to vote!
Here’s Brena Landwehr’s justification for the ID bill:
“Showing our identification has become part of our daily lives. We show our ID to cash checks, use our credit cards, purchase cigarettes, alcohol etc. Why should this important procedure be any different?”
Actually I don’t show my ID for any of these cases but I’m supposing her argument is that if we allow one instance of government intrusion in our lives then why not just introduce some more? Why not just subject ourselves to random searches on the street without any justification? Well, we already have illegal searches by police with their Stasi checkpoints, so why not random home searches without a warrant?
IIRC, churches have been used as polling places, largely because they are non-taxed entities, and because laws prohibit churches from electioneering.
ALSO, IIRC, many polling places, in addition to churches, are also non-taxed locations, or private non-profit locations. I assume for similar reasons.
JR, you can always vote by absentee ballot, and vote at home if you cannot get to(or dont want to) go to a polling place.
“Georgia’s law was challenged by Rosalind Lake, an elderly black woman who was left partially blind after being nearly electrocuted in her home, is unable to drive and could not easily obtain a voter ID, her attorney said.”
How did she register to vote?
How did she register to vote?
What does it matter? If that was an excessive burden, that would have to be examined, too.
But the disturbing thing to me about Voter ID laws–including the one in Arizona–is that they posit some notion of impostors showing up in polling places. It requires a concerted fraud–i.e. registering non-existent or dead people–to make that kind of scam worthwhile, in which case the initial fraud should concern us far more.
So is the idea, then, that the Dems will illegally register illegal aliens to win elections? Why doesn’t Neufeld etc. just come out and say it?
I don’t get it.
Rage,
If you didn’t have to register to vote nor identify yourself, what would stop someone from visiting every precinct in the state? Some of the precincts 3-4 times?
Speaking of *real* voter fraud –
From today’s http://www.crooksandliars.com
A few weeks back we brought you news that the Chairman of the Kansas GOP, Kris Kobach, had sent out a Party email boasting of voter caging. That post made a bit of a splash, getting picked up by many blogs including the Huffington Post & DailyKos and was mentioned several times on Air America (Thank you, Thom Hartmann!) before it made it into the KC Star political blog, the Lawrence Journal, and even the AP. As Blue Tide Rising, the KS oriented political blog that first caught the now-infamous email, points out: “Kris Kobach is famous“
Well, I’m proud to announce that all the time spent exposing this partisan hack has paid off. The Wichita Eagle editorial board has awarded Kris Kobach with the “Hannibal Lecter 50-State Strategy” Award for “extraordinary achievement in the area of public fiascoes, flops and foolishness.”
All kidding aside, what has become of Kobach’s admission to caging “more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years“? The blogs and even the media seem to have done their part. So, what happens next? Did it go unnoticed because the story broke during the holidays? We’ve yet to hear from Kansas Governor Sebelius or any of the Democrats running in ‘08 who could be most affected by any GOP election trickery, Rep. Nancy Boyda or Senate challenger Greg Orman (who is going up against Bush lackey Sen, Pat Roberts), what they think or whether anyone is going to dig deeper to find out just what the Kansas GOP’s voter caging scheme is all about.
Despite artful protestations otherwise that raise even more questions, there seems to be even more an indication of wrongdoing now as Kobach has since tried to pass the blame for the email onto his subordinate, Kansas Republican Party Executive Director Christian Morgan. If there really wasn’t any wrongdoing then why the questionable (non-denial?) denial and the setup for a fall-guy hot potato with the blame? Inquiring minds want deserve to know.
Let’s hope that Kris Kobach will be explaining that email to a Grand Jury in the near future. Let’s also hope that the Democrats will be diligently working to fight these illegal tactics……before November 2008.
“My philosophy is simple – ever since impeachment, never trust a Republican further than you can throw him.”
‘Nuff said – Republicans are masters of developing a rational for any policy that they choose to advance.
It has little to do with the actual policy – and everything to do with their agenda.
“SolDevVB” posted –
RE: “Georgia’s law was challenged by Rosalind Lake, an elderly black woman who was left partially blind after being nearly electrocuted in her home, is unable to drive and could not easily obtain a voter ID, her attorney said.”
How did she register to vote?
I don’t know about Georgia, but Kansas you have to register only once, provided you don’t move and regularly vote in the General Election on even-numbered years.
This added requirement amounts to a de facto requirement that established voters re-register.
It’s part and parcel of the Republic Party’s longtime history of trying to disenfranchise voters.
A reminder to you all of the title of this thread: Just what is the evidence of voter fraud?
None. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis.
Ah, but where is the evidence of Kris Kobach’s efforts to cage voters? In Kris Kobach’s own bragging to the Kansas Republic Party, that’s where.
“Just what is the evidence of voter fraud?”
Just how can you prove voter fraud when you don’t require identification? In that same vein, exactly how many illegal immigrants are currently in the US and what are their nationalities?
I don’t like that an ID card might be required to vote.
I think all shuld be able to vote, legal o r not.
Felons can vote in some states.
When paroled, after we serve our time, we should get our rights back.
Shuld get right to carry gun again too.
I live in America so I shuld be able to vote like everybody else who is here.
“SolDevVB” ignores the Kris Kobach caging issue but asks:
“Just how can you prove voter fraud when you don’t require identification?”
I’ve voted in Kansas, Missouri, California, and Texas (not the same elections, btw, ;-)) and in each state I’ve been required to sign the voter register. If a poll-watcher had reason to challenge my vote, they could compare signatures between the list of voters and my registration card. Pretty simple, really.
And it doesn’t but an additional hurdle between, say, the 96-year-old lady on my block who might show up at the polls without her purse.
If voter fraud is really a threat, there are long-standing procedures to deal with it without putting up additional barriers to the voting booth.
As we’ve seen in this thread, the Republic Party partisans have been reduced to making up “what-if?” scenarios for no other reason than to suppress voter turnout. If it hadn’t been the Republic Party’s 40-year stated objective to reduce turnouts, some of the contrived “what-ifs?” might be worth consideration. Might.
But don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. ‘Fess up, Republics; you know it’s in your party’s best interests when fewer people vote. Own up to this little contrivance and be honest with us.
In that same vein, exactly how many illegal immigrants are currently in the US and what are their nationalities?
You tell em Monkeyhawk!
I think even prisoners should be allowed to vote. We could do it by mail ballot.
Hey WS…still waiting for some actual PROOF that people will not vote if they must show ID.
course..we haven’t seen any PROOF of widespread fraud, either. This is a total non-issue without any basis in fact for the claims of either side.
Here is some evidence. Right next door.
Here’s the latest on the Missouri ACORN/democratic voter fraud scandal…
Kansas City officials say this is the most irresponsible and extensive voter registration abuse in Missouri in the twenty five years they have been on the job with the Kansas City Board of Elections.
That’s saying a lot considering there were 16 convictions of election crimes since 2004 in the St. Louis area alone!
Bogus voter-address changes in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 25 (UPI) — Hundreds of bogus address changes have surfaced near St. Louis and the election board is warning voters to make sure they get a polling-place notification card.
Missouri ACORN Workers Indicted, 35,000 Questionable Forms!
35,000 Questionable Registration Forms!
Yes, you read that correctly…35,000 questionable registration forms!
Kansas City election officials said this was the most irresponsible and extensive voter registration abuse in Missouri they had seen. They weren’t kidding!
KMBC Missouri is reporting this breaking news:
August 04, 2005
Democratic Voter Fraud, Intimidation Confirmed
Several readers wrote to point out this study of the 2004 election by the American Center for Voting Rights. We reported extensively on efforts by the Democrats to intimidate Republican voters in the months leading up to the election, and to commit fraud on election day. Those anectotal reports are confirmed by the Center’s report. I’m still working my way through the full text, but here are excerpts from the executive summary:
[A] careful review of the facts shows that in 2004, paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression efforts than their Republican counterparts. Examples include:
* Paid Democrat operatives charged with slashing tires of 25 Republican get-out-the-vote vans in Milwaukee on the morning of Election Day.
* Misleading telephone calls made by Democrat operatives targeting Republican voters in Ohio with the wrong date for the election and faulty polling place information.
* Intimidating and deceiving mailings and telephone calls paid for by the DNC threatening Republican volunteers in Florida with legal action.
* Union-coordinated intimidation and violence campaign targeting Republican campaign offices and volunteers resulting in a broken arm for a GOP volunteer in Florida.
Vote fraud and voter registration fraud were significant problems in at least a dozen states around the county. Vote fraud is a reality in America that occurred not only in large battleground states like Wisconsin but in places like Alabama and Kentucky. The record indicates that in 2004, voter registration fraud was mainly the work of so-called “nonpartisan” groups such as Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and NAACP National Voter Fund. Examples include:
* Joint task force in Wisconsin found “clear evidence of fraud in the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee,” including more than 200 felon voters, more than 100 double voters and thousands more ballots cast than voters recorded as having voted in the city.
* NAACP National Voter Fund worker in Ohio paid crack cocaine in exchange for a large number of fraudulent voter registration cards in names of Dick Tracy, Mary Poppins and other fictional characters.
* Former ACORN worker said there was “a lot of fraud committed” by group in Florida, as ACORN workers submitted thousands of fraudulent registrations in a dozen states across the country, resulting in a statewide investigation of the group in Florida and multiple indictments and convictions of ACORN/Project Vote workers for voter registration fraud in several states.
The Democrats have organized massive efforts to subvert the democratic process over the last several election cycles. Voter fraud is still the great unacknowledged issue of our democracy. Ominously, violence has more recently supplemented fraud in the Democrats’ arsenal of dirty tricks. We are a long way from solving these problems, but shining the light of publicity on them is a first step.
Florida anyone?
UPDATED: The Real ACORN: Anti-Employee, Anti-Union, Big-Business
In the 18 months since the Employment Policies Institute’s May 2003 report exposed the hypocrisy of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), this group has continued its pattern of outrageous activities. As the 2004 presidential election season moved into full swing, ACORN (and their subsidiary Project Vote) has been implicated in several voter fraud cases in states across the nation.
ACORN’s most serious violations have occurred in Florida, where an ACORN-operated political action committee, Floridians for All, is actively supporting a ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $6.15 an hour (a higher wage than many ACORN employees receive). In St. Petersburg, ACORN submitted a false voter registration card for Charles Schuh. Schuh, a 68-year-old former Democratic mayor and city council member, was registered as a 30-year-old female Republican. While one may be tempted to write this off as simple sloppiness (a plausible thought, considering this is the same organization that failed to turn in thousands of voter registration cards on time, resulting in voters being denied the opportunity to participate in the primary), this is clearly another case of voter fraud. When Schuh asked to see his supposed registration card, he found that someone had signed his name but it “was certainly not [his] signature.” In addition, Schuh noticed his social security number had been altered.
Pennsylvania anyone?
Looks like the nuts over at ACORN now have been caught in Pennsylvania again committing election fraud with phony voter registration forms.
From Delaware County in the Keystone State comes this story:
Question: If your last name were Abortion would you name any of your children Alternative? Probably not! So a more pertinent question is this: If you saw the name Alternative Abortion on a voter registration form, complete with an address and a social security number, you’d be suspicious, right?
You’d think somebody was playing a tasteless joke. Or maybe even committing a crime, because that’s what fraudulently filling out a voter registration form is, a crime.
This one is currently under investigation by Delaware County District Attorney’s office, along with hundreds of other suspicious voter registration forms turned into the county voter registration commission.
Not dozens. Not scores. But hundreds!
“If not thousands,” says county Solicitor John McBlain.
Save me some posting. Here is a link to many, many, many states where ACORN committed, was investigated, and in many cases found G.U.I.L.T.Y of election fraud:
http://www.rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html
Again. Right next door:
Eight ACORN Workers Arrested For Election Fraud
Brett Blume Reporting
St. Louis (KMOX News) — (St. Louis) — Eight people face federal voter fraud charges for work they performed in support of a Missouri minimum wage ballot item in 2006.
The indictments unsealed Friday morning say while collecting signatures for ACORN and Project Vote, the defendants submitted false names and addresses to the Board of Election Commissoners in St. Louis city and county.
AmWAy,
What amazes me, is how the Democrats are always the ones who selectively do NOT want to enforce the law.
Democrats don’t want to enforce immigration laws or election laws. Wonder why?
God forbid a hard-working American taxpayer short the IRS one red cent though. Democrats will make sure the IRS enforces every tax law, to make sure THEIR Social Programs are funded.
Shall I continue?
Felony charges filed against 7 in state’s biggest case of voter-registration fraud
By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter
•
King and Pierce County prosecutors filed felony charges today against seven people who allegedly committed the biggest voter-registration fraud in state history.
The defendants, who were paid employees and supervisors of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, concocted the scheme as an easy way to get paid, not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections, King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said.
If you didn’t have to register to vote nor identify yourself, what would stop someone from visiting every precinct in the state?
Since I never said registration should be abolished, that’s a rather pointless question.
“American Way” –
And they caught it in Missouri!
Imagine that!
The system I cited upthread caught the abuse.
As I recall, the Missouri system worked pretty much the way the Kansas system works. And (to remind you of the thread, there’s absolutely no evidence of anything similar happening in Kansas.
One of the most *conservative* concepts I can imagine — and not just in politics — is the old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
And yet, we’re faced with Republic Party partisans running around willy-nilly like Chicken Little squaking “What if…?!”
To protect the integrity of our democratic process, to help INCREASE voting (by citizens who now do not because of fraud), to RESTORE confidence in our way American way of life……..
It is a simple matter to show the same ID you must show to cash a check – anywhere and everyday.
Only democrats are fighting this.
Must they CHEAT to win?
Yes Monkey, first you say there is no voter fraud.
Then once AmWay prooves you wrong, you claim the system still works because ALL of the abuse is caught.
Which is it Monkey?
There is no voter fraud and no need for a voter ID.
Or.
There is a lot of voter fraud, but the SYSTEM catches it ALL!!!
AmWay, you notice who Monkey’s friend is above?
Danny Rouse!
Yikes!
Maybe Monkey is behind bars too!
Or he’s no longer behind bars, but has fond memories and good friends left behind!
It is not a “What IF” situation.
Voter fraud is occurring nationally, and on states on either side of us.
By show of hands: Who does NOT have a photo ID?
Take my tax money to buy you one.
Let me put this another way. I am one of many Americans fed up with all the election antics. The Florida situation turned millions of Americans off to voting.
It is a very small price to pay, and NO loss in rights under the constitution to provide a simple piece of identification when you fulfill your right to vote.
If something does NOT change, then I am one who is ready to throw in the towel and get out my shotgun and join the revolution.
I served my country to protect out way of life. I made sacrifices – as did millions of other vets.
The integrity and the peoples faith in our way of life is at stake here.
Don’t put your head in the sand and say, “Well it hasn’t happened YET in little ole Kansas.”
Giving a free photo ID to those who don’t already need one, seems to be a small price to pay to ensure election laws are followed.
And since there is no cost to the voter for a photo ID, there is no poll tax!
What’s the problem with that?
The Government can afford to give $40 per person to watch Digital TV, but can’t afford $5 to pay for a photo ID for the 1/10 of One Percent of the Voters out there who do NOT have a photo ID?
“Max” —
Look back at the original WE Blog post. There is no evidence of any of your Chicken Little “What if?!” scenarios in Kansas. What part of “no evidence” do you not understand?
You Republic Party partisans have had your noses rubbed in your s#it all day today. You know your party’s agenda. You know it’s inherently racist and xenophobic roots. You know it’s a red herring issue that you hope might distract law enforcement of Kris Kobach’s patently illegal “caging” scheme. Why are you not advocating enforcement of the law against Kobach and the Kansas Republic Party?
There’s real solid evidence of Kobach’s crimes; he friggin’ boasted about ‘em in what he thought was an intra-party e-mail! He’s confessed!
And yet you guys are reduced with contrived what-if cases you cannot defend in the real world.
As Steven Cobert reminded us: “Truth has a liberal bias.”
If you give dem dum pollacks free voter ID’s, you will probably have to carry it for dem too!
Ain’t good enouf to jus give em a free ID, ya got to carry it for em too. Or it will be too hard for em to vote!
I said this uphread:
But the disturbing thing to me about Voter ID laws–including the one in Arizona–is that they posit some notion of impostors showing up in polling places. It requires a concerted fraud–i.e. registering non-existent or dead people–to make that kind of scam worthwhile, in which case the initial fraud should concern us far more .
So tell me, AW, since you’re supposedly so concerned about voter fraud, are so you so focused on ID cards, rather than ensuring the integrity of the registration process in the first place?
P.S. I also notice that you’ve complained–at length–about exactly one organization, ACORN. I’d never heard of them, but obviously Hindrock has.
Ah, yes, “Max” –
And there’s no chance in the world that “Danny Rouse” is a sock-puppet, now is there?
Still, on the outside chance he’s not, here’s an example of my support for “shut-ins.”
—-
I’m pretty pissed off at the NRA for turning into a bunch of appeasing namby-pamby rights-giver-away-ers. They’ve turned into a marketing arm of
small weapon manufacturers. The NRA promotes registering concealed-weapon-carriers in governmental data bases and systematically
promotes denying 2nd Amendment rights to a significant segment of the American population.
I’m talking, of course, of the government’s noconstitutional ban of guns in prisons.
What part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?!
Convicts in Prison have the right to religion. Convict-run prison newspapers are testament to their right to freedom of the press. If charged
with a crime, prisoners have the right to face their accusers, to a trial by jury, to their 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Convicts in prison cannot be subjected to double jeopardy.
But every American’s 2nd Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” is endangered by the unconstitutional denial of incarcerated prisoners their *right to keep and bear arms* in prison!
What’s more, it just makes sense. Just as advocates of Concealed Carry laws have proven that more guns on the street will make criminals have second thoughts about committing crimes, those same criminals will be circumspect about committing crimes behind walls if they know every one of them is packing heat. What better way to prevent prisoner rape than to arm the potential rape-ee? Who’s gonna shiv a snitch if his target is ready to drill him with a .44 Magnum?
Now, you may say something bleeding-heart pinko-liberal like, “What about the guards? Won’t prisoners shoot the guards?” What a faggoty-assed, piss-ant un-American *you* turned out to be. Modern prisons are constructed to permit guards from never coming in contact with prisoners. Ever hear of bullet-proof glass? Ever hear of remote-controlled gates and doors? Ever consider that, perhaps, guards themselves might be armed?! (The only reason prison guards aren’t all packing heat is the ill-conceived,
*UN-CONSTITUTIONAL!!!!* effort to deny convicts their 2nd Amendment rights bestowed to them by God!
There is an old saying, ‘repeat a lie often enough and people believe it” or something like that. Seems to be the case here. With no evidence, no proof, not a single verifiable example, people keep repeating the mantra how certain groups of voters will not vote if they must show an id.
Prove it, if you can, or admit it is a made up lie.
Rage,
There is a difference between registration and logging in. Logging in each day is similar to having to show an ID to vote.
You’ve gone way off the deep end Monkey.
Nice argument for NOT having photo ID’s required to vote by the way.
You have so much credibility, and with your posts today, you’ve certainly added to your reputation.
Have a nice day.
All the effort is really another poll tax to keep the poor and the elderly from voting and it ought to be seen as such.
“You know it’s inherently racist and xenophobic roots.” -MH
Uh – WHICH party, again, was the party of Jim Crow? Which party’s votes were there to pass the civil rights acts? which party’s senator (still there, BTW) led the fillibuster to stop said law?
Hmmmmmmmmmm? The Democrat party!! Yea!! (yea, two can play that silly game – for a long time I just assumed you couldn’t spell)
And MH is still repeating this meme?
Should read “which party’s votes were NOT there to pass the civil rights acts”
Republican votes, of course, were there.
“As I recall, the Missouri system worked pretty much the way the Kansas system works.” MH
Works pretty well? There are many cases of fraud caught “after” the election. St. Louis, MO was a big one (remember when the court allowed polls to stay open late?). Yep, fraud that year too. Many dead people voted. There literally are dozens of sites you can confirm.
Additionally, I listed a link to over a dozen states with fraud – and not caught BEFORE the final tally in many cases.
But Monkey let me see if I have this straight. In your mind, we don’t take an ounce of prevention. Instead, we wait until the fraud occurs – either during the course of vote tallying, or AFTER the installation of the electee?
Maybe we should just “wait” for the ice bergs to all melt too. But that isn’t the green policy is it?
And Monkeyhawk, you are really getting off point on some of all that. Hope it’s just you, and not the lib tactic of pointing to SOMEone ELSE whenever a negative is shed on your leadership.
“So tell me, AW, since you’re supposedly so concerned about voter fraud, are so you so focused on ID cards, rather than ensuring the integrity of the registration process.” Rage
I am concerned about registration too. But this thread was coving voter ID’s. Thought I’d do something unusual and stick to the subject matter. But thereonto pertaining, I had two children attend KU in Lawrence. “Someone” at the college talked both children into registering to vote in Douglas County. Nevermind, they were already registered in our HOME county. Interestingly, both registered as democrats in Douglas County. They were independent in their OTHER registeration. It’s their life and decision. But I did ask them about it. Both said they were encouraged to register as democrats. Neither new jack sh#! about even ONE democrat candidate.
So, sure, start the movement. I’m all for catching fraud where it happens. In fact, the link in my earlier posts – points to REGISTRATION fraud.
And if you haven’t heard of ACORN, whomever said that, you really need to get out more. Biggest voter fraud movement in America. If they were republicans – bet your as! you’d be concerned. There are links to people high in the democrat leadership.
And yes, this is pretty important. Voting is as basic to our way of life as you can get. All the news, gossip, campaigns, and political parties all boil down to the voters.
Let’s help restore confidence in our system.
GMC, yesterday, Just the Facts, posted good solid information on the Civil Rights Act and the voting record. (The record democrats try to cover up)
The intent of this is simple. It is to try to reduce the turnout of voters who typically do not vote Republican. Period.
And the packed Supreme Court is on the verge of allowing the states a huge loophole around the Voting Rights Act.
This is pure and simple evil.
“taz” –
The “made up lie” belongs to Republic Party partisans who’ve filled this thread with “what-ifs?” and have failed to own their party’s long-standing efforts to suppress voter turnout.
Even the most partisan Republic Party advocates have not attempted to refute their party’s constant efforts to suppress or sabotage their opponents’ GOTV.
No, “Max” was reduced to accusing me of being an ex-convict(!)on the basis of a sock-puppet post, probably from one of the usual suspects.
Frankly, the Republics lost this debate early on in the thread when “Regular” tried to assert that no evidence of voter fraud is somehow evidence of voter fraud.
Alice, meet Wonderland.
“Prove it, you say, “if you can, or admit it is a made up lie.”
As opposed to what? A factual lie?
You’re late for the tea party, “taz.”
It’s been established that the Photo ID proposal is a solution to a problem that does not exist. It’s been established that the Republic Party thinks its success on election day depends on suppressed turnout. Alleged voter fraud have been discovered and prosecuted without additional hinderances to the polls such as the Photo ID requirement. Why would true “conservsatives” advocate even more laws, especially when there is no evidence of any reason for them?
Sorry, “taz,” but the burden of proof in this debate is on you. You can’t make up scenarios of what “might” happen. You can’t dredge up racial or xenophobic fears of “what if?”. You’re the “conservative.” You’re of the political philosophy that claims it believes that “the government that governs least governs best.” And you’re advocating new laws, new regulations, new impediments to democracy based on your “what-if?” fantasies.
Or else it’s based on your traditional Republic Party heritage of trying to suppress voter turnout.
Which is it?
“another poll tax to keep the poor and the elderly from voting” Kev
That’s a crock of sh@! and you know it Kev. Like Max said above, the feds gave every American forty dollars to buy television equipment. The cost of an ID Card is less than $5..
But please do provide some evidence that having a photo ID to identify yourself to vote keeps any Americans from voting.
“have failed to own their party’s long-standing efforts to suppress voter turnout.”
Umh, MonkeyHawk, do you really want me to fill this blog with links/information from the Dixiecrats of the south? There is plenty of ammo out there to confirm the democrats of the south, went to GREAT lengths to suppress the minority vote.
Meanwhile, ACORN is all the evidence I need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt – that the democrats CHEAT in elections.
Please provide some evidence on republicans.
How does the saying go? Put up, or………
And MH is still repeating this meme?
Uhm, GMC, I think MH is talking about the modern Republican party. You know, the party of former Democrat Ronald Reagan, who went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in a thinly-veiled attempt to appeal to Southern racists? This was of course just picking up on where Nixon’s “Southern strategy” left off.
Try to keep up.
By the way, the silly truncation of the party nouns was started by House Republicans quite some time ago. Turnabout is fair play. But I agree that it’s silly.
Buncha words, Hawk. I STILL do not see one verifiable example of requesting an ID resulting in ANYONE not voting. Simple request. Give some proof, not a bunch of finger pointing double talk.
I am concerned about registration too. But this thread was coving voter ID’s.
. . .which, once again, have no relevance to stopping fraudalent registrations—your supposed justification for the ID cards in the first place.
But I did ask them about it. Both said they were encouraged to register as democrats. Neither new jack sh#! about even ONE democrat candidate.
Well, boo-friggin-hoo, AW. Cry me a river. They’re adults and, like you said, it was their decision. Or do you think should we pass a law against encouraging people to vote Democratic?
And how is that even mildly relevant?
Rage,
I never thought you’d ask! Of course my children can register and vote however they please. I ENCOURAGED THAT from a young age.
But you asked why it is relevant. ACORN members took them to register. They also did NOT tell them to inform the home county to remove them from their rolls.
When I voted last year, their names appeared on the register right along side mine. Had they been along – they could have voted in the great state of Kansas: Twice.
When I voted last year, their names appeared on the register right along side mine. Had they been along – they could have voted in the great state of Kansas: Twice.
And how exactly would have a photo ID prevented that?
“‘another poll tax to keep the poor and the elderly from voting’ Kev”
“That’s a crock of sh@! and you know it Kev. Like Max said above, the feds gave every American forty dollars to buy television equipment. The cost of an ID Card is less than $5.”
Irrelevant. The reason why the ID requirement is so bogus is that there are a surprising number of people who don’t have them, particularly among those who do not drive. The Republicans are thinking in terms of micro-economics, or cost benefit. The poor, poor elderly, and physically disabled in particular would be the populations for whom the cost benefit issues regarding ID’s would arise. In particular, I am curious as to how this would do to mail in ballots.
“But please do provide some evidence that having a photo ID to identify yourself to vote keeps any Americans from voting.”
It’s intent. It’s the sort of same crap that the Ohio Secretary of State tried to pull when he tried to disallow voting registrations on the basis that they were on the “wrong card”. The reason, because these cards caused problems for the post office. Never mind the fact that these registrations had obviously made it through the post office in the first place.
It’s a pattern, and a documented pattern, that modern Republicans have tried to cage voters. Hell, this is the very sort of crap that resulted in the AG’s firing of prosecutors for failing to go after election fraud, which all happened to be related to Democratic candidates.
Oh, and I had to laugh at your anti-ACORN shill website. Right wing shills have made them a much bigger issue than they really are.
Makes one wonder why the Democratic Party is sweating blood over the Voter ID law.
It’s not like $20.00 every five years is going to impose a hardship on anyone.
Getting to a place that legally makes Voters ID cards is no big expense either.
Perhaps its the cost of getting their hair done for the photo that has their concern?
ksagnostic,
I’m curious, you said,
“The reason why the ID requirement is so bogus is that there are a surprising number of people who don’t have them, particularly among those who do not drive.”
How many would that be? How many in Kansas?
Surprise me.
And the packed Supreme Court is on the verge of allowing the states a huge loophole around the Voting Rights Act.
Yeah, I know, ksagnostic. Our only hope is for Anthony Kennedy to have a sudden spasm of conscience. Or perhaps for Scalia or Alito to surprise us. Or Thomas to actually give a damn about the same issues the younger, poorer, radical version of himself cared out.
But I won’t hold my breath waiting for any of those outcomes.
Oh, and I had to laugh at your anti-ACORN shill website. Right wing shills have made them a much bigger issue than they really are.
I guess you find court orders, arrests, and conviction records of democrats amuzing. Funny, you don’t laugh so hard about the stolen election in Florida, the ballot counts and chads.
So Bush is the best president ever!
On fire monkeyhawk.
But some of your crowd here need it simpler.
So I will give it to them simple.
Deny that the GOP works to suppress voter turnout. It is time honored tradition on the right. That is a fact.
Now given that fact, any fooling about with voting is quite rightly suspect.
We will not forget Florida 2000. Never.
It is your side that must cheat to win. It is your side that wants fewer people to vote. Pundits on your side expound on it all the time.
A poll tax is a poll tax is a poll tax… even if it is only $20 every five years… Shoot, even if it is only $1 every five years… Poll Tax is Illegal… simple enough… What more needs to be said?
There will be no poll tax Chas.
The Photo ID will be free to any citizen who needs one.
Tell me Chas, how is a having a Photo ID like a poll tax?
It is not an expense levied every time someone goes to a poll to vote, which would be the first indicator that it is a poll tax.
What in your opinion qualifies the Voter Photo ID as a poll tax?
“GMC70″ and “American Way” –
It’s so totally absurd for today’s Republic Party partisans to try to take credit for the Civil Rights Bill of 1964.
You know better. (Well, perhaps “GMC70″ knows better; I’m not all that sure about “American Way.”
But I’m compelled to cut-and-paste a recent essay from a traditional Republic Party advocate who’s given up on what the Republic Party has become.
Sorry for the length. Hope you guys read it all, even when your lips get tired.
—-
Hal Crowther
Knights of the Living Dead
Four months ago, as the general public was getting its first taste of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, we beheld a rare congruence where the most liberal and least liberal New York Times columnists offered essentially the same impression, during the same 24-hour news cycle.
“To be a serious presidential contender, after all, you have to be a fairly smart guy,” wrote the liberal economist Paul Krugman, “and nobody has accused either Mr. Romney or Mr. Giuliani of being stupid. To appeal to the GOP base, however, you have to say some very stupid things, like Mr. Romney’s declaration that we should ‘double Guantanamo …’”
The next morning, at the bottom of the same op-ed page, after boasting that Romney graduated in the top 5% of his class at Harvard Business School, the conservative David Brooks asked us, “Why do the Democratic candidates pretend to be smarter than they really are, while the Republicans pretend to be dumber?”
To answer Brooks as if he didn’t know is condescending, so we assume his question is rhetorical. But “the media” have become a bubble where the people inside don’t always grasp what is obvious to everyone outside. What Brooks probably knows, he will never write — that Democrats pretend to be as smart as they can because they think many of their target voters are intelligent and discriminating, while Republicans pretend to be as dumb as they can because they think most of their base is even dumber. (The smart ones, they think, understand that the candidates are just whoring themselves to snare the slack-jaws.) This humorously sorry state of the party, the wages of four decades of cynical success, was pulled into focus by a Times headline from the Republican primary camps in New Hampshire: “Candidates Spar Over Who Is a Real Republican.”
They can spar until Jesse Helms endorses Barack Obama, but the Real Republican will never emerge from this pack or any other. In its pursuit of power, the Republican Party has dismembered and reassembled itself so that a thousand livid sutures are showing. It’s not a party but a Frankenstein monster, patched together from dead and discontinued materials, organ transplants that may yet be rejected, rough pieces that look familiar but never match. Since the party’s symbol is the elephant, the parable of the blind men and the elephant is relevant: touch the thing here and it’s a briefcase, over there a cross, down there a bomb, a gasoline pump, a pistol, a golf club, a fetus — a noose? Republicans are no longer a party but a loose coalition of Americans who hate things — different things — praying that fear and aversion can win them another four years of power and excess. Ed Rollins, the old Ronald Reagan operative now working for Mike Huckabee, recently acknowledged the party’s unnatural composition and the fact that hasty old stitchwork is coming undone. “It’s gone,” said Rollins. “The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition — social conservatives, defense conservatives, anti-tax conservatives — it doesn’t mean a whole lot to people anymore.”
What is this quilted, decomposing thing, lurching across the cornfields, scaring crows in Iowa and moose in New Hampshire, terrifying the lowly possum in the South Carolina pinewoods? It used to be my daddy’s party, his beloved GOP. Without a coherent identity, without appealing or plausible candidates who can even simulate sincerity, the patchwork party’s primary season has been a ghoulish cabaret, scary-funny, more Mel Brooks than Mary Shelley. Every morning’s newswire yielded comic treasure. Did Giuliani really say “I took a city that was known for pornography and licked it to a large extent.”? Is it possible that his panicked opponents have tried to hamstring the surging fundamentalist Mike Huckabee, who repudiates evolution, by calling him a liberal? And Huckabee, pressed to defend a son who killed a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp—-god love our working press—-did he say “It was mangy—it looked like it was going to attack.”?
John McCain earned his idiot stripes by declaring that “the Constitution established the United States as a Christian country,” an embarrassment he could have avoided by reading our absolutely God-and-Christ-free Constitution on page 498 of the new World Almanac. Romney and Giuliani would reverse themselves up to 180 degrees on guns and abortions; Romney styled himself a secret hunter, a closet Nimrod, though there’s not as much as a shotgun pellet to prove it. The candidates were divided on the issue of — torture? In their clumsy passion to whore their way into the hearts of Republican conservatives, these mangy candidates have the look of dogs that won’t hunt anywhere. And they seemed to have no handlers, no writers or researchers, no scouts to steer them through the minefields created by their own lies and evasions. Primary season has never been kind to the truth; but in an age when any voter can check any lie online, pandering to the base as if it has no mind, no memory and no investment in reality has become a distinctly Republican perversion. In their desperation to connect, Republican candidates could scarcely be distinguished from cloacal right-wing propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, who say absolutely anything that comes into their heads and expect their audience to believe it because they want to.
Logic dictates that presidential candidates of the patchwork party, staggering under the weight of the Iraq war and their own mendacity, will soon be as dead as the poor beast at the Scout camp, and that by the time their burlesque is concluded the survivor will be begging his Democratic opponent for a chance to die with dignity. But logic dictated that George W. Bush was too inconsequential to be elected governor of Texas. It dictates that a corrupt two-party system most Americans despise will soon be replaced by something more democratic and manageable, perhaps even less expensive. It dictates that a party made of four or five belligerent constituencies with nothing in common would lose every election — yet up till the eve of the 2006 midterms, the Republican Frankenstein was enjoying one of the longest winning streaks in its checkered history.
Logic never amounts to jack s**t in electoral politics, a warning and also a source of hope for these relentless ego-prisoners whose ambitions so flagrantly outweigh their abilities. The most logical decision the Republican Party ever made was also its most immoral, and naturally its most rewarding — the infamous “Southern strategy.” The segregationist George Wallace split the Democratic vote and helped to elect Nixon in 1968, that year of murder, confusion and heartbreak that set the American stage for all the misfortune to come. Long before Wallace began to sweep up primaries in 1972, Nixon’s people, the Karl Roves of their day, had drawn the obvious, odious conclusion. The Democrats, chained to African-Americans, labor unions, Eastern liberals and the antiwar movement, would never hold their once-Solid South if the Republican Party came courting from the far Right — and turned its back on civil rights.
This is ancient history to people my age; 1968 would have been my first chance to vote for a president, if there had been anyone my conscience allowed me to vote for. But many younger people seem unclear about the major ideological realignment that occurred when the Southern strategy was implemented. Republicans from up North come to the Carolinas with no idea that Jesse Helms wasn’t always a Republican or that he’s not exactly their kind of Republican, and no clue to what drove the old hyena to change his spots. A few years ago a young reporter was interviewing the Hall of Fame baseball player Buck Leonard, the pride of Rocky Mount, N.C. The great Negro League first baseman, then in his late eighties, answered a question about his politics by affirming that he was, of course, a Republican. The reporter, perhaps raised out of state, asked Leonard how that could be possible.
“Ever hear of Abraham Lincoln?” Leonard replied.
Jim Crow, administered by racist Democrats, ruled North Carolina until Leonard, born in 1907, was well past middle age. The GOP was the only respectable option for proud black people of his generation. The same apparent contradiction — along with undeserved taunts of “Uncle Tom” and “sellout” — plagued Jackie Robinson, the most famous of all black baseball players and an outspoken activist for civil rights. Robinson, who was born in Alabama, found a saner, kinder world in California and with it a chronic weakness for his fellow Californian Richard Nixon, who had charmed him with perfect recall of Robinson’s athletic exploits at UCLA. The relationship soured as the Southern strategy began to spread its evil nets, but a disillusioned Robinson, who died in 1972, lived to see Nixon nominate two Deep South segregationists for the US Supreme Court. If it hadn’t been for Watergate — an equally cynical but much less toxic Nixon stratagem — Jimmy Carter would not have been elected and Republicans would have held the presidency for all but eight of the past 40 years.
Each Republican candidate, whatever he may have felt personally, has been obliged to renew his party’s pact with the devil. The midget Republicans now running for president were described in this morning’s paper as “united in reverence for President Ronald Reagan.” But the great Republican restoration began with Ronald Reagan’s notorious “states’ rights” speech in Philadelphia, Miss., in 1980, in the same savagely racist town where Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney were murdered by Klansmen in 1964. When Reagan launched his presidential campaign by declaring “I believe in states’ rights” in Neshoba County, reaching out to embrace some of the South’s worst bigots in one of their most impregnable strongholds, the Republican Party symbolically and permanently turned its back on black Americans, the civil rights movement and the party’s liberal wing, which quickly withered and died. At this historic moment the GOP cashed in the last of its self-respect, and so did Reagan, though abstractions like self-respect were mostly lost on old Dutch.
And it was no anomaly, no out-of-character performance for Reagan, now generally canonized by conservatives and offered as a role model to young Republicans. He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he described as “humiliating to the South.”
When I covered the Angela Davis case as a novice newsmagazine writer, several of my first drafts were rejected because I — very young, a hereditary Republican, from a place in the mountains where no black people lived — kept noting that Gov. Reagan’s racial insensitivity was stupefying. As president he opposed the Martin Luther King holiday (any word against it was your password into the racist fraternity) and vetoed bills to expand federal civil rights legislation and to impose sanctions on South Africa for apartheid, both of which were passed over his veto. Anti-black conservatives were the one piece of the Reagan coalition Ed Rollins doesn’t mention. If Reagan wasn’t exactly a Klansman, he was the white supremacist’s best friend in Washington, and the shame of his public record can’t be erased by the myth of “The Great Communicator” or by carving his smiling face on Mount Rushmore.
To put it simply, the Republican Party traded Lincoln’s legacy for Wallace’s constituency. It sold its soul to the devil for a chance to rule America. Or why not the world — the party of Big Capital never thinks small. The conspirators who conceived and negotiated this deal (Harry Dent, Pat Buchanan, Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes?) must have been well satisfied with the results. But the devil comes back to collect. Some of us who lost our party and our faith in the American system think we smell sulfur in the air, and see unmistakable signs that Old Scratch is collecting now. We dearly hope so.
That’s the scenario as I choose to see it — the piebald monster lurching and stumbling, leaving loose pieces of himself scattered behind, the devil with his bailiffs in hot pursuit. Presented by a Democrat, it would be just as plausible, but more likely to be disregarded. It’s primary season, after all. In fact I’ve never been a member of the Democratic Party, never voted in one of its primaries. If I could have stomached voting in 1968, I suppose I would have registered Republican, like every member of my family up to that time. By 1972 it was a different world and George McGovern was an irresistible option. But up until the reign of George W. Bush, this Rosemary’s Baby that sleeping with the devil has produced, I would have said that Republicans ruling unopposed was worse than only one thing — Democrats ruling unopposed, with their gutlessness, their sanctimoniousness, their hollow rhetoric and empty promises. I always registered under the capital “I,” and the last Republican who won my vote was the late John Lindsay, who today would be exiled to the far left wing of the Democratic Party.
Since 2001, we’ve learned that there are far worse things than unopposed Democrats. Ralph Nader, who said these parties were one and the same, was dead wrong — and his timing was terrible. But there’s plenty of guilt to go around. As Southerners we’re compelled to admit that the South has been the intractable problem, the worm in the American apple. We’re the poison pill the GOP had to swallow, like a steroid, to swell its bionic body to the intimidating size that changed its electoral fortunes. I’ve always railed against self-righteous, ignorant Yankees who attack the South armed with nothing but outdated stereotypes. If we produced the most terrifying bigots who violated civil rights, we also produced more than our share of the heroes who risked everything to defend them. But race is the dark at the top of the national staircase, now and always. And the South is the place, nursed by its history, where racism became an enduring, politically formidable institution.
There are no moral paragons, no pure hearts in politics. Deploring Reagan’s epic cynicism in Mississippi, we can’t fail to acknowledge that the Democrats were duplicitous enough, Machiavellian enough to hold the Solid South through FDR’s New Deal, JFK’s 20-minute Camelot and LBJ’s Great Society, all fondly remembered now as liberal moments. The Dixiecrats won decades of disappointing concessions from the Democrats, then demanded even more from the Republicans, and got them.
Are the diehard Rebels softening, even now? I asked my brother, who teaches in a part of the Deep South where liberals are hunted like squirrels and raccoons, if the ruinous war in Iraq and the administration’s amazing series of scandals and smoking guns — as well as its vandalism of conservative principles — might change the way his neighbors voted. “Not really,” he said. “They’re down on Bush but they’ll jump on any excuse to forgive him. To them it’s just two teams, and Democrats are the other team. It’s like being born to root for Alabama or Auburn, Georgia or Georgia Tech.”
In 2004, someone said that 25% of the electorate would vote for Bush if he were convicted of killing JonBenet Ramsey, or photographed raping a goat. That untouchable base must include my brother’s neighbors. Southerners are a stubborn people, slow to trust, even slower to change established loyalties. For conservatives under 50, the GOP is the South’s home team and family tradition. They’re holding up their end of the devil’s bargain, and the latest candidates show no sign of welshing on theirs. Still genuflecting to the ghost of Strom Thurmond, Giuliani, Romney, McCain and Fred Thompson were all conspicuous no-shows — pleading “scheduling conflicts” — at the PBS forum on minority issues held at Morgan State University in September. Even Newt Gingrich said he was disgusted.
The Republicans needed us and they got us. They used us and now they’ll go down choking on us. It was the marriage made in hell, a fatal alliance that may be the South’s final revenge on the Republican Party for Lincoln, Grant and the War Between the States. As cultural heterogeneity and relaxing racial attitudes continue to marginalize the old Dixie worldview, Republicans will feel that Bible Belt pinching tighter and tighter. By and by they’ll hang themselves with it. They’ll scramble and cheat — in black precincts they’ll try to inhibit voter turnout, in California they’re already trying to steal electoral votes with a shady referendum. But new friends will be hard to find, when they’ve defined their party by what they hate, discourage and oppress: minorities, unions, poor people, immigrants, homosexuals, atheists, scientists and scholars, small farmers and businessmen, journalists, pacifists, non-Christians, uppity women with their reproductive rights. You can run a modern political party on Wall Street’s money, but you can’t get by on its votes. Just as Wall Street cares nothing about abortion or gay marriage, Main Street cares nothing about tax cuts or inheritance taxes — it never expected to inherit anything but the kingdom of heaven.
If you think I’m being optimistic, you’re mistaken. The devil gets his due and the Frankenstein thing, the knight of the living dead, falls apart at the seams in 2008. Trust me. But what does it leave in its wake? The GOP’s fragmented identity, along with his own lack of candor, commitment or visible achievement, allowed George W. Bush to ascend to the presidency (by fair means or foul, it doesn’t matter now) as a virtual mystery. Texas cowboy or Connecticut preppy, Southern fundamentalist or country-club moderate, Wall Street or Main Street, underdog or dauphin, who knew George? He turned out to be the most dishonest, incompetent, imperious and radically secretive chief executive we’ve ever suffered, with the most dangerously foreshortened view of history and the most frightening array of scoundrels to do his bidding. He’s twisted and crumpled the Constitution like a cocktail napkin. If the cringing Democrats in Congress had the courage and were sure they had the votes, his impeachment would be sealed in 20 minutes. The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan — which has real WMDs — exposes the unbearable fact that we wasted irreplaceable resources on the wrong war. It also exposes the deadly risk, for even the richest and most powerful countries, when they place their critical resources in the hands of liars and fools.
I have no consoling confidence that a fairly impressive selection of Democratic candidates — Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, even the brilliant, unreliable two-headed creature its enemies call “Billary” — includes that savior, that consummate surgeon who will be able to stop the arterial bleeding in the Middle East. One of them deserves a chance to try. But neither Iraq nor the gathering jihad Bush has blindly nurtured is necessarily the end of the American imperium. We still have money and weapons to spare, and ample manpower once we start drafting college boys to replace the poor soldiers we wasted in the wrong war, in the wrong country. The true firebell in the night rang quietly, compared with the screaming sirens in the Middle East. I heard it ringing in a New York Times story under the byline of Adam Cohen. It appeared a few week ago and didn’t create much of a stir. It scared me to death. According to Cohen, a wealthy trial lawyer named Paul Minor, a major supporter of John Edwards and a bellwether of the minority Democratic Party in Mississippi, is now serving an 11-year prison sentence for, in Cohen’s words, “a crime that does not look much like a crime at all.”
Minor, son of a famous liberal journalist, was convicted of violating the state’s vague campaign finance laws. Apparently lawyers in ethically easygoing Mississippi have always contributed openly to the campaign funds of judges who may later hear their cases. But only Democrats have been prosecuted for conflict of interest, and only under the politicized Bush Justice Department recently run by Alberto Gonzales.
Minor was a major thorn in the local Republicans’ side; Cohen claims that his real crime was his fight to keep a slate of pro-business Republicans from taking over the state Supreme Court in 2000. “Disturbingly vague,” Cohen calls the corruption charge on which Minor was convicted, and his Draconian sentence effectively silenced all political activity by trial lawyers, the chief support of the Democratic Party in Mississippi.
You see where we’re going. Cohen is implying, and not cautiously, that Minor is a political prisoner — a case for Amnesty International. He suspects that former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, now serving a seven-year sentence, was a similar victim. Gonzales’ partisan manipulation of US attorneys is the focus of hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, where one Alabama Republican testified that she’d heard Karl Rove himself directed the plot to “hang Don Siegelman.” Another indignant witness, who called the Justice Department’s prosecution of a prominent Pennsylvania Democrat “bizarre,” was Dick Thornburgh, Republican attorney general under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Savor the headline, “Opposition Leaders Jailed.” Does it remind you of our wonderful allies in Pakistan, and all those vicious little countries where martial law is declared and words like “dictator,” “strongman,” “coup,” and “junta” are routine? Never in the United States, not in our wildest dreams. And these are wealthy men, these prisoners, with the best lawyers and the best connections. If it can happen to them, it can happen overnight to you or me. Eleven years? You realize many murderers serve less. If Cohen has it right, this is the final insult, the final straw imposed by a party that abandoned every principle in its pursuit of power. Will you vote for these thugs? Would you die for them? Islamic extremists have proven, to our amazement, their readiness to die for their god and their prophet.
The beauty of America was always that our citizens would sacrifice themselves not for god or king or Glorious Leader, but for a way of life and a set of laws they believed in. (For African-American soldiers, it was harder.) I don’t know about you. But I wouldn’t lift a finger to defend a country where such a creepy, fascist, banana republic trick could pass inspection.
Hal Crowther’s most recent book of essays, Gather at the River, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Write him at 219 N. Churton St., Hillsborough, NC 27278.
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2008
if you have to buy it to vote — its a poll tax you loonies!! use what little braiuns you think you have left!!
Just the Facts
Posted January 14, 2008 at 7:52 pm | Permalink
The facts are, LBJ may have pushed for the Civil Rights Act, but democrats only came to the table to vote after kicking and screaming AGAINST passage of the Act.
This was the longest filibuster in history, doubling the previous record.
Dixiecrats Over several months in 1964, Southern Democrat Senators, led by Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell led a filibuster against the bill
Contrary to what is often assumed today, a higher proportion of Republicans than of Democrats supported the bill. Its leading advocates included not only Democrats like Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Rep. Emanuel Celler of New York but also Republicans like Sen. Jacob Javits of New York and Rep. William McCulloch of Ohio.
The Congressional Quarterly of June 26, 1964 (p. 1323) recorded that, in the Senate, only 69% of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82% of Republicans (27 for, 6 against). All southern Democratic senators voted against the Act. This includes the current senator from West Virginia and former KKK member Robert C. Bryd and former Tennessee senator Al Gore, Sr. (the father of Bradley’s Democratic opponent). Surely young Bradley must have flunked his internship because ostensibly he did not learn that the Act’s primary opposition came from the southern Democrats’ 74-day filibuster. In addition, he did not know that 21 is over three times as much as six, otherwise he would have become – according to the logic of his statement – a Republican.
In the House of Representatives, 61% of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act; 92 of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it. Among Republicans, 80% (138 for, 34 against) voted for it.
Getting back to the Voting Rights Act:
Vote count
The two numbers in each line of this list refer to the number of representatives voting in favor and against the act, respectively.
Senate: 77–19
Democrats: 47–17
Republicans: 30–2
House: 333–85
Democrats: 221–61
Republicans: 112–24
Conference Report:
Senate: 79–18
Democrats: 49–17
Republicans: 30–1
House: 328–74
Democrats: 217–54
Republicans: 111–20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act
House of Representatives:
Democrats for: 152
Democrats against: 96
Republicans for: 138
Republicans against: 34
Senate:
Democrats for: 46
Democrats against: 21
Republicans for: 27
Republicans against: 6
Many sources cite numbers provided by an issue of Congressional
Quarterly. For example, on the web site of the 5th Legislative
District Republican Party for the State of Washington, they state:
“The Congressional Quarterly of June 26, 1964 recorded that in the
Senate, only 69 percent of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for
the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82 percent of Republicans (27 for,
6 against). All southern Democratic senators voted against the act.
[...] In the House of Representatives, 61 percent of Democrats (152
for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act; 92 of the 103
Southern Democrats voted against it. Among Republicans, 80 percent
(138 for, 34 against) voted for it.”
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=183344
The National Leadership Network of Conservative African-Americans
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NVDavisBradley1299.html
The historical facts and numbers show the Republican Party was more for civil rights than the Democrats from “the party of justice,” as Bill Bradley called it. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, in reality, could not have been passed without Republican votes. It is an “injustice” for contemporary Democratic politicians and the liberal news media to continue to not give the Republicans credit for their civil rights triumphs. Now is the time for Republicans to start informing black Americans of those historical triumphs to lead them back to their “home party.”
A Hard Day’s Night
United Artists UAL-3366 & UAS-6366
Released: June 26, 1964
Weeks on chart: 51
Highest chart position: 1
http://www.mybeatles.net/albums2.html
So Chas, the privilege to drive to obtain a Driver’s License or getting a Photo ID for any purpose is a tax?
Or is it a fee?
Please enlighten us all on the difference and why you think a fee charged for a Photo ID becomes a tax.
Funny thing, AW, how you just proved the point that many of us have already made: By the 80’s, most of the Dem racists had retired, or jumped ship, into the waiting arms of Reaganism, aka racism lite . Those who didn’t (like Byrd) have long since renounced their racist viewe.
Of course, even former Dem Strom Thurmond was no longer officially racist. No one is really a racist anymore– of course!
Yeah but Rage you made me work for it. ;-)
I had to find the real numbers after you posted the classic liberal attempt to change the truth to suit your cause.
So Chas, the privilege to drive to obtain a Driver’s License or getting a Photo ID for any purpose is a tax?
Of course not. Chas didn’t even imply that.
Making voting contingent on paying any fee is unconstitutional.
Regular, I was, like, 2 years old, when the 24th Amendment was ratified.
What country were you in?
And if anyone is a history buff, or a political science buff, the below link provides the political climate in Washington circa 1963-1964.
It explains, or records how the parties worked, give and take to get things done, how the nation “woke up” to the need to act, and how the politicians worked (and didn’t work) through the issues of the day.
http://faculty1.coloradocollege.edu/~bloevy/CivilRightsActOf1964/
The ONLY reason that the liberals here care about voter turnout is because those who don’t care enough to make any kind of real effort are likely easily led Democrat voters.
So, is it honest concern on the left for the rights of these folks? Or just raw politics?
You make the call.
No one is saying anyone has to BUY a photo ID.
The state will provide one.
All you will have to do is ask.
Rage,
You agree that Driver’s License and Photo ID’s are acquired using fees, not a tax?
Do you also agree that a fee is not a tax?
Here’s what the 24th Amendment says:
“Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
The Amendment specifically says tax, not fee.
BTW, I don’t think I was aware in 1964 that the 24th amendment had been passed. If I was aware, i would have looked at you with a blank stare and then continued playing, like any kid would do. :cool:
Regular — You’re picking nits… If it is a FEE for voting, then it’s a TAX… A TAX IS a fee… You pay a TAX in order to drive your car… Personal property tax… It could also be called a FEE for buying a license plate… Your constant practice of arguing over how you define IS, is quite old, worn out, and I for one, will call you out on it any time you make the silly, stupid, attempt to do it…
So Chas,
When you go to renew your Driver’s License, you are paying a tax?
Can one deduct that on a State or Federal Income tax form?
What constitutes the difference between a fee and a tax?
I am not playing your stupid game, Regular… Youre just flaming and baiting… And I am not playing… Go find another sucker… tWhy dont YOU define it?? You want to know the answer, go look it up!!
BTW, driving is not a RIGHT… it is a PRIVILEGE!
VOTING is a RIGHT… Also, please note that I said nothing about a DRIVER’s LICENSE… YOU injected that in order to have a straw man to knock down… Damn republicans!!
Where have I flamed you Chas?
I am asking questions that the Supreme Court may ask when the case is reviewed.
If you not up to the challenge, then feel free to drop out of the discussion.
#
Chas.
Posted January 15, 2008 at 8:27 pm | Permalink
“BTW, driving is not a RIGHT… it is a PRIVILEGE!”
——————
Do convicted felons lose a right or a privilege when they lose the ability to vote?
They lose the RIGHT to vote, idiot!! Geez!!
“In Bush v. Gore (2000), the Supreme Court ruled that, “The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.” States do not have to extend suffrage to ex-felons [1], nor do they have to allow citizens to register and vote on the Election Day. In 2007, the Supreme Court will decide if, a “Voter ID law unfairly deters the poor and minorities from voting” [2]. While the Supreme Court has stated that the right to vote and the right to be a candidate are connected, they have often upheld state laws that make it difficult for independent and minor party candidates to be included on the election ballot or in the debates. Wikepedia
Outlander
I frankly am flabbergasted that the GOP is even a relevant force in politics.
I attribute it to the “stupid white man” factor.
There are a lot of stupid white men who vote Republican. As I’ve told you before, if you are not fantastically wealthy voting Republican is SELF defeating to the point of idiocy.
The uninformed voter problem is on YOUR side. It’s the reason your party gets any votes at all.
“My philosophy is simple – ever since impeachment, never trust a Republican further than you can throw him.”
Rule One – When in doubt, never trust a Republican.
Rule Two – If there is no doubt, still never trust a Republican.
Rule Three – Just for good measure, never trust a Republican.
flabbergasted?
Well, I can’t understand how anyone who wants to put landmines, on the border, to blow up Mexicans, would not want to ask voters, Mexican and otherwise, to present identification, before they vote.
But, this is the contradictory, schizoid, Democrat Party, well represented by the Juvenile.
I dunno JR, I’m not rich but I choose the Republicans over the Dems for a lot of darn good reasons. For instance, the difference in the parties in regard to social issues are profound. Since the Democratic party has no room in their “big tent” for social conservatives, there is really no decision to make.
There are things in life more important than money.
Agree that WS.
And the blogs biggest liar is here.
Yup I advocated better border security to help the Mexican people fix THEIR country. I have also advocated for total amnesty. My interest being the protection of AMERICAN wages and labor standards.
I have never posted as to “blowing up Mexicans”
But I AM glad the lying shill is here.
Folks? The subject is fun and games with elections?
You just met a mover and shaker for THEIR side.
paulthecon is an activist at electioneering. He’s even been to court about it.
You want an example of a slimeball operator for the worst in the GOP?
You have it in econpaulie.
yeah get the kids born outlander. But they need healthcare and the GOP says not no but hell no.
The Juvenile stated, clearly, more than once, that he wanted to place land mines on the Mexican border.
My sincere apologies, to the Juvenile, if his intent was to blow up Norweigens.
Well 73% of precincts in Michigan… And none of the candidates has a majority… Romney only has McCain by 9% points… not really a decisive victory, at barely more than one-third.
Econ, I do believe JR also said he would want those land mines clearly marked. So, if they are clearly marked, that would not be an intent to “blow up” anybody. Unless they choose to ignore the warnings. Right?
Jesus Christ!
I just had a post not show up (hazard of discussion boards).
I am not writing it again.
My points were, as follows:
1) The reasons for the Republican party’s obsession with voter ID regulations is apparent.
2) The reasoning has to do with micro-economics, in particular the difference in higher and absolute cost and effort for people who are very poor or who have physical disabilities, populations who are generally presumed to vote Democratic, to get voter ID’s. If you increase the relative and actual costs (not just financial but of effort) of one group of people to verses that of another group to secure ID’s, relatively fewer of the former will in fact secure ID’s (point of fact, people who do not drive will generally have to work harder to secure ID’s then people who drive-if this is not apparent to you, then you are suffering from cerebral inertia).
“No one is saying anyone has to BUY a photo ID.
The state will provide one.
“All you will have to do is ask.”
The obvious rejoinder is, of course, is that if it’s that simple to get a photo ID, what is the point of requiring one. The answer, of course, is that it is NOT that simple.
3) Finally, I responded to AmWay’s and GMC’s argument about Democratic and Republican votes on the Civil Rights. Of course, the point is, The Southern Democrats of the mid-20th century did not remain Democrats. They and their descendents became Republicans (as predicted, BTW, by Johnson himself largely as a consequence for his pushing through the Act). This is a fact. To argue otherwise is to claim that there was a huge exodus of Democrats from the south and a huge influx of Republicans into the south. Such a claim is patently absurd. The south is a Republican stronghold because it is the preferred party of those who, just as their Bo Weevil ancestors did, hated the intervention of Yankee federals into their affairs.
And yes, believe it or not, this is abbreviated.
I am no fan of Econ whatsoever but
“Econ, I do believe JR also said he would want those land mines clearly marked. So, if they are clearly marked, that would not be an intent to “blow up” anybody. Unless they choose to ignore the warnings. Right?”
It’s an extremely dumb idea regardless of whether the mines are marked. Mines are indiscriminate killers and maimers. Our country has no business putting mines on our border or anywhere else. Period.
The South – the only part of the country to actually commit treason en mass, yet somehow they are perceived as being patriotic.
Funny how that works.
Oh, and before you Republicans slam me for “attacking” Southerners, I am a southern boy, a distant relative of Jefferson Davis.
“‘Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
‘Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’
“The Amendment specifically says tax, not fee.”
Uhm, you do know that poll taxes were generally charged at the polls themselves. Pretty much indisinguishable in practice from a fee.
But hey, at least this is pretty much a non-trollish argument.
See how it works?
ksag– I was not necessarily agreeing with JR… but I just wanted Econ to be sure to include the entire substance of what JR said… instead of just nit picking it…
Re: poll tax… I agree with you…
Well ksag…
What I want is the illegal immigration problem DEALT with instead of kicked down the road.
I have, as I said, also advocated total amnesty for illegals. That’s a bad idea because it keeps Mexico broken. There can not be the NEEDED revolution in Mexico if the oppressed are here. But at least amnesty would keep these people from being exploited to sublimate American labor.
Oh and paulthecon? The only person I’d LIKE to see blown up is you.
Juvenile
LOL keep digging your hole deeper.
It might be easier if you used a few of your landmines, they make big craters.
Why do you not want illegal immigration addressed paul?
Do you exploit Mexican people in your line of work?
Maybe some of your clients do?
And I don’t think you and yours would like that needed Mexican revolution either.
Whatever. It is a problem that Americans want addressed. That you have no ideas of your own and harp on ONE of mine speaks volumes as to you.
I STILL think you are the guy I chased outta my yard with the garden hose.
ksagnostic
“Posted January 15, 2008 at 9:47 pm Uhm, you do know that poll taxes were generally charged at the polls themselves. Pretty much indisinguishable in practice from a fee.
But hey, at least this is pretty much a non-trollish argument.
See how it works?”
You do know that voter ID’s won’t be issued at Voting Polls? They will be issued before hand and without requirement of any voting qualifications.
Again, where is the argument for Voter ID being unconstitutional?
I find the opposition argument empty and so will the Supreme Court.
“The Forgotten Man”
By William Graham Sumner.1
The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion – that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.
The friends of humanity start out with certain benevolent feelings toward “the poor,” “the weak,” “the laborers,” and others of whom they make pets. They generalize these classes, and render them impersonal, and so constitute the classes into social pets. They turn to other classes and appeal to sympathy and generosity, and to all the other noble sentiments of the human heart. Action in the line proposed consists in a transfer of capital from the better off to the worse off. Capital, however, as we have seen, is the force by which civilization is maintained and carried on. The same piece of capital cannot be used in two ways. Every bit of capital, therefore, which is given to a shiftless and inefficient member of society, who makes no return for it, is diverted from a reproductive use; but if it was put into reproductive use, it would have to be granted in wages to an efficient and productive laborer. Hence the real sufferer by that kind of benevolence which consists in an expenditure of capital to protect the good-for-nothing is the industrious laborer. The latter, however, is never thought of in this connection. It is assumed that he is provided for and out of the account. Such a notion only shows how little true notions of political economy have as yet become popularized. There is an almost invincible prejudice that a man who gives a dollar to a beggar is generous and kind-hearted, but that a man who refuses the beggar and puts the dollar in a savings bank is stingy and mean. The former is putting capital where it is very sure to be wasted, and where it will be a kind of seed for a long succession of future dollars, which must be wasted to ward off a greater strain on the sympathies than would have been occasioned by a refusal in the first place. Inasmuch as the dollar might have been turned into capital and given to a laborer who, while earning it, would have reproduced it, it must be regarded as taken from the latter. When a millionaire gives a dollar to a beggar the gain of utility to the beggar is enormous, and the loss of utility to the millionaire is insignificant. Generally the discussion is allowed to rest there. But if the millionaire makes capital of the dollar, it must go upon the labor market, as a demand for productive services. Hence there is another party in interest – the person who supplies productive services. There always are two parties. The second one is always the Forgotten Man, and any one who wants to truly understand the matter in question must go and search for the Forgotten Man. He will be found to be worthy, industrious, independent, and self-supporting. He is not, technically, “poor” or “weak”; he minds his own business, and makes no complaint. Consequently the philanthropists never think of him, and trample on him.
We hear a great deal of schemes for “improving the condition of the working-man.” In the United States the farther down we go in the grade of labor, the greater is the advantage which the laborer has over the higher classes. A hod-carrier or digger here can, by one day’s labor, command many times more days’ labor of a carpenter, surveyor, book-keeper, or doctor than an unskilled laborer in Europe could command by one day’s labor. The same is true, in a less degree, of the carpenter, as compared with the book-keeper, surveyor, and doctor. This is why the United States is the great country for the unskilled laborer. The economic conditions all favor that class. There is a great continent to be subdued, and there is a fertile soil available to labor, with scarcely any need of capital. Hence the people who have the strong arms have what is most needed, and, if it were not for social consideration, higher education would not pay. Such being the case, the working-man needs no improvement in his condition except to be freed from the parasites who are living on him. All schemes for patronizing “the working classes” savor of condescension. They are impertinent and out of place in this free democracy. There is not, in fact, any such state of things or any such relation as would make projects of this kind appropriate. Such projects demoralize both parties, flattering the vanity of one and undermining the self-respect of the other.
For our present purpose it is most important to notice that if we lift any man up we must have a fulcrum, or point of reaction. In society that means that to lift one man up we push another down. The schemes for improving the condition of the working classes interfere in the competition of workmen with each other. The beneficiaries are selected by favoritism, and are apt to be those who have recommended themselves to the friends of humanity by language or conduct which does not betoken independence and energy. Those who suffer a corresponding depression by the interference are the independent and self-reliant, who once more are forgotten or passed over; and the friends of humanity once more appear, in their zeal to help somebody, to be trampling on those who are trying to help themselves.
Trades-unions adopt various devices for raising wages, and those who give their time to philanthropy are interested in these devices, and wish them success. They fix their minds entirely on the workmen for the time being in the trade, and do not take note of any other workmen as interested in the matter. It is supposed that the fight is between the workmen and their employers, and it is believed that one can give sympathy in that contest to the workmen without feeling responsibility for anything farther. It is soon seen, however, that the employer adds the trades-union and strike risk to the other risks of his business, and settles down to it philosophically. If, now, we go farther, we see that he takes it philosophically because he has passed the loss along on the public. It then appears that the public wealth has been diminished, and that the danger of a trade war, like the danger of a revolution, is a constant reduction of the well-being of all. So far, however, we have seen only things which could lower wages – nothing which could raise them. The employer is worried, but that does not raise wages. The public loses, but the loss goes to cover extra risk, and that does not raise wages.
A trades-union raises wages (aside from the legitimate and economic means notice in Chapter VI) by restricting the number of apprentices who may be taken into the trade. This device acts directly on the supply of laborers, and that produces effects on wages. If, however, the number of apprentices is limited, some are kept out who want to get in. Those who are in have, therefore, made a monopoly, and constituted themselves a privileged class on a basis exactly analogous to that of the old privileged aristocracies. But whatever is gained by this arrangement for those who are in is won at a greater loss to those who are kept out. Hence it is not upon the masters nor upon the public that trades-unions exert the pressure by which they raise wages; it is upon other persons of the labor class who want to get into the trades, but, not being able to do so, are pushed down into the unskilled labor class. These persons, however, are passed by entirely without notice in all the discussions about trades-unions. They are the Forgotten Men. But, since they want to get into the trade and win their living in it, it is fair to suppose that they are fit for it, would succeed at it, would do well for themselves and society in it; that is to say, that, of all persons interested or concerned, they most deserve our sympathy and attention.
The cases already mentioned involve no legislation. Society, however, maintains police, sheriffs, and various institutions, the object of which is to protect people against themselves – that is, against their own vices. Almost all legislative effort to prevent vice is really protective of vice, because all such legislation saves the vicious man from the penalty of his vice. Nature’s remedies against vice are terrible. She removes the victims without pity. A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set up on him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness. Gambling and other less mentionable vices carry their own penalties with them.
Now, we never can annihilate a penalty. We can only divert it from the head of the man who has incurred it to the heads of others who have not incurred it. A vast amount of “social reform” consists in just this operation. The consequence is that those who have gone astray, being relieved from Nature’s fierce discipline, go on to worse, and that there is a constantly heavier burden for the others to bear. Who are the others? When we see a drunkard in the gutter we pity him. If a policeman picks him up, we say that society has interfered to save him from perishing. “Society” is a fine word, and it saves us the trouble of thinking. The industrious and sober workman, who is mulcted of a percentage of his day’s wages to pay the policeman, is the one who bears the penalty. But he is the Forgotten Man. He passes by and is never noticed, because he has behaved himself, fulfilled his contracts, and asked for nothing.
The fallacy of all prohibitory, sumptuary, and moral legislation is the same. A and B determine to be teetotalers, which is often a wise determination, and sometimes a necessary one. If A and B are moved by considerations which seem to them good, that is enough. But A and B put their heads together to get a law passed which shall force C to be a teetotaler for the sake of D, who is in danger of drinking too much. There is no pressure on A and B. They are having their own way, and they like it. There is rarely any pressure on D. He does not like it, and evades it. The pressure all comes on C. The question then arises, Who is C? He is the man who wants alcoholic liquors for any honest purpose whatsoever, who would use his liberty without abusing it, who would occasion no public question, and trouble nobody at all. He is the Forgotten Man again, and as soon as he is drawn from his obscurity we see that he is just what each one of us ought to be.
Hillary is going to court to keep minorities from voting:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Obama_Angry_with_Clinton_/2008/01/15/64516.html?s=al&promo_code=430F-1
With the recent WE Blog change, I guess I need to post at 6:05 AM now instead of 1:05 AM.
While Randy Scholfield may be correct that there is no evidence of illegal immigrants being registered to vote, there is evidence of voter fraud in Kansas (like voters from empty lots in Wyandotte County casting ballots).
There are many dead people still registered in Kansas. For example, my first cousin, once-removed, in-law, who registered in 1991, never voted, and died in 1999 is still a registered “active” voter in Kansas. Former KU Chancellor, W. Clark Wescoe died in 2004 and is still an “active” registered voter. Congressman Dennis Moore’s dad, Warner Moore, died in Sept 2006 and is now an “inactive” voter in Kansas. Without an ID, anyone can go to the right voting precinct and claim to be one of these people and vote. A photo ID would add a great deal to the integrity of Kansas elections when we don’t know the mailing address of about 150,000 voters in Kansas, and another 40,000 votes have not voted since 1999. In total, there are about 190,000 “phantom” voters in Kansas and we pretend there are no problems because we never look?
The Kansas Secretary of State should do more to correct the data problems in the new ELVIS system that was introduced in Jan 2006 — or possibly the problems are only in the composite file created by the Secretary of State. Many problems I reported in March 2006 have still not been fixed. For example, one voter in Hill City has a mailing state of “HI”, likely because someone started entering “Hill City a second time. There appears to be no way to get “HI” (Hawaii) changed to “KS” to be correct.
There are many statistical tests that might be applied to the data, including tests and comparisons before and after an election, but problems with the data prevent this analysis. I have an idea about how to identify areas that might have large number of illegal immigrants, but the data hasn’t been good enough for the last two years to attempt this test.
Each county clerk/election commissioner is given wide latitude on how they treat voter data, so Kansas has 105 ways of dealing with voter registration, including how “inactive” votes are identified and removed. The Kansas Secretary of State should do more to promote more uniformity on how voter data is treated in Kansas.
See details:
http://www.kansasmeadowlark.com/2008/01-13/index.htm
Kansas May Have About 190,000 Phantom Voters:
Could Voter Fraud in Kansas Be Relatively Easy?
While I think it is revealing as always that Econ links to NewsMax, a shill news outlet, for his information, there is something to this one.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/12/post_271.html
And just to be clear, I think the teacher’s union is wrong on this one, and this is very much the sort of thing that the Republicans have been doing.
They need to back down and back out. Now.
And Regular, I agree that the Supremes are probably going to rule in favor of the Indiana law, but I also believe that it will be along partisan lines, and it will also set a very bad precedent as states will try to find other ways around the Voting Rights act, just to try to get an advantage in the populations of likely voters. It HAS been a Republican strategy, and it is a disgusting one.
And you still ignored the primary point, which is that poll taxes were charged as fees, and that to try to make the distinction between taxes and fees is therefore disingenuous, regardless of where the fee is charged.