Blue Wrote:I mostly agree with him, though I don't see the big deal over needing ID to vote. You don't have to drive or get a passport to get a state ID card issued by the DMV in the USA.
Too many go too far right or too far left, we, as a nation have forgotten a sensible middle ground can exist. Not that it does exist today, but it could if the majority of our officials and politicians would get their heads out of their respective elephant and donkey arses.
Well it doesn't help when you have a governor saying that the ID law was passed deliberately to help the Republicans win the election. What is the spirit of the law, is it to prevent electoral fraud or was it a partisan law intended to disenfranchise voters?
And, that part of that speech is crap. He made a false mountain out of a mole hill, failed to mention how simple it would be to get a non driver state ID card, if you wanted one, in fact he didn't mention that at all because doing so would have shot half his argument down the drain.
Blue Wrote:And, that part of that speech is crap. He made a false mountain out of a mole hill, failed to mention how simple it would be to get a non driver state ID card, if you wanted one, in fact he didn't mention that at all because doing so would have shot half his argument down the drain.
The problem isn't just the ID law, it's also passing it within such a short period of an election. The fact of the matter is that the law was written deliberately with the knowledge that a greater number of Democrat supporters would not have ID. They even admitted that the law would help Romney.
Republican House Majority Leader in Pennsylvania:
That's bad politics, and it is not in the spirit of democracy.
Well, call me calloused, but if people are too lazy to go to a local DMV, fill out one piece of paper and show a birth certificate, social security card or other proof of who they are and where they live, that is their problem. It can be done in one day, and even in small towns where the DMV is not open every day, certainly within the week and, it's far more than a week until the election.
If they are too lazy or don't care enough about the issues to do that, then they are probably too lazy or don't care enough about the issues to get out and go to the poles to vote anyway.
Joke or not, he was skewing reality to prove a point, and that's bad no matter who does it or why. Same as if I said "As more gay men moved into the area, sales of fruit flavored cocktails and purple shirts went up, therefore all gay men like those things." When in reality there was a new club that served only fruit cocktails that opened that week and, Wal Mart had put purple t-shirts with the local high school logo on them on sale foe 1.00. and, one gay couple just happened to move into town that week.
I honestly don't see how requiring ID to vote is a big deal. People that want to and are in fact eligible to vote won't have a problem getting proper ID, better than one person going in five times under different names. And if you think that doesn't happen, just hang around this town on election day. You'll hear plenty of "Yeah, I'm voting early so I can go later and vote for my dad, then my brother, then I can get to the next town and vote for my cousin and his brother too."
I agree, there should be a third party, and maybe even a fourth party. As competition in business is a good thing, so would the competition of more parties. Competing for the people's choice instead of just giving us an "Us or Them" choice.
ceez Wrote:I was curios to see what you guys think of this video.
That was excellent. Reminds me of what conservative Goldwater said on many things as well, such as about the Christian Right, too.
As for is it a big deal? Well Republicans have gotten away with their supporters when they say that barring rape and incest victims an abortion isn't a big deal because it happens only so rarely (this includes one who said he never heard of it yet also said a few years ago that he was "concerned" that children were raped and forced to have abortions at Planned Parenthood showing their typical honesty and twisted situational ethics in which one changes principles like socks to whatever is convenient at the moment). If the (false) fact that very few victims of rape & incest get pregnant is "insignificant" then how can they POSSIBLY make a big deal over something as trivial (in comparison to forcing women and even little girls to bear the children of those who raped them and happens far more often than voter fraud) as voter fraud?
And as for a woman in her 90s, it's not so easy to get an ID. First, she'd have to find things like her birth certificate (and not just a copy) and that costs both time and money (and money is hard to come by for many that age) if she doesn't already have it. Then there's problems caused by age & medication, including weak bladder and weak legs (meaning a typical wait in the DMV is likely to require diapers for her to get through), arthritis that can make it painful to impossible to write clearly or even at all, and a host of other problems (vision & hearing are another big problem with many that age and can cause all kinds of problems). And of course she grew up in an America that didn't require you to show your papers to exercise your rights as an American.
And let's be honest here. This never was about stopping voter fraud, it's about rigging the election as much as possible so that Republicans can win. And those quotes given in the video are also true, and many more that are even worse. There's nothing compassionate or ethical about them.
I don't know how the system works in the US for having the right to vote, but here there's no way you could vote without your papers or without being registered on the voting list, but we are delivered papers from the time we are babies, whether we can drive or not and encouraged to enlist for the voting list as soon as we are 18 (voting age).
Every French citizen is expected to be able to produce their papers at the drop of a hat. It wouldn't be so hard to have ways of identifying who we were for voting purposes or any other purpose, for that matter.
It seemed to me that that 'law' was all a ploy to rob people of their right (and duty) to vote. I think in Belgium voting is compulsory (the duty part). It's a shame people squander their right to vote by not going, but sometimes, the choices are so unacceptable, it's no wonder.
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