Shooting off your mouth at the Right to Vote you don’t actually have

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

As one of those bleeding heart liberals that you’ve heard tell about—-the type who buys into the whole global warming thing and wants to allow illegal aliens to overrun the borders so they can falsely vote for that un-American Muslim terrorist Obama—-I’ve found the GOP’s recent drive to protect the sacred voting system to be quite interesting. Why? Because it’s yet another example of just where their priorities are.

It’s worth noting that back in 1790, only white male property owners were able to vote. In 1855 and 1857, Connecticut and Massachusetts implemented literacy requirements for voting. On the surface, not an unreasonable notion: you should be able to read the name of whom you’re voting for. But the main reason was to limit the participation of Irish-Catholic immigrants. In 1890, Mississippi did the same thing in order to counter the voting rights of black slaves given the vote by the 15th Amendment. Since then (and until recently) there has been a relentless drive to widen, not narrow, the right to vote, culminating in a ban on literacy tests in 1975 from the Supreme Court, with Justice Hugo Black citing “the long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race.” (The foregoing information courtesy of infoplease.com).

Yet interestingly there isn’t anything specific in the Constitution that actually guarantees a right to vote. Reasons as to why certain people can’t or at least shouldn’t be discriminated against, yes, but nothing that says flat out, “People have a right to vote.” It’s not enumerated as such. Instead that’s left in the respective hands of the states.

Obviously the esteemed members of the right wing are aware of that. For as many things as they are oblivious to, they certainly have their constitutional rights nailed down.

Take, for instance, the Second Amendment. I mean, sure, they’re fuzzy on the whole militia part, but the whole “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed upon,” that they’ve got down cold.

Consider that conservatives are in violent opposition to anti-gun laws, and it literally doesn’t matter how many people die. Deaths don’t matter. Lives don’t matter (unless the life is in a woman’s womb; then it’s sacrosanct.) No matter how homicidal and suicidal we may seem to the rest of the civilized world, no matter how much blood is spilled, we must do nothing to change the current laws or make them more stringent. In fact, the Right says it’s flat out bad form even to discuss it. Disrespectful to the deceased, don’t’cha know.

But good lord, quick: we have unsupported charges of massive voter tampering. The oft quoted number is three hundred—-I say, three hundred-—in ten years. And who knows (we’re told ominously) how many we don’t know about? Over ten years.

Well, here’s what we do know about. In a recent five year period, there were 179,000 gun-related deaths: 73,000 homicides, 102,000 suicides, and 4000 accidental.
To hëll with those, though. The GOP has targeted what’s really important. Although gun rights must not be curtailed, we have to bring the hammer down on voter fraud so that no one (no one meaning a Republican candidate, i.e. a white male property owner) can be hurt by it.

Here’s a nutty thought: for all the shouting we’ve heard in recent years about proposed Constitutional amendments that would curtail various rights (let’s ban flag burning! Let’s ban gay marriages!) how about an amendment that does what amendments are supposed to do: guarantee rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. A simple amendment: The right to vote in elections (or at least Federal elections) will not be infringed upon.

And sure, I know what the conservatives will say: Felons will have the right to vote! I suppose. But look on the bright side, guys—at least you’d have allies against gun control laws. So that’s good.

PAD

120 comments on “Shooting off your mouth at the Right to Vote you don’t actually have”

  1. One minor problem: bad guys LIKE gun control laws. They already don’t care about breaking the law, so what’s one more? But strict gun control laws mean unarmed victims.

    When was the last mass shooting in a place where the potential victims were armed? I think it’s been a good 40-odd years since we had a mass shooting that was NOT in a “gun-free zone.”

    1. “When was the last mass shooting in a place where the potential victims were armed? I think it’s been a good 40-odd years since we had a mass shooting that was NOT in a “gun-free zone.””

      The Luby’s massacre on October 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas.

      Fort Hood shooting November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, just outside Killeen, Texas. U.S. army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan opened fire leaving 13 dead and 42 others wounded.

      September 1999 – a gunman opened fire at a prayer service in Fort Worth, Texas, killing six people before committing suicide.

      November 2004 – in Birchwood, Wisconsin, a hunter killed six other hunters and wounded two others after an argument with them.

      December 2007 – a 20-year-old man killed nine people and injured five others in a shopping center in Omaha, Nebraska.

      March 2009 – a 28-year-old laid-off worker opened fire while driving a car through several towns in Alabama, killing 10 people.

      January 2011 – a gunman opened fire at a public gathering outside a grocery in Tuscon, Arizona, killing six people including a nine-year-old girl and wounding at least 12 others. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured with a gunshot to the head.

      1. Luby’s: Posted no guns. One woman, out of respect for the policy, locked her gun in her car — and watched her parents be murdered.

        Fort Hood: By regulations, none of Hassan’s victims were armed. He was shot by civilian law enforcement officers.

        Omaha: The mall was a posted gun-free zone.

        Alabama: “Shooting while driving” doesn’t constitute a masss shooting, but a shooting spree.

        Tuscon: At least two people on the scene were legally armed. Both exercised proper judgment and did NOT draw and open fire, instead choosing to help grapple and subdue the shooter.

        Wisconsin: Really? You’re counting a fight among hunters? And this was clearly a spur of the moment thing, not a planned mass murder.

        With almost no effort, I’ve discredited all but the Fort Worth example. Care to try again, chum?

      2. Luby’s was in Texas. People then and now in Texas openly declare that they’ll carry anyhow and no one will know otherwise without a pat down. Besides, it’s Texas. Anyone opening fire would have reason to believe that many armed someones would be close at hand. The shooter didn’t care.

        Fort Hood is a military base. It’s crawling with armed individuals. The shooter knew he would likely have armed responders there in no time. He didn’t care.

        “Alabama: “Shooting while driving” doesn’t constitute a masss shooting, but a shooting spree.”

        I’m a cop. You’re not. That one is on the official books as a mass shooting.

        “Tuscon: At least two people on the scene were legally armed. Both exercised proper judgment and did NOT draw and open fire, instead choosing to help grapple and subdue the shooter.”

        So now the new standard is that you could carry, but it doesn’t count if the people carrying “exercised proper judgment” and don’t fire into the crowd? No. Not only could the shooter have expected someone to be armed, there were armed individuals there. It counts.

        “Wisconsin: Really? You’re counting a fight among hunters? And this was clearly a spur of the moment thing, not a planned mass murder.”

        Yes, because he knew point blank that the others were armed. It goes to the fact that sometimes the shooter doesn’t care.

        “With almost no effort, I’ve discredited all but the Fort Worth example. Care to try again, chum?”

        No you didn’t. But even if only one were at all correct, it invalidates the idea that “it’s been a good 40-odd years since we had a mass shooting that was NOT in a “gun-free zone.””

      3. Luby’s was a gun-free zone. Posted. And respected by at least one innocent — Suzanna Hupp — who lost both her parents for it.

        On a military base, weapons are highly secured unless released for specific reasons. Hassan KNEW that all of his victims were going to be unarmed, and was NOT stopped by a member of the military.

        Tuscon showed that legal gun owners can and will act responsibly and appropriately in a crisis, and will NOT turn every disagreement into a showdown, with innocents getting ventilated left, right, and center.

        Much like in New York City recently, when a couple of cops took down a bad guy — and nine civilians.

        On the other hand, there are cases like Jeanne Assam, who put down a would-be mass shooter in her church. Or the elderly jewelry store owner who chased off five would-be robbers. Or the guy in the internet cafe who stopped a guy on a stabbing spree.

        I trust my fellow citizens. They tend to do the right thing most of the time.

        Finally, gun control laws tend to mainly affect people who are inclined to obey laws. And the vast majority of gun owners are responsible folks.

      4. Luby’s was in Texas. The heart of the “gun free zone” argument that people bring up is that the gunman “know” that they’re not going to face any armed resistance.

        Again, people in Texas then and now openly claim that they’ll carry regardless. Hëll, I know people in Virginia that make that claim and follow through it. Besides, there’s a reason I picked that one and not shootings in fast food restaurants in places like California or Washington (state, not DC.) There’s a higher tha average possibility of people outside being armed and coming in when shots are heard.

        Military bases still have armed soldiers and MPs on them. I have several friends who were stationed at Fort Hood before this shooting. One of them before being a cop here was an MP on Hood. I’ve discussed their basic on-base security situation with them since the shooting. Anyone who worked on that base would have known that they would be facing armed responders.

        And the shooter didn’t care.

        “Tuscon showed that legal gun owners can and will act responsibly and appropriately in a crisis, and will NOT turn every disagreement into a showdown, with innocents getting ventilated left, right, and center.”

        Which still does not change the fact that the shooter would have known that he might be walking into an area with armed subjects and did in fact walk into an area with armed subjects.

        So, even if you do wish to discount every other case that anyone brings up; the last mass shooting in a place where the potential victims were armed? Last year.

      5. Respectfully, I think Jay is missing one point. If I understand his argument, mass shootings could be prevented if the populace was armed. Is this your thesis?

        I would refer you to the recent New York Empire State Building shootings where an armed man killed one person and highly trained New York Policemen wounded nine civilians while killing the assailant.

        Don’t forget that even in the “Wild West,” most towns understood the high risk of an armed populace and had ordinances prohibiting the carrying of weapons within city limits. This did not prevent all violent crimes, but it certainly did curtail large scale bloodbaths.

      6. March 2009 – a 28-year-old laid-off worker opened fire while driving a car through several towns in Alabama, killing 10 people.

        The town where he ended up is my wife’s home town.

        And the route he was driving could have taken him right past my mother-in-law’s home.

        Sometimes i think these wackoes follow me around – My brother and nephew left Centennial Olympic Park about half-an-hour before the bomb went off, and i was close enough to both Eric Rudolph’s gay bar bomb(s) in Atlanta that they shook our apartment … and i was staying in a hotel in Birmingham close enough to his bomb there that it woke me up.

        And i think RIchard Jewell was a semi-regular at my favourite comic shop…

      7. Jerry, your mention of Washington state causes me to wonder – does a total of four victims count as a mass shooting?

        Because if so, I have to add November 29, 2009, at a coffee shop in Parkland, WA, where four police officers were preparing to start their duty day. All were armed when Maurice Clemmons came into the shop where they were filling out paperwork on their laptops, and shot them three in the head and one in the neck. (One of them managed to return fire before the head wound killed him, wounding Clemmons.)

    2. A psychologist once spent time interviewing people in jail and one of the questions he’d ask was why break in in some places in the country, and not financially similar ones elsewhere. The answer tended to be “Gun control. Who wants to break into a house where they don’t have it and risk having one’s head shot off?”

      Kinda makes sense when one thinks of it.

      1. A psychologist once spent time interviewing people in jail and one of the questions he’d ask was why break in in some places in the country, and not financially similar ones elsewhere.

        House breakers have the wherewithal to travel the country and decide where to do their break ins?

        I didn’t realize house breaking was so lucrative.

      2. “House breakers have the wherewithal to travel the country and decide where to do their break ins?”

        Come on, Sean, there is hardly any place in the country that does not have a poorer section and a richer section. Withina very short walking distance of my house I have a probably crack house, a halfway house, a 92 year old lady, the guy who sold us all these houses, houses with more Greek columns than a 2008 Obama campaign stop, a dentist’s office, the dentist’s house, A house that was probably once owned by a plantation owner, surrounded by smaller houses that were once owned by the children or workers on the plantation, etc etc. Some CLEARLY have more wealth than others. Now, I’m not sure which one I;d rob if I were so inclined…the crackheads don;t look like they have much money and I think they are probably armed. The 92 year old is pretty spry and old ladies might have shotguns and then you are a comical headline that makes everyone smile–“Robber Picks Wrong House!” along with a full color photo of the old dear standing in front of a wall that looks like a raspberry pie was flung against it. Anyone who breaks into my house has to go past latex corpses and severed mannequin heads and will then trip on a cat. frankly, it might just be easier to get a job, even in this challenging economic environment.

      3. “…Within a very short walking distance of my house I have a probably crack house …”

        Having taken a wrong turn the first time I visited and then overshooting your house twice in subsequent visits… I think you’re probably safe in dropping the “probably” from that line.

      4. Clearly Bill lives in Durham.

        And yes, it would clearly be easier to get jobs than to put in the effort some criminals put in to stealing. Scrap metal prices have gone up to the point where it looks like easy money to steal air conditioning units from behind houses and businesses, but it’s still a pittance relative to either the value of the intact a/c unit, or the amount of hard labor involved. I once had a group of crooks who ripped all the wiring out of a couple of vacant warehouses. Their lawyers flipped out when I told them we were asking for $90,000 in restitution when they got a few hundred dollars apiece for the scrap copper. A crumby job would have been easier, more lucrative, and wouldn’t have risked prison or godawful restitution. These people are generally not good planners.

    3. My whole country is a Gun Free zone. You have to actually prove you need the gun to get a small arms permit and few people even bother to apply for it. Even if targeted by an actual and very real terrorist organization. There are hunting weapons, of course, subject to strict regulation.
      .
      I only remember one mass shooting during my lifetime (37), in a small town, carried out by two elderly brothers because of a petty land border dispute. 9 dead, all by 12cal shootgun shots.
      .
      We have crime here, mind you. Even some firearm deaths every year. But most criminals dont carry a gun or even a large knife because even having it engroses the prison term. The last death during a violent crime that I recall have to do with elderly woman beign shoved against a door frame during a break in.
      .
      Guns dont kill people. People with guns kill people. Take the guns from people and make it harder for them to kill people.

      1. This is one of those instances where I disagree with the left. You don’t make a society less violent by enforcing stricter gun control.

        Some societies are simply more violent than others, for a lot of reasons.

        Guns are not easy to obtain legally here in Brazil, and still we have a LOT of gun-related crime.

      2. You don’t make a society less violent by enforcing stricter gun control.

        Sure you do. You don’t eliminate the violence, of course. But arguing that one shouldn’t implement gun control because it doesn’t completely solve the problem is silly.

      3. But it doesn’t solve the problem at all. I get the impression that Liberals believe murders are casual events that happen because the murderer thinks “Oh well, I have a gun at hand, I might as well use it.”

        While I believe a more realistic assumption is that most murderers are either career criminals that have no problem breaking one more law to acquire illegal guns; psychos that have planned a lot before commiting their crimes and that have the drive to procure illegal weapons; or the obsessives that would commit a crime of passion or the hotheads that shoot the neighbour over a silly dispute and probably would have jumped through any hoops previously to acquire a gun.

        There is a percentage of killings commited by scared ordinary people that feel threatened momentarily. Those are the only ones that would not happen with stricter gun laws. And seriously, I don’t like the idea of a homeowner having their house robbed and being unable to do anything about it.

      4. The first thing to ask is, “Where is our “bad man” (“el hombre malo”) from?

        The second thing to ask is, “Who will bell the cat?” Jerry isn’t suggesting that he give up his guns. What he wants is to take away my guns — with his guns.

        Needless to say, that isn’t going to happen (it would be a declaration of war, not a declaration of law).

      5. Bobby,

        I’m pro-gun.

        I’m pro-gun ownership.

        I’m pro-concealed carry even.

        The most I’ve ever said in any conversation on this subject on this blog is that I am for some intelligent regulations and restrictions in some areas of gun purchasing, ownership and use. And certainly anyone here that actually knows me and knows about some of my toys can vouch for my love of the various things that cut, slice, dice, pound, crack, break and shoot. And certainly, while your head my be so far up your own ášš that it makes it hard for you to see clearly enough to read properly, in no post in this thread do I advocated the removal of firearms from individuals.

        While I suppose I should feel flattered by this obsession you have with me and your obsession with making up your own little fantasy world facts about me to post about here… You should really stop now. Most everyone here has already decided that you’re a drooling idiot as it is, but you should probably stop making yourself look like a delusional jáçkášš who is obsessed with posting details of his fantasy world versions of other posters here on top of being a drooling idiot.

        Thank you. Good night.

      6. I’ll accept your desire to join the NRA for what it is other than to point out that concealed carry probably is what got Trayvon Martin killed.

        In any event, what I think was said is that those advocating confiscation of firearms want you to use your guns to take away my guns, and that is independent of whatever you believe.

      7. “I’ll accept your desire to join the NRA for what it is other than to point out that concealed carry probably is what got Trayvon Martin killed.”

        no, stupidity is what got him killed. The gun could have been carried open and in sight or even locked up in the back of the car and taken from there before pursuit and the stupidity would still have been a factor.

        “In any event, what I think was said is that those advocating confiscation of firearms want you to use your guns to take away my guns, and that is independent of whatever you believe.”

        #1 – The NRA are f’n loony birds and the president is the raving idiot. I no more support them than I do the anti-gun nuts.

        #2 – You really are a pathetic excuse for a man.

        “Jerry isn’t suggesting that he give up his guns. What he wants is to take away my guns — with his guns.”

        Your comment has nothing to do with what you “think was said is that those advocating confiscation of firearms” and was you making a direct statement about what I want. So you, once again, either lied about me just for the hëll of it or spoke out of your ášš again. And now, once again, rather than just act like a man and say that you were wrong and/or apologize for throwing someone’s name around connect to your alternate reality “facts” about them you spin, twist, dodge and lie.

        You’re a sad excuse for a man, Crim, and apparently a deliberately lying sack of crap as well.

      8. I’m not sure which of the two — Martin or Zimmerman — you’re calling stupid; however, what appear to be the facts (from what has been reliably reported) is that the dispatcher told Zimmerman to get back in the car (which he says he was in the process of doing), and the girlfriend told Martin to run in the opposite direction, yet somehow, from the injuries sustained, it appears Martin ended up atop Zimmerman.

        Be less a flatfoot and more a detective, Jerry: Why under those conditions would that happen? Something somebody said? But, had the gun been carried in the open, at least had it been me, I think I would have listened to the girlfriend, no matter what was said.

      9. And you’ve still not acknowledged your stupidity over making false statements about me yet again. You’re still a sad excuse for a man, Crim, and apparently still a deliberately lying sack of crap as well.

  2. “Reasons as to why certain people can’t or at least shouldn’t be discriminated against, yes, but nothing that says flat out, “People have a right to vote.” It’s not enumerated as such.”

    To some degree, that actually was addressed with just those words.

    Amendment 15 – Race No Bar to Vote
    1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

    Amendment 19 – Women’s Suffrage
    The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

    Amendment 26 – Voting Age Set to 18 Years
    1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

    1. Good points, but the loophole there is that there is no fundamental right to vote. All those limits are saying that IF the states allow people to vote, then it has to allow that right equally in those specific categories.

      It one state decided to simply abolish the vote, that would be perfectly Constitutional — as long as they abolished it for everyone.

      1. “Good points, but the loophole there is that there is no fundamental right to vote. All those limits are saying that IF the states allow people to vote, then it has to allow that right equally in those specific categories.”

        Not much of a loophole. They either allow everyone in the above covered amendments vote or declare that no one votes. No one is going to sit down or rollover for such a deceleration.

      2. All those limits are saying that IF the states allow people to vote, then it has to allow that right equally in those specific categories.

        I don’t have time to hunt through article one right now, but I believe that the Constitution says that members of the House of Representatives are to be directly elected, so some people HAVE to be allowed to vote. Therefore, there must be a right to vote.

        Also, I couldn’t help but be struck be the similarity between the amendments that Jerry quoted and the language of the Second Amendment talking about the right to bear arms. I believe that you’ve just made the argument that there is no right to bear arms in the U.S.

    2. But Jerry, I accounted for that, right here, when I said:

      Reasons as to why certain people can’t or at least shouldn’t be discriminated against, yes,

      That doesn’t change the fact that an American citizen having a fundamental right to vote, in the same way that they have a right to free speech and arms, is not specifically addressed. And because of that, it leaves the door open for exactly what’s happening now: the GOP coming up with other reasons to stop people from voting. Reasons that, by the way, really ARE aimed at students and people of color, no matter how much the GOP may claim otherwise.

      PAD

      1. “Reasons as to why certain people can’t or at least shouldn’t be discriminated against, yes,”

        I know. But my contention is that the wording in each one, especially the one dealing with voting age since that covers everyone 18 and above, covers it.

        “Amendment 26 – Voting Age Set to 18 Years
        1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”

        Boom. Right there you have it spelled out that the right of the citizens of the United States who are eighteen years of age or older have the right to vote. That doesn’t say women, blacks, minorities, or people who vote one party or another. That clearly says that the people of this country over the age of 18 have that right.

        I honestly think a case can be made on that one alone. As it is, the groups being targeted by much of the voter laws that the GOP wants passed or have passed are covered specifically by past amendments. When they target areas that are heavily black, you could argue that they’re going against the 15th with their actions.

        And, hopefully, you’re now posting from a comfy room and not from a noisy hall waiting to get a room to sleep in.

        Enjoy Dragon*Con. Wish I was there this year.

      2. Enjoy Dragon*Con. Wish I was there this year.

        PAD’s here? Geez, the one guy whose name I actually looked for on the guest list and I missed it. Doh.

      3. Peter, I’ve read your claims several times, and maybe it’s the burgundy, but even after going through them several times, I still can’t see them as anything other than off the wall:

        1. A “republican” form of government (small “r”) is one elected by the people. If a State is to be “guaranteed a republican form of government,” how can that be done without a right to vote?

        2. The Second Amendment is not a blanket right to own a weapon; it is a right to do something with a weapon (serve in the militia).

        The Constitution also has a treason clause in it, as do most states (or at least they did at one time — John Brown was hanged for treason against VIRGINIA — Jerry). So, in a constitutional crisis which confronts the Union and Virginia, a citizen has a right, an obligation, and effective power to support one over the other. That is the federal right to own a gun (see The Federalist # 28), DERIVATIVE of the obligation to defend the Constitution (whatever it actually says).

        The Tenth Amendment restricts federal jurisdiction from invading the “general” police powers of the states. That makes regulation of hunting (and hunting arms) — or home protection — a STATE function, so what is your complaint? There is nothing in the Constitution which allows me a blanket right to own a tank, a mortar, a machine gun, or a nuclear weapon. There is a provision in the Constitution which makes regulation of at least some of that a state function, provided only that the state regulation not infringe the federal right.

        3. The fact is that the original Constitution had no bill of rights. Rather, it was a document which distributed power between the Union and the States, then among the branches of government composing the Union. Furthermore, it is an amendment of the Articles of Confederation, so you have to start with that. The whole idea of specifying any rights is a tack-on, and of course such could not be encyclopaedic. The Ninth and Tenth amendments were adopted to deal with that, because Federalist opponents of a bill of rights said that any list specifying rights would be cause for denying rights not specified. The Constitution contains many rights not expressed specifically, including so-called “structural” rights (See, e.g., Bowsher v. Synar). Your entire premise is backward.

        4. I killed a mouse once in cold blood (I set a trap for it and baited it with a peanut I knew it could not resist). Arrest me, Jerry; I’m guilty: First degree rodenticide! Wondering where this goes? What do you call the killing of an unborn child? Of course it’s alive (so was the rat). But, where is the crime? The legal question is: WHEN does the unborn child legally become a “person”? Jewish law always has said: When the child is born (Exodus), and Catholic law once was that way; but, perhaps because they got so burned over Galileo, they changed their standard consistent with development of medical knowledge. The changes in the circulatory system which create an air-breathing mammal do not “ensoul” the infant, so birth is not what separates the man from the mouse. Rather, the tradition of the law requires protection to all who are human IN RERUM NATURA (Sir Edward Coke, The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628). That refers to the moral capacity of the organism (what distinguishes a man from a mouse) — the inherent capacity to “know the laws of God and Man.” The unborn child, as a matter of science, possesses that capacity because of its brain, not its heart or the connection of same to the lungs. The Catholic position coincidentally is the scientific position. What you try to impose on us, Peter, (or at least imply) is the standard of Jewish religion originating in the mistaken ideas of ancient Egyptian physiology. But, why should constitutional law be bound by ANY religion rooted in bad biology?

        As I’ve come to expect, when it comes to politics, what you do best is bubble like a yeast cake.

        You’re not making any sense.

      4. Jerry: if the amendment ended before the words “on account of age,” I’d completely agree with you.

        On the other hand, they can be discriminated against based upon, say, the lack of photo ID. Or, for that matter, sexual persuasion when you get down to it. Which, I know, sounds absurd. Then again, I suspect there are plenty of members of the Tea Party who’d be pretty okay with that.

        All I’m saying is that we have plenty of people who are stating that voting is a fundamental right, and the fact that there is in no language that makes that as explicit as other rights is exactly the weakness in the Constitution that the GOP is exploiting in nearly three dozen states.

        None of which changes the fundamental point of the post, which is the GOP priorities: a handful of alleged instances of voter fraud, and they swing into action to make sure that this thing which isn’t happening, never happens agains. In the meantime thousands upon thousands of lives lost, and they declare that tighter gun laws are not even to be discussed because it’s politicizing tragedies. Because that’s what the GOP is all about: worrying about people’s feelings.

        PAD

      5. Okay, I get what you’re saying. We’re just reading the interpretation differently.

        As for the lives lost… You and I will likely both be dust and forgotten and they will still be fighting over it like they are today.

      6. PAD,

        The thing to take away from the various provisions that Jerry keeps bringing up is that they all refer to a right to vote. They presuppose one, because one existed prior to those amendments being enacted. Each of those nondiscrimination measures stands for the proposition that the preexisting right may not be abridged for any of the reasons stated.

        Half the things that are considered fundamental rights aren’t specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Right to reproduce? Nope. Right to travel? Nope. Right to privacy? Nope. Yet they exist.

        And because of that [lack of a specific enumeration of the right to vote], it leaves the door open for exactly what’s happening now: the GOP coming up with other reasons to stop people from voting.
        …
        All I’m saying is that we have plenty of people who are stating that voting is a fundamental right, and the fact that there is in no language that makes that as explicit as other rights is exactly the weakness in the Constitution that the GOP is exploiting in nearly three dozen states.

        You’re assuming that a specified right to vote would prevent the cabal, er, GOP from regulating it. I don’t think that’s a very safe assumption. Rights, even fundamental rights, are regulated all the time. (In fact, you encourage the regulation of one that is enumerated: the right to keep and bear arms. And the one issue where I tend to consistently agree with you, free speech, is one that is more regulated than either you or I would probably prefer.) I fail to see how the Supreme Court would be inclined to be more protective of a right that’s already considered fundamental, merely because someone codified the law that they were already applying.

        None of which changes the fundamental point of the post, which is the GOP priorities

        That was the fundamental point of the post? It reads more like a call to arms on the issue of a right to vote.

        On completely unrelated issues: What are you doing at Dragon*Con? I glanced through the brochure and found a panel on novelizations and a costume contest; anything else?

      7. David,

        You are, I think. making the same mistakes on where he was going that I was.

        Yes, the things I pointed out seem to be written in such a way that one would assume that the right is a given, but I think Peter wants something that is more definite and less dependent on assumption. And, also, or so I assume from his last comment to me, I think he was also making more of a point on gun control than some of us read into it.

        At least on the first part, I kind of see where he’s coming from, but I more or less thought about it as you did when reading those sections. But I can see the point being made that making a clear and definite Amendment that makes voting a right (Period!) and not subject to screwing around with like we’re seeing. It would just be one hëll of a complicated write.

      8. Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw: The braying on this never ceases. Once more, no one preseents any evidence whatsoever that these claims have any validity.

        Peter is wrong to say that only white male property owners could vote in colonial times (some colonies had property requirements and some didn’t), but it would be accurate to say that several leading politicians of the day openly advocated such a standard, and even at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Voting (it’s one of those unenumerated rights) was well established in colonial America, as were restrictions on who could do it. The States have latitude in this area, and the ultimate proof of that are the several amendments mentioned here which narrow that latitude because it was abused.

        Are other forms of abuse possible? One would have to assume we have not exhausted the list. But, what if Romney came out for limiting voting to property owners only? That’s not on the list of reasons why voting may not be denied. It is a legal position to take. But, Romney still would have to get some State to enact the provision into law and publish the statute as part of the legal code (where anyone here could read it).

        So, where is the statute, everybody? Quote a statute which, in its totality, prevents someone from voting. A convicted felon? Yes, Florida and several other states have such a statute, but the statute does not target Democrats or excuse Republicans. Student photo ID? Such IDs are issued by the schools, not the states, and do not evidence residence in the state where the school is located (why they are no good). You must RESIDE in the state, not just be there on election day, to exercise any right to vote there. Students need to vote in their own states — the states which issued them driver’s licenses. Less early voting? There is no requirement to have ANY early voting; a case can be made to have NONE. Early voting can be a convenience to voters, but it is an inconvenience to candidates (especially lesser known or lesser funded ones) trying to make their case. That inconvenience falls equally on Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and Communists.

        None of these claims have validity toward supporting the accusation, which is that Republicans are preventing actual voters from voting.

        If you’re going to be considered more than one of those call-in conspiracy theorists on Coast to Coast, you need to produce more than a wild claim that Republicans (or aliens or boogeymen) are out to get you by opposing long periods of early voting, by requiring you to show that you’re more than a figment of ACORN’s imagination, or by demonstrating that you’re more than a hitchhiker on his way to somewhere else in the galaxy. What we have here so far are our local fanatics’ fantasies. Persecution by “mean ol’ Republicans” is on the talking-point list. So, like the good soldiers they are, several here mindlessly bray the charge from the top while simply ignoring evidence to the contrary.

        Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw!

      9. Jerry,

        My point is that PAD’s wrong in his assumption that delineating a right in the Constitution would make these maneuvers impossible. As bold as the Second Amendment is, at least in the gun advocates’ interpretation, nobody seriously doubts that bans on the possession of firearms by felons are legal, or laws governing concealed carry. Freedom of speech and assembly are explicitly protected, but time, place, and manner restrictions are allowed. No right is absolutely inviolate. Fundamental rights are protected by strict scrutiny, the highest level of judicial review, meaning that a restriction must be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. Voting already is a fundamental right; no further benefit would accrue from what PAD is suggesting.

        I apologize for any typos; I am typing this on an ipad in between workshop sessions, so proofreading isn’t exactly possible.

      10. Mr Crim,

        “The Second Amendment is not a blanket right to own a weapon; it is a right to do something with a weapon (serve in the militia).”

        It IS a blanket right to own arms. During the revolutionary war the State could not supply the militia with arms of its own and had to rely on the people to supply their own. Subsequently, this amendment gives them the right to keep and bear arms. To OWN them.
        One of the facts that all of us seem to forget is that as citizens of the US, we are all a part of the Militia. Subsequently, we must have the arms necessary for the security of a free State. Since the State cannot afford to buy my arms for me, I obeyed the 2nd amendment and bought my own. Since the State is also too poor to regulate the militia, I practice along with my fellow citizens at the local gun range.

      11. Jerry, when I was a news reporter in Connecticut, I figured that if I caught it pretty equally from both sides, I must be pretty close to what’s real.

        Justice Scalia (who wrote the Washington, D.C., gun opinion) is one to believe that the first evidence of what the Constitution originally meant can be found in the language, itself.

        So, Mr. Henry, let’s look at the Second Amendment:

        It contains a simple command separated by two appositives (the portion between the commas). Let’s remove the appositives to determine the command:

        “A well regulated militia…shall not be infringed.”

        Which sounds pretty clear to me, but let’s see if adding the appositives singly changes anything:

        “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state…shall not be infringed.”

        Which still sounds like what is protected is the militia.

        Even: “A well regulated militia…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” still protects the militia (while defining better what a “militia” is).

        Let’s put both appositives in but backward: “A well regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, being necessary for the security of a free state, shall not be infringed.”

        Whatever the amendment is, the Amendment that way still is protecting the militia.

        It is only when we reverse the appositives —

        “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, [sic] shall not be infringed”

        — only then do we get the argument that the purpose of the amendment is to assure a private right to arms INDEPENDENT from militia service.

        Now, if one is very familiar with the writings of Alexander Hamilton — as in, “I’ve read him in the original” — he knows that Hamilton DID make the mistake occasionally of separating with a comma the subject of a sentence from its predicate, so that, in modern English, the provision then would read:

        “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” {Sic]

        Which is how Mr. Henry sees it.

        But, the historian has to work quite a bit to get there. The Bill of Rights was not written by Hamilton but by Madison, who at the time was in the House of Representatives. Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury but already was leader of the Federalist Party in the Senate. Madison’s Bill of Rights passed the House and went to the Senate, where changes were made and any record kept lost to history (there is nothing in the First Annals of Congress other than the amended provisions and the record of the vote).

        So, IF the changes made in the Second Amendment (the changes which gave us the strange punctuation) were made by the Federalists, and IF the guiding hands in those changes were Alexander Hamilton’s, and IF Alexander Hamilton slipped in that instance and separated the subject from the predicate of the sentence with a comma, THEN the provision may be read the way Mr. Henry sees it.

        But, only then.

        Is it possible? The authorship of several Federalist Papers is disputed (Hamilton is reported to have written them, and Madison said that’s incorrect). Specifically (as I recall), 17, 18, and 19 are among the disputed papers, and syntactical analysis of all of these strongly suggests that Madison wrote them but that someone NOT Madison edited (rewrote) them.

        That someone would have to be Hamilton (who had overall editorial control of the project and was the last to touch them before they went to the printer).

        So, we also may infer that Hamilton once DID edit Madison’s work. He COULD be the secret final author of the Bill of Rights.

        Finally, one of the sources for proving that Hamiltonoccasionally separated subjects from predicates with commas is the Federalist Papers (written BEFORE trhe Bill of Rights). The historical record is not foreclosed.

        Still, that’s a very twisted trail to get us to “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The final comma may not belong, but we appear to be stuck with it.

        What, then, was the history of the time? Can IT shed any light?

        All small arms in that day were made locally, individually, and fitted to the owner in the way the best shotguns today still are. No crossing state lines, no secret eminations influencing prices in other states, no “commerce” as the word then was understood — hëll, at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified, there weren’t even interchangeable parts!

        In other words, there was no reason for the federal Constitution to have ANYTHING in it re a personal right to arms because, at the time, there was no reasonable extension of federal power by which the federal government could regulate or prohibit private ownership of guns.

        THAT was the protection against federal gun laws, not a specified right.

        So, why the Second Amendment? What WAS the concern, expressed in constitutional debate after constitutional debate, about the militia? It was that the federal government, having been given for the first time power both to tax AND raise its own forces, soon would use that power with the concurrent plenary power to “arm, equip, and discipline the militia,” to give ITS troops the tanks, the planes, the machine guns and mortars of the day while it equipped the militias with slings and arrows!

        That, of course, was a direct threat to the independence of the states, as well as to freedom generally, and that was an oversight the states insisted be corrected as a condition for making their ratifications permanent.

        The Second Amendment directly accomplishes that objective. It prevents the federal government from abusing its power to “arm” and “equip” to a state’s detriment and pretty much leaves regulation of firearms in state hands.

        What, then, are we left with? “[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms” as an appositive — as an EXPLANATION for what a “militia” is. THAT is where the Federalist # 28 comes in. The United States of America is a federal republic, a “perpetual union of perpetual states,” with layer upon layer of protection against the concentration and abuse of power, that LIBERTY forever may be preserved (as in “security of a FREE state”). And, its ultimate line of defense lies in the capacity of uncorrupted parts to unite and weed “the caterpillars of the commonwealth” — with ballots if possible but with bullets if necessary. In a constitutional crisis between a state and the Union, each side has a treason law, and an individual citizen will be caught in the middle. He will have to chose which side is right and side with the right to make it so — the ultimate democratic election.

        The people who established this country were, after all, a bunch of revolutionaries who had done it all before.

        In the minds of the Founding Fathers, acknowledgement of a personal right to MILITARY arms constituted acknowledgement of this foundational and STRUCTURAL federal principal. They were NOT saying that guns should not be regulated but only that the role of the federal government in regulating was limited — the primary job there lies in the general police powers of the separate states. No one could guarantee, in 1789, that there would be no fundamental conflicts among Americans sometime in the future. No one then could guarantee that democracy always would work to resolve them. But, what all did know was what they already had learned, which was that when a central government becomes tyrannical, the uncorrupted state members could rely upon those willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to defend their freedom, and that in such a conflict, no matter how terrible, the greatest military power on the face of the planet, for being corrupt, could not prevail.

        What then did the STATES establish as the fundamental regulation for possession of guns? The provision in Connecticut’s constitution is typical: “Every citizen has the right to bear arms for defense of self AND the state.” True, Connecticut’s courts never have gotten that correct (they keep substituting “or” for “and”). But, what does this provision literally say? It says that you may use a gun to defend yourself WHEN you also defend the law — it is NOT ownership of the gun which is the right; rather, it is the use — defense of the law — which is BOTH right and duty.

        Furthermore, “the law” is not whatever two crooks can get together and agree upon. Democracy is more than two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch. There are areas where no government safely can enter. When a government becomes no more than an engine for assigning privileges to the “ins” and pains to the “outs,” the ultimate victim is the law itself. That kind of law merits disrespect on its face, and disrespect is what it will have. Ultimately, that disrespect will manifest itself in disloyalty, in secession, and in treason. “The American Revolution,” wrote John Adams, “was in the hearts and minds of the people…a fundamental change in their sense of obligation.”

        If we continue down the road we travel now, we will see such change once again in America, when generations of Americans yet to come find they have been saddled with pains for benefits already consumed by others. But, as in 1776, theirs will be a treason excused by a higher virtue, provided it is founded on service to the law in its higher sense. The right to keep and bear arms then will become the right of their use, which is what originally clearly was intended.

        As for all the current tempests: There is no blanket right to own a gun. Certainly, one may not own a gun to rob a bank, and those who buy guns to rob banks will (if we catch them) lose their right to own guns for anything else. A right to own a gun to shoot game? Where in any state code is there an unqualified right to shoot wildlife? Hëll for want of a fishing license, I can’t drop a hook and line into the ocean 5 miles down the street!

        In Florida, it is illegal to own a machine gun except for one on which transfer tax has been paid, and of course these days the federal government end-runs that rule by refusing to accept the tax. There, of course, is the lawsuit for anyone interested, not on the claim that there can be no regulation of machine guns (that contention is nuts) but that Florida is perfectly competent to do the regulating without that much of Uncle Sam’s help. In such a situation, the suit is filed qui tam (for the citizen and for the state), and the Second Amendment directly applies.

        But, you still have to fit the complaint to the provision of law upon which it rests. The fundamental purpose of the Second Amendment was to preserve and protect the state militias by preventing capricious regulation or prohibition of firearms by the United States against militia members.

        There are, incidentally, several other provisions in the Constitution concerning the right to own guns (the Second Amendment is not the only one). But, all of them focus on the USE of the weapon, not the ownership, itself. State constitutional provisions similarly focus on the use.

        I’m not yet convinced that Mr. Henry’s argument satisfactorily retains such distinction, and before I acquiesce to anyone owning a machine gun who is writing on this blog, I want to know what they are planning to do with it.

        My guess is that I would not be the only one.

  3. On topic, though, your proposed amendment would open a big ol’ can of worms. States can set their voting laws as they wish, as long as they’re even-handed — that’s what the 14th and 15th Amendments cover.

    This amendment would have to set a single national standard on a lot of matters — criminal record and residency requirements come to mind. States that didn’t want to adopt the federal standards would have to run two entirely separate voter rolls.

    Finally, this is one of the ways that the states can check federal power. Making this an amendment would address the practical aspects, but not the philosophical ones.

  4. I actually don’t have a problem with felons voting..If they’ve served their time they should be allowed to..That would make me a liberal in some quarters, but what they hey?!

    1. Maybe you should consider it part of the penalty for committing a felony.

      Perhaps some of the crimes classified as felonies should be re-classified.

      And to Jerry the ‘cop’ sounds like you are profiling Texans

    2. I agree and disagree to a degree. I could see felons getting the right to vote back, but the stipulation would be that they have to keep their noses clean for six years after being released from prison. But I can’t see reinstating such privileges on day one. I would want some proof of rehabilitation first.

      Of course, you didn’t elaborate, so I may actually agree without disagreeing by the time you explain it.

      1. I guess I’m to the Left of you here, Jerry…I do believe they should receive their voting privileges back on Day One..If they are a free citizen, they should have a say in the leadership of the country, be part of our democracy and be able to rejoin society…I realize some of these people may be very nasty, nasty people, but so are many of the people not in prison.
        .
        Plus, then you – I mean you generally, not personally – ARE making it a class thing…There is no doubt in my mind that some people are able to plead down to misdemeanors because of legal representation OR because they may have a lenient judge. That’s our system and I defend it as the best we have…But especially if some people have had to serve more or harder time in prison, they shouldn’t also have the punishment compounded by still not being able to enjoy one of the rights of being free.

      2. There’s actually a middle ground where criminals lose the right to vote upon being convicted of a felony, but regain it upon either serving their sentences or completing probation. That is, as I understand it, the state of the law here in NC.

      3. “I guess I’m to the Left of you here, Jerry”

        Ha! There’s a line written by you that no one likely ever thought they’d see written by you on this blog.

      4. I just believe that there is a component of “rehabilitation” in the jail system that’s getting lost in a lot of ways and think that you must show yourself to be on the path of rehabilitation as a law abiding citizen and not just a recently released repeat offender who has yet to get another ticket back to the slammer.

        Serving time is one thing. Being a law abiding citizen again is another. I would want a little more proof of the rehabilitation is all.

      5. “I guess I’m to the Left of you here, Jerry”
        .
        ‘Ha! There’s a line written by you that no one likely ever thought they’d see written by you on this blog.’
        .
        Probably not, but what can I say..The act of voting is essential to our democracy…Many of these same felons who are released are likely to be legally prohibited from drinking, frequenting certain places – which is fine by me – and likely to face more difficulty for being hired at a decent job for “honest work”. Which is fine. Drinking is a quality of life issue. Even the type of job you get impacts your quality of life..and if they are punished by still not having it on easy street when they get out from prison..well, fine – especially since in mnay of these cases there were likely “collateral damage” and some of these are likely violent people.
        .
        But voting is a precious right/privilege..In fact it is a DUTY of responsible, informed citizens. So to me, giving felons the right to vote is giving them another responsibility and a duty..it’s not giving them a license to party.
        .
        And I find it ironic that you’re saying somebody has to show proof they’re a good person in order to exercise this right/privilege, but somehow a photo ID showing someone is actually who they say they are is somehow a great burden.
        .
        Oh, and as for your statement about my statement, well, it will probably be another eight years before I have reason to say it again..so enjoy it while you can:)

      6. Ha! There’s a line written by you that no one likely ever thought they’d see written by you on this blog.

        Here’s another one: I think I’m pretty much in total agreement with Jerome on this one. 😉

      1. “Ha! There’s a line written by you that no one likely ever thought they’d see written by you on this blog.

        Here’s another one: I think I’m pretty much in total agreement with Jerome on this one. 😉 ”
        .
        Okay. I have found out that I am to the Left of Jerry on an issue that – and I NEVER thought I’d type these words – Craig is in total agreement with me on.
        .
        I am really glad I had a good dinner tonight..because this is a sure sign of the apocalypse:)

      2. Crist has been proven by now to be the worst kind of politician. he is not a moderate. He is a liar and a weasel.

      5. No, Sasha..here’s why…
        1.) Early in the 2008 campaign, Crist made a deal that he would endorse another supposed RINO Rudy Giuliani for President. This is a huge reason why Rudy felt so comfortable banking on Florida and dismissed Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
        .
        2.) Crist then disappeared.
        .
        3.) The Giuliani campaign started sinking and Crist swore he would not endorse anyone.
        .
        4.) With Romney and McCain locked in a to-the-wire, to-the-death battle going into the final weekend before election day, Crist remembered that McCain helped him and made a last minute endorsement, pushing him over the top and pìššìņg the rest of the GOP candidates off. That propelled McCain to the nomination, which worked out so well.
        .
        5.) He ran for the Senate, didn’t take the Tea Party or Rubio seriously, ran then as an independent when he fell behind..lost anyway and basically seemed to have less of a problem with the Democrat being elected than Rubio.
        .
        6.) Now comes out and supports Obama in a Presidential election

      6. Not quite how I remembered/interpreted things:
        .
        1.) I don’t recall any talk or reports of a “deal” between Giuliani and Crist. What I do recall was Giuliani basing his campaign pretty much entirely on “I was mayor of NYC during 9/11”, getting predictably shellacked during the early primary as a result of his incompetent campaigning and strategy, poor funding, and limited message, resulting in him having to rely on Florida as a Hail Mary to survive and sucking up hard to Crist as a result.
        .
        2.) Crist stayed out of the primary and played coy.
        .
        3.) The Giuliani campaign started sinking for the aformentioned reasons. Crist stayed out but (IIRC) never said he’d never endorse.
        .
        4.) Crist endorses RINO-esque McCain (but later infuriates the McCain campaign by extending voter hours in Florida when record numbers of people come out to vote in 2008).
        .
        5.) Crist puts principles over partisanship and runs as the moderate Republican he always was instead of drinking the Tea-flavored Kool-Aid. Since he refused to follow the current GOP direction of 100% opposition to Obama on anything always, he loses the TP GOP primary. He runs as an independent (and earns my vote).
        .
        6.) Crist concludes that the GOP is beyond redemption (most recently when conservative stalwart Richard Lugar is the most recent Republican to be primaried out of office for not being sufficiently ideological), and endorses Obama.
        .
        Of course, YMMV.

      7. Even if ol’ Crust did have a legitimate complaint about dumping Sen. Lugar (and I did not think much of that either, nor of the effort to run out Orrin Hatch), to turn around and endorse Obama after endorsing McCain and claiming to be the true conservative over Rubio?

        I’ve got a better one: I’ll endorse Putin!

      8. Sasha,
        Most of what I wrote about Crist and the 2008 campaign was a result of the reporting in the book “Game Change”. Of course, the media were too excited about the sections that didn’t reflect favorably on Sarah Palin to report on the other stuff in it, but subsequent blogs have confirmed that Giuliani felt he had a deal with Crist..He was going to unveil Crist’s endorsement about a month before Florida so after the shellacking he was sure to recive in Iowan, Nwew Hampshire and South Carolina, he would still have the Crist name and machine working for him in Florida and the media and donors would not declare him dead with a shot at more delegated in Florida to be won than the comined delegates up to that point.
        .
        Then Crist went AWOL. then he said he wasn’t endorsing anyone..then out of loyalty to McCain, he endorsed him. This was a last-weekend endorsement that seemed to put McCain over the top and almost mortally wounded Romney.
        .
        And Kool-Aid? Really? Did you see Rubio last night? Rubio is simply an outstanding candidate/Senator.

      9. Considering that the GOP in general and the Tea People in specific aren’t conservative so much as composed as reactionary loons (IMHO), I’d say that Crist was indeed correct in proclaiming to be the true conservative over Rubio (ditto Obama vs. so-called conservatives).

        And Kool-Aid (really) is correct because what Crist needed to do to win his primary was to become as unthinking exponent of Tea Party ideology, which he refused to do. That’s what most “moderate” Repubs (including McCain) had to do to beat of primary challenges.

      10. Never read GAME CHANGE so I can’t offer an opinion on it’s assertions. From my view as a Floridian, I really didn’t see Giuliani having any real hope of winning the state, regardless of Crist’s endorsement (which is probably the reason why Crist reneged any supposed deal).

      11. Well, the idea was Crist would endorse him early and campaign for him and this way the press would help make his admittedly longshot strategy more palusible..and the pro-gay rights, pro-abortion Giuliani was hardly a doctrinaire conservative..yet Crist stabbed him in the back anyway.

  5. Well, I’ll start off with the fact that your premise is, if not absolutely wrong, significantly flawed. Here is what the Constitution says about voting, apart from nondiscrimination amendments:
    The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. Article I, Section 2.
    But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Amendment XIV.
    The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. Amendment XVII.

    So while the words may not be a model of clarity, the upshot is this: If you have a right to vote in elections for your state legislature, you have a right to vote for Senate and House, if the state restricts the franchise for things other than crimes, the state starts losing House seats, and there are a host of nondiscrimination measures in place that Jerry Chandler quoted above. In theory I suppose the state could decide to have zero seats in the House of Representatives and abolish elections, but the Constitution (Article IV) guarantees to each state “a Republican form of government,” and it’s hard to imagine any form of republic that doesn’t include elections. Frankly it’s hard to imagine a restriction on suffrage that wouldn’t run afoul of the Constitution. If you can’t discriminate based on age, sex, race, literacy, or class (the ability to pay a poll tax), that takes out most of the ways we group people in society. And those are just the enumerated ones– the Equal Protection Clause covers most forms of discrimination in a variety of contexts, not limited to voting, and not limited to Federal elections.

    And, of course, there is always the catch-all Amendment IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Or, in other words, there are some things so obvious that they neither can nor should be spelled out. To date there is no example of a law being declared unconstitutional based on that amendment, but if someone were to, say, abolish elections, that law would be an ideal candidate to be the first example of the Ninth Amendment having teeth. (Assuming, of course, that the law wasn’t first declared unconstitutional by vote of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)

    And yes, you do have to go into scenarios that ridiculous and farfetched if you’re trying to argue that there’s no constitutional right to vote, because the basic argument is ridiculous and farfetched. Even if you are making the very narrow argument that the Constitution doesn’t “specifically” guarantee the right to vote, I still think you’re wrong because it does guarantee that you have a right equivalent to your right to vote in state elections, it guarantees that that right must exist, and the Constitution guarantees that that same right must not be denied for basically any reason other than the conviction of a crime. Do you really need it more specific than that?

    Of course there actually isn’t a right to vote for President, or even for the electors to the Electoral College. It isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

    As for the rest of your argument… well, honestly, the allegation that there’s no constitutional right to vote was less wrong.

    I mean, sure, they’re fuzzy on the whole militia part, but the whole “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed upon,” that they’ve got down cold.

    And I’m sure you base that comment on your close reading of the Heller opinion. You know, the case where the Supreme Court actually addressed that issue. The short version is that (1) preambles don’t actually have legal force, (2) “militia” means an armed citizenry anyway, and (3) contemporary and near-contemporary commentary and state constitutions support the individual rights interpretation. So the right is fuzzy on the militia issue in exactly the same way that the left is fuzzy on the constitutionality of the President’s health care reform.

    Lives don’t matter (unless the life is in a woman’s womb; then it’s sacrosanct.)

    This is the second time this month you’ve used the exact same argument. It’s a really, really bad one. For one thing, abortion is an issue where the left is every bit as rabid and intolerant as the right is (according to you, anyway) on firearms. Notwithstanding the pot-kettle-black aspect, there actually is a principled argument to be made that terminating a fetus does terminate a human life. Are you really, really going to mock people for believing that abortion is entirely too similar to infanticide?

    And the medical ethicists who recently argued that after-birth abortions should be permitted because fetuses and newborns are morally equivalent didn’t really help abortion rights arguments. http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full

    (no one meaning a Republican candidate, i.e. a white male property owner)

    Oh come now. The following people, according to PAD, are white male property owners: Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Olympia Snowe, Susana Martinez, Sarah Palin, JC Watts, Allen West, Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi… You know, this is too silly. I’m just going to roll my eyes and move on.

  6. David,
    “(no one meaning a Republican candidate, i.e. a white male property owner)

    Oh come now. The following people, according to PAD, are white male property owners: Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Olympia Snowe, Susana Martinez, Sarah Palin, JC Watts, Allen West, Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi… You know, this is too silly. I’m just going to roll my eyes and move on.”
    .
    Oh come now, David, the Left’s views on race are basically unchanged from the 1960s…Any criticism about Obama – even that he has a campaign based on anger – is “code” for keeping blacks down (I guess pretty soon we’ll be saying the A-word just like we now say N-word); any black man or woman who rejects tired, stale ideas and any woman who pits actual education and health care above the supposed attack on her uterus – well they all hate their own race and gender don’t ya know?..Just like Hispanics who care more about good jobs, good education and moral issues rather than our President’s borderline retarded argument that Arizona’s immigration law will result in a Nazi-like demand to “see your papers” must be self-loathing as well..They should ALL be worried about looking over their shoulders simply for daring to go for an ice cream cone according to our idiotic, demagogue who our nation sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue four years ago.

    2. “Any criticism about Obama – even that he has a campaign based on anger – is “code” for keeping blacks down”

      People keep making that ridiculous argument… I don’t know how it started, but I sure wish it would stop. I only hear it from the right… just like I only heard it from the right when the left criticized George W. Bush: “When you criticize Bush, you’re a traitor, you don’t support the troops and you love terrorism. Also, the Dixie Chicks suck now now. Kid Rock FOREVER!” the bottom line is Republicans are all about keeping the poor and minorities down because they vote democratic – hence the voting laws. they think that’s why McCain lost in 2008, and I’m sure they’re partly right.

      1. It’s just Jerome being Jerome again. I had thought he was taken over by logic on an earlier post, but he’s back to normal.

      2. “I only hear it from the right…”

        Then you don’t listen to or watch MSNBC or any of their hosts. Many of them have spoken multiple times about how mentioning welfare or food stamps while talking about the Obama Administration is coded racial language and “dog whistles” for used for race baiting to the base.

        The only time that they’ve said that recently that I might be inclined to agree with was Romney’s pitch to the Birthers the other day with his little “joke” about how no one has ever needed to ask him about his birth certificate and how everybody knows where he and his wife were born. That was certainly a toss to the fringe and maybe the racist fringe.

        But, yeah, that’s been thrown around a lot by MSNBC hosts, progressive radio hosts and by more than a few memes being posted online and on Facebook by self described progressives.

      3. Really, Jamie and Neil? Here is just one of the more blatant, inane, ridiculous and outrageous examples of what I’m talking about.

  7. “Here’s a nutty thought: for all the shouting we’ve heard in recent years about proposed Constitutional amendments that would curtail various rights (let’s ban flag burning! Let’s ban gay marriages!) how about an amendment that does what amendments are supposed to do: guarantee rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. A simple amendment: The right to vote in elections (or at least Federal elections) will not be infringed upon.”

    I’m a conservative who doesn’t post here too often, but this is the heart of my problem with the current state of the Republican party. I’d prefer a government that left me alone as much as possible, however when it comes to social issues that just doesn’t line up. Watching the Republican debates, it was obvious that most of them were either in line with the Tea Party or were catering their views to seem that way to get votes.

    From a personal standpoint, however, the Republican platform damages me less than the Democratic one. Being male, straight, gun owning, wealthy, with a small business owning wife, most of the further right (dumber) ideals don’t affect us as much. I feel like if Huntsman had gotten the nomination he would do the least damage of all the candidates (Obama included) as he believed in science and gay people, whereas the majority of Republican candidates do not, and he also showed successful economic initiatives and a good background in foreign affairs (which Obama has not).

    I understand PAD’s disgust often when I visit this site. That being said, your points to tend to be laced with such vitriol for the Republican party as a whole that I never put much stock in them. You’re a very talented writer, but when it comes to politics you are an enthusiast and not an analyst. Your analysis for constitutional law and the right to vote shows a lack of legal background/comprehension, and your idea of voter fraud is laughable. In one county I’ve worked as a prosecutor, we had one case of voter fraud. The one case accounted for 1200 votes. The survey you depend on to hammer home the number 300 was not a complete list of voter frauds (300 in the last ten years), it was 300 that they found within the parameters of their search. One case of voter fraud can sway an election (the county I worked in only had 14,000 residents).

    Similarly instead of putting forth an actual gun control plan, you prefer to ridicule the right for supporting the existing one. Quoting the number of deaths caused by firearms is not an argument. I enjoy your writing, but I worry people read your blog and put the same faith that they do in your “facts” as Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh. After all, there are plenty of idiots on both sides.

    1. Oh my God! A Conservative that doesn’t believe the GOP is right about everything! You are more rare than a man with four arms, sir. We should capture you and put you in a circus cage. “You’ve saw the bearded lady, the dog-man, now look! Gape in awe at the Conservative that doesn’t believe the GOP is right about everything! Look!”

    2. A Conservative that doesn’t believe the GOP is right about everything! You are more rare than a man with four arms, sir.

      Maybe it’s a prosecutor thing. (Says the gay-marriage-supporting pro-choice Republican ADA.) Between law school teaching us to think critically, and our career paths indicating that we actually give a dámņ about society, we might have built up an immunity to the RNC’s mind control apparatus.

      Or maybe… just maybe… Republicans aren’t the cookie-cutter automatons that you assume we are.

      1. Or maybe… just maybe… Republicans aren’t the cookie-cutter automatons that you assume we are.

        I can believe that about Republican voters.

        Less sure about Republican legislators.

      2. Well, at least you’re not running for public office. How many speeches at the RNC were in favor of gay marriage or supported pro-choice views? The RNC “big tent” has become amazingly uniform.

  8. Seems to be half of a valid point PAD. Yes requiring ID becomes a barrier for many people. I am about to renew my Drivers license, 22 dollars is what that costs. It is double that if I renew it after it has expired. That is real money to me. (I am on a fixed income) Voter fraud is a non issue. Voter apathy is a much more serious issue. Comparing gun control laws to voter fraud ID rules? Seems like an inflammatory simile.

    1. Twenty dollars is less than a parking ticket, John..really…and get invlved in elections sometimes, especially i a big city, and see if you still don’t believe voter fraud is a serious issue

      1. “Twenty dollars is less than a parking ticket”

        Depends on where you live and work.

        But the catch is that the cost can be very problematic if you’re on a fixed income and the other problem is that the cost goes up in many places if you let the ID fully expire.

        The even bigger issue can is that some states now require you to take the driver test all over again if you let your DL expire. Some older citizens let the DL lapse because they can’t drive anymore. They now have to pay a high price and may flunk a test. They can go for a DMV ID in some states, but that still costs a pretty penny if you’re poor and on a fixed income.

        It’s made all the worse when these people have forms of picture ID that they have used for voting for years now and are being told that the ID is now no longer good for that because they’re being found guilty until proven innocent of being guilty of voter fraud.

      2. Another consideration that isn’t brought up nearly as often as cost is whether the DMV is accessible.

        If you don’t drive (elderly or otherwise), but you’ve got to get that picture ID updated, you’ve got to be able to get to the DMV.

        Here, they allow you to renew via the internet (again, not as likely for the elderly), but they also recently reduced renewal from every 10 years to every 5.

      4. Is Las Vegas big enough? I read issues carefully and make an informed decision. Then I vote. Based on that I can not possibly understand voter fraud?

  9. I was just wondering how voter fraud works. Do they send in multiple absentee ballots for dead people? Do they drive to multiple polling places to vote as different people? In Illinois we go to the court house to register and then we get a voter ID card that tells us where our polling place is. We have to bring the card with us. We also have state IDs that never expire so regardless of the cost, it’s just a one time deal and anyone can get one.

    1. That is a good question. In general, it is all of the above. Some folks are paid to go to multiple polling places and to vote multiple names. Others just get a bunch of absentee ballots, fill them out, and send them in. Still others actually work in polling places, know which voters are ‘available’, and submit ballots on their behalf.

      Of course, the ‘professionals’ are very rarely caught, they have too much backing in the right places, and all the correct documentation to cover their tracks. It is only the unintentional or mistaken mis-voter that these nets usually catch.

    2. I will not swear this to be true for every polling station in Illinois, but for my polling station in suburban Cook County, I was specifically told that I did *not* need to present my voter ID card (which I had fished out of my wallet).

      A friend of mine who used to live in the Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago and who had moved to the suburbs tells me that he happened to be back in his old district’s polling place on Election Day with a friend of his who has a name that caused the election register to be opened to the page that *also* still included my friend’s name. And his wife’s name. And a deceased relative’s name.

      He says that all of them had already voted that day. This is, of course, anecdotal evidence and a fine story…

  10. Erin, I could be wrong on this, but I’m pretty sure that 300 number Peter cites also includes unintentional attempted voter fraud, such as people whose ID doesn’t precisely match the name in the voter rolls, people whose names were accidentally deleted but were trying to vote anyway, folks going to the wrong polling stations, etc. If you subtract that number of people from the number of people trying to commit deliberate voter fraud (and no, I honestly have no idea how or why somebody would do that) I suspect that number is signifantly lower than 300.
    .
    I now return this discussion to the three-sided gun control argument in whch a couple of you guys write really long posts without a hope in hëll of changing the other guy’s mind.

    1. You would be correct. the number was inflated with cases deemed to be unintentional fraud and without intent to break the law. Some things were as simple as people not having the address updated and a few cases, referencing the conversation Jerome and I were having, felons who were going through the process of getting their voting rights reinstated to them and having filed something wrong. The policies on felony re-enfranchisement among the 50 states are so inconsistent as to create confusion among, not only those former offenders who wish to regain the right to vote, but also the very officials charged with implementing the laws.

      The also included registration fraud and even plumped those numbers up by including cases where someone wrote information down on the wrong line. In other words, honest mistakes rather than intent to commit fraud.

      Before they inflated the numbers with things that are not actual incidents of pure voter fraud, it was in the low double digits.

  11. Consider that conservatives are in violent opposition to anti-gun laws, and it literally doesn’t matter how many people die.

    Which is why “Thou shalt not kill” has become “Thou shalt not murder”, making it easier to justify another person’s death with their own hypocritical religious views.

  12. Something that might not be apparent to everyone, but voting rights is part and parcel of the civil rights movement; voter registration is what got some people killed in the 50s and 60s, after all.

    That’s still within living memory for a lot of folks. And within oral history for many others.

    As such, it’s a hot button for those people.

  13. Thanks for your post Jerry; you clarified a number of things I was just thinking about, no least of which is, how can it be called fraud if one hadn’t intended to decieve? Most of the definitions of fraud in my handy Webster’s Dictionary seem to include the notion of intention or premeditation. Subtracting the number of unintentional cases would seem to bring us back to those double digits you mentioned.

  14. Simply, if you have to keep people from voting, you must not have faith they will believe what you’re selling. I’m glad I haven’t been able to watch the convention, sounds like it was three days going against The Phantom Obama, with no mention of how Congress has stalled every possible attempt to fix things.

  15. A recent report I read put the number of cases of voter I D fraud over the past decade at 10, total. Yet Republican Governors and Legislators around the country have made it a priority to end this abuse. (Some even admitting it’s about not letting certain groups vote.)
    But the 30,000 cases of pregnancy from rape every year is an event to rare to qualify as something that should concern us.

  16. This just in: An appeals court in WASHINGTON, D.C., has invalidated Texas’ voter ID law; Texas will appeal.

    OK: Politics in Texas is sleazy no matter who’s in charge there; however, at least those complaining now have something to work with. We need to know what the statutes say, what are the procedures, and why what should have been a decision in a 5th-circuit case issues from Washington. The judges on the panel were a Clinton appointee, an Obama appointee, and a Bush II appointee named Collyer. My gut tells me that someone simply was doing some judge shopping, but I don’t know how Collyer voted.

    1. I guess I get to reply to my own post here, and I don’t know if this report is accurate, but it is what Janell Ross closed her story with in the Huffington Post:

      “Texas claimed in the voter ID case that was decided Thursday that any voter who does not have one of the required forms of identification — a state-issued ID or driver’s license, a permit to carry a concealed handgun, a passport or a few other forms of ID — effectively has opted not to vote.”

      If that’s what Texas claimed, that’s why it lost, but there is no reason to believe that photo ID of itself disenfranchises voters.

      To vote, you need to be a citizen of the country, a resident of the state where you vote, and in some jurisdictions, a resident of the precinct in which you vote.

      That’s it. When you register, you need to produce some proof that all of the above is true, and any system which requires that proof is constitutional.

      For the alternatives it offers, Florida’s system requiring photo ID is constitutional. FROM WHAT WAS REPORTED, Texas’ system may not be.

      That is the bottom line.

  17. I’m just throwing this out there for the sake of argument: what if we did the exact opposite of PAD’s suggestion?
    .What if tightened the voting requirements so that only college educated adults could vote?
    .I’m sure the initial reaction would be, “OMG all those disenfranchised minorities would have no representation!” Except that, based on the education levels of the big two political parties, many (if not most) of the college educated population would be sympathetic to the plight of the disenfranchised in the U.S. As there is an increasing population of Asian and Middle-East descended college graduates, the white population able to vote would shrink significantly.
    .Best of all, the college-educated population would favor competent candidates, rather than the “sympathetic” characters (e.g. Palin, Bush Jr.) that are so popular with GOP supporters.

    1. What a great idea! And, it even would have been better had it been original.

      However, Daniel Patrick Moynahan already has written extensively on the subject [The Professionalization of Reform]. You remember him, right — from the “whiz kids” of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations? The people who gave us such brilliant policy decisions as the Viet Nam War?

      We definitely could use some more of that!

      Especially from the demodonkeys!

      1. Apparently I’m not nearly as old as you are.

        .You didn’t need to be such as ášš about it- it was just an attempt at discourse. I’d be willing to be that everything said here has been written about extensively (and 99% of the other topics debated on the Internet). According to your brilliant logic, we should just stop discussing politics because it’s already been said before. *rolls eyes*

      2. You miss the point that was made:

        At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there were delegates who insisted that the right to vote be limited to “property owners and similar men of quality,” and that the uneducated “common” people simply were incompetent to govern themselves without some earthly heavenly father to guide them in the right direction; to which Benjamin Franklin tersely replied, “They seem to have given a pretty good account of themselves in the last war.”

        It always is tempting to turn over the government to the direction of self-appointed Wise Men. The problem is that, whenever we’ve done that, the country has ended in a mess.

        The argument against government forcing its fingers into everything lies in the recognition that the overwhelming host of people can decide what actually is best for themselves. No one knows more what is best for you than you. I don’t need the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynahan telling me what I need to do with my life. He needed to spend more time, deciding what to do with his own.

      3. Robert, YOU miss the point he made…which was that you don’t have to be an ášš when you are making a point.

        The level of antagonism you display makes it very easy for those who disagree with any good point you make–and I will agree that you have done so–to ignore the message and attack the way it’s delivered. And those who do agree don;t want to be associated with that tone.

        Now you can say that tone and delivery and basic civility are far less important than being right. I guess it depends on whether you are trying to persuade or just venting. If the former, it’s important to make your arguments in a way that people will see the wisdom and not focus on the rudeness. If the latter…in that case you’ve shown up at the blog of a liberal for no other purpose than to upset him and those who agree with him…seems a petty goal.

        Every time you say “demodonkeys” I cringe the same way I do when I see others say “ReTHUGlicans” or “Repulsicans” or any other incredibly lame attempt to look like a third graders (and, though lame, mission accomplished). For the life of me I don;t get how people think that does anything in t heir favor. Oh, you say you are just responding in kind? Did they look stupid when they did that? Well, why on earth would you want to respond in a way that puts you at a level you think yourself above???

    2. Boy, oh boy, Peter’s fans go on and on, huh? That’s cool. I’ll fit right in.

      I don’t think much of the idea of only the college educated getting to vote. I’ve known too many carpenters with brilliant minds and too many idiots with masters degrees. You can educate ignorance away but not stupidity.

      Universal suffrage seems the way to go although I agree with Jerry Chandler we might think about some sort of proof of a law-abiding life for felons. I question whether they’d actually vote anyway.

      On to gun control. I’m a former youthful socialist who’s settled on voting for Democrats in my old age. I’ve also voted for Socialsts, Conservatives, Libertarians, La Raza Unida and the unaffiliated just attempting to add some diversity to elected offialdom. No Republicans though; just can’t do it.

      All that being said, I’m also a Texan and I live out in the middle of dámņ near nowhere. I have rattlesnakes, copperheads and meth addicts in near proximity and a police response time of about an hour and a half. I wouldn’t ask a deputy to shoot a snake for me anyway.

      I believe in all the Bill of Rights, second amendment and all. I can see, though, someone living in an urban, or even suburban, area might see less need for his neighbors to be armed. I also see no need for giant economy-size clips. If you can shoot more than six or eight shots at a time you probably will and good will come from that very rarely.

      Unfortunately the NRA and its Republican stooges are absolutists in a world and on a subject one should approach with an open mind.

      All of this is fun to ramble on about and very interesting, but has nothing to do with my original reason for looking up Peter’s web-site. The reason was Peter’s comment in CBG #1694 about being accosted by religious fanatics in San Diego. Going to hëll for attending ComicCon? That’s really sick. Of course my own sister thinks I’m going there for voting for Democrats in general and President Obama in particular.

      I’ve always tried to be polite and not go on (at least publicly) about the absurd things religionists claim to believe, but the older I get the less patient I’ve become. It’s difficult to reconcile living in the 21st century and still have legislators writing laws based on supernatural nonsense rather than rational thought.

  18. Ah, but here’s an interesting take on voting, at least at the Presidential level. Remember, when voting for President, we are actually voting for electors that our individual States will send to the Electoral College. Under our Constitution, State legislatures are given the power to decide how to appoint their electors. Their options included popular election or appointment by the state legislature. There are no recorded popular vote totals for the first few presidential elections because all of the state legislatures appointed their electors without the direct input of the public. By 1832, all electors except those from South Carolina were chosen by popular vote. So there is at least some precedence for the idea that there is no right (at least at the Presidental level) to vote.

    1. Tony gets an “A!” He is 100 per cent correct. Indeed, one of the things I wrote the Bush boys about during the Bush/Gore fiasco was the fact that Jeb and the Republican-controlled legislature could terminate the dispute immediately by taking advantage of this phenomenon; and, that’s what probably would have happened had the dispute threatened to keep Florida’s electors from getting to the Electoral College on time.

      Jeb and the Repubs simply could have selected the electors of THEIR choice and answered to Florida’s voters later.

      This is one of those carry-overs from the beginnings of the republic, when there was widespread belief that the uneducated “common man” could not competently select someone so important as a chief executive. Remember: The President speaks for the Union of the States, so he is THEIR representative to the foreign nations of the world, not ours.

      Now, for an extra ten points, Tony, do we currently have a lawful Senate?

      1. And again, you are being condensing while making your arguments, Robert. people are less likely to agree with you when you do that.
        .
        To be completely honest, with the amount of mudslinging, dishonesty (or outright lies), and deceptively named propositions that accompany every election, I don’t expect the ” common man” to understand what it is they just voted for. The majority of people don’t take the time to research both sides of an issue or candidate: they usually look to their political party for advice on how to vote.
        .
        .I have a friend who voted for Bush Jr. because she ”had to do the Republican thing”, despite it not being in her interest as a single mother.
        .Latinos in Texas voted in droves for Bush Jr. despite his policies not being favorable for them. Why did they do it? According to people I talked withon the Internet, it’s because A) he was from Texas and B) he spoke better Spanish.

      2. Bush’s policies are not favorable to Latinos? What is a policy “favorable” to Latinos? What I actually hear is that George Bush, Jr., implemented policies which YOU’VE decided are not favorable to individual X because his or her parents are or were Latino.

        If that’s how educated people vote in Texas, we need more voting by Latinos!

      4. No, Craig, it’s easier to ignore the demodonkey jáçkášš. After all, we all know you have NO ANSWER WHATSOEVER to the real issues of this campaign, which is that Obama has run the country into the ground with his neo-socialist agenda while he has run up the national debt by more than 5 trillion dollars.

        Do you even know how much a trillion dollars is? A dollar FeRN [Federal Reserve Note] is six inches long or half a foot. Placed end to end, that’s 10,560 to the mile. A trillion dollars, placed end to end, makes a ribbon further than from here to the sun! Go the other way with all 5 trillion of it and you are beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

        That is what your children are going to have to repay, sooner or later.

        Now, we’ve been talking here and in the last thread about this purported Reepublican conspiracy to suppress votes, and how horrible that is in terms of violating poor people’s rights.

        What, then, is to be said of a president’s policies designed to tax each and every unborn American yet to come for current consumption on the part of Americans now living?

        I can guarantee you that the unborn can’t vote!

        Craig is being a hypocrite, then sticking his head in the sand (or somewhere like that) when he gets caught.

      5. Dow Closing Jan. 20, 2009 – 7,949.09
        Dow Closing Aug. 31, 2012 – 13,090.84

        Deficit for 2009 – $1.55 trillion
        Deficit for 2010 – $1.37 trillion
        Deficit for 2011 – $1.36 trillion
        Deficit for 2012 – Projected $1.3 Trillion

        Debt 2009 – $11.9 trillion
        Debt 2010 – $13.5 trillion
        Debt 2011 – $14.8 trillion
        Debt 2012 – $16.4 trillion

        Now, yes, the debt has increased by just under $5 trillion under Obama. However, there are certain factors that need to be looked at. W. Bush’s unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us roughly $1.29 trillion by 2011. Bush and crew took that off book. Obama put it back on book. That jumped the numbers in his first budget by quite a bit. But the reality was that the numbers were there all along. They just weren’t being counted as a part of the debt under Bush. So a huge chunk of “Obama’s” increasing of the debt was actually just him putting Bush’s wars back on the books to be counted.

        Not only did Bush not work to fund the wars he wanted, but he and the Republicans insisted on tax cuts, primarily aimed at the top earners, during a time of war. So not only were we spending, but we weren’t even bringing in federal revenue at the level we were prior to the cuts. And we are still spending in Afghanistan while Republicans keep fighting to extend the Bush tax cuts despite them hitting the sunset period written into them. So that continues to be a double hit on us.

        But what is Obama doing to address this? He’s cutting spending where he can. The annualized growth of federal spending under Obama has been slowed to a level that you would have to go back to the 1950s to find a rate of annualized growth of federal spending as low as his. Both Bush I & Bush II and even Reagan spent at a higher rate.
        http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22

        In January of 2009, we lost 598,000 jobs. That brought the total losses in the crash at that point to 3.6 million jobs lost. The ADP National Employment Report states that private business sector jobs increased by 163,000 from June to July of 2012. That’s jobs being added.

        Now, overall there has been a total job loss of 552,000. But that number is because of the decline in government/public sector jobs during his time in office. And who exactly pushed for most (if not all) of those public sector job cuts? Republicans. So during a time of high unemployment, the Republicans pushed for and got massive cuts that added a huge number of job seekers to an environment where there were already fewer jobs than job hunters and added to both the unemployment numbers and to the total number of people on the state and/or federal assistance rolls.

        But feel free to explain how the increase in the jobless numbers and the increase in assistance is all Obama.

        Despite the talking point on the Right that Obama is banning drilling and killing the oil industry, the oil industry is setting record profits. And America itself is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. Despite a moratorium on new offshore drilling prompted by the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, domestic oil production has surged. Oil shale and natural gas production are also up sharply.

        Won’t do squat for the price at the pump though. That hasn’t been playing by the laws of supply and demand for years.

        Obama has also pushed for tax breaks for small businesses, cutting tax breaks connected to moving jobs overseas, giving tax breaks and incentives for bring jobs back from overseas and cut taxes on the middle class.

        And here’s a few short hits for you.

        Summer of 2008 – In the tail end of a seven year period of seeing US manufacturing lost at a high rate.
        Summer of 2012 – New US manufacturing jobs being gained (if only slowly) for the third straight year.

        Summer of 2008 – US auto industry crashing and burning.
        Summer of 2012 – US auto industry becoming healthy, GM number 1 in sales in the world again.

        Summer of 2008 – Housing market in full collapse, foreclosures increasing.
        Summer of 2012 – Housing market slowly coming back.

        Summer of 2008 – US in two wars, one started under questionable circumstances, where the US was spending $720 million $1 billion a day. War costs being kept off book to make the debt look less frightening.
        Summer of 2012 – US out of one war completely and leaving the other. War costs on book and now showing as a part of the debt.

        Summer of 2008 – National gas prices at an average of over $4 per gallon.
        Summer of 2012 – National gas prices at an average of over $3 per gallon.

        Summer of 2008 – GDP in decline.
        Summer of 2012 – GDP increasing.

        Summer of 2008 – US economy tanks so badly that it interrupts a major presidential election, Congressional Republicans and Republican President in favor of stimulus bills to save it.
        Summer of 2012 – Economy stable if only slowly recovering.

        But, please, tell us again how it was Obama who ran us into the ground and not Obama who got a country run into the ground that he’s been trying to pull back up and fighting Republicans who are blocking votes on needed bills at every chance. Tell us again how Romney, who wants to go back to the policies of Bush II and is already surrounding himself with Bush II advisers is going to make things better by going back to the policies that were in place when we crashed and burned and ran into the ground.

        The GOP had an opportunity to run someone who might have been a good choice this November. Instead we got a misfit crew of “It’s my turn!” rejects and now we have Romney promising to be Bush II 2.0 on steroids.

        On a scale of 1 to 10, Obama is about a 6. Romney on a good day is about a 1.

      6. Jerry, financial crises are caused by flaws in the banking system originating in the misdrawing of embezzlement statutes 300 years ago. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have been in any hurry to fix those and instead dump on us an unconstitutional paper-money fraud designed primarily to band-aid things over to the benefit of the very fat-cat financiers you claim to be so against. The ultimate proof of that? When BILL CLINTON signed the REPUBLICAN bill to repeal the Glass-Steagle Act, upon the lobbying efforts from LIBOR scamming CitiBank, he pulled the pin from the grenade, and the fruits of that are plain for all to see.

        The markets would have gone into some kind of catharsis in October 2007 except that the Fed ran a stop sign and pushed everything into 2008, hoping perhaps that it even could push everything into 2009, when (presto-change-o) it all would have been Obama’s fault, not Bush’s.

        (The best laid plans of mice and men get up and walk away.)

        But, that’s OK, because neither party is going to fix that anyway, so it’s a waste of time to bìŧçh at Obama for it.

        I can bìŧçh at Dodd-Frank, because that accomplished almost nothing other than to add more impediments. Indeed, it was reported just the other day on CNBC that, had the SEC not refused to enforce a major portion of that law, an entire financial sector would have had to close.

        But, let’s look at YOUR numbers: Union Pacific was at $35 at the trough in March 2009; it’s trading now around $120. Well, I’m a model railroader (I play with trains), and I can tell you that U.P. is a GREAT railroad — but, it’s not THAT good.

        Look at the dividend; it’s 2 per cent — what 10-year Treasury bonds are returning right now plus insurance (there’s more risk, owning a railroad, than owning a T-bond, which accounts for the additional 0.5 per cent return).

        In other words, your 13,000/7,000 Dow figure is nothing but Fed illusion (the same kind of illusion by which it effectively has turned $1.00 in 1964 into 3 cents today). It has grossly inflated the money supply, parked that temporarily in the capital plant in the course of forcing down interest rates (what they threaten to put the LIBOR crooks in jail for), and told everyone not to worry because, across a summer or two, the price of gas (or — insert name of consumable here) hasn’t gone up.

        Of course, all one has to do is look at the CPI since WWII to know that, sooner or later, that which is hidden will become apparent (you can’t keep the genie in the bottle forever).

        I don’t call such financial shenanigans “prosperity.”

        So, we look instead to what Obama has done, starting with wrecking the health-care system (and wreck it he has): In his effort to make the most advanced system in the world look more like the one in North Korea, he has brought in about 20,000,000 more consumers, made it impossible for people like my nephew to go to medical school (he never would have been able to pay off the student loans, and since I have to assume Obama’s not picking on HIM, there must be others) — that’s lowering the supply of providers over time –; but, Obama airily assures us that the cost somehow is going to come DOWN — the demand has gone up, the supply will come down, and THAT will lower the price!

        Jerry, that claim doesn’t pass a high-school economics class.

        I flunked kids for that.

        While technically it is wrong to call Obamacare “socialist,” Obamacare has all of the cost-shifting elements attendant to socialist schemes, and at the heart of it is an unconstitutional, unapportioned direct tax on — NOTHING (except your existence, what a direct tax is) — designed to throw the necessary Fifth Amendment bone to the insurance industry. Nor does one have to go beyond this blog to know that all the special-interest groups on earth already are lining up to get their “disease” into the mandatory coverage, from contraceptive aids that affront the Church to sex-change operations (which probably affront it even more).

        Such cost-shifting schemes of course are pandemic in the land of the demodonkeys, and nowhere was that more apparent than in the purported rescue of GM (which, in the event you failed to hear, went bankrupt anyway). Obama’s answer? Rip off the bond holders to create political markers with the auto workers, break several laws in the process (or at least that’s what I’m told by a pretty good industrial cost accountant), and claim throughout that it’s those mean ol’ Republicans who are after the senior citizens!

        Never mind that the bond holders included my 94-year old mother, who didn’t get $15,000 of her money back because Obama diverted it to the auto unions!

        The claim that stuff like this can be fixed if only the Republicans will allow Obama to soak the rich for their “fair” share of victimization likewise rings hollow: Expiration of the Bush tax cuts would generate about $41-$45 billion in revenue; stealing it all might bring in $100 billion (a mere spit in the pail). What the United States is suffering from right now are structural deficits which, if not corrected, eventually simply will swallow the budget. Who has been the first to say we have to do something now if we don’t want to have some Greek crisis on steroids down the road a little bit? Paul Ryan. Who has been the first to attack Ryan for “throwing granny under the bus?” You guessed it: Obama and the demodonkeys! (It’s on my radio right now.)

        That is what proto-socialism always does with government finances — use smoke and mirrors to deflect everyone’s attention until eventually whoever’s doing the juggling act can’t keep the balls in the air. The last time, I agree, that was Bush; but such cannot change the current numbers or the analysis. Ron Paul said it best, which is that we’re facing national bankruptcy.

        That IS what will happen to America if we keep going down this road. It already has happened to Greece; it’s happening now to Italy and Spain; and, if you look carefully, you’ll see the same kinds of problems being reported for the autonomous regions of Sicily, Valencia, and Catalonia that are erupting concurrently in political subdivisions like California’s cities.

        You were, of course, right to laugh at my presidential campaign for being something of a joke (I’ve always told others that, at least in the beginning, people WILL laugh at me and call it a joke, as they should); but, of course, you ignored the serious point that was made (which surprises me not at all):

        “If not you, who; if not now, when — do we pay back the Chinese?”

        I only want a lousy $100 billion surplus for the next 8 years, chump change for the United States; but, what does that mean? Even Newt Gingrich didn’t give us that. You’d have to go back at least as far as the Harding/Coolidge administrations, maybe even as far back as Grover Cleveland, to find the last time the federal government generated 8 years of surplus in a row.

        What would that buy us? Payback of ONE HALF of what Obama has borrowed in a year, or what he intends to borrow EVERY year from now until he leaves office!

        It won’t take 8 years of surplus to pay it all back; it will take 80, maybe longer! That’s assuming we borrow nothing else!

        We’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Do you understand the conservative revolution which MUST occur as soon as Republicans realize: All they need to do is stop borrowing money?

        We don’t have to win the election, Jerry; we just have to convince the Chinese ambassador that America no longer is a worthy credit risk. That shouldn’t take much (China right now is watching its goods pile up for having lost its markets in Southern and Eastern Europe, so it will HAVE to cut back SOMEWHERE regardless of what Republicans do).

        But, let me help them:

        “This election, Mr. Ambassador, is about responsibility, and you may be a pinko Communist, but I know Chinese people very well because my roommate in college was one, and I know Chinese people and Chinese culture take such responsibility VERY seriously.

        “Even Mao couldn’t change that, and of course we always are lecturing you about how democracy is a better government than yours!

        “So, you now have a test: Romney v. Obama, and Romney wasn’t my first choice, and I don’t think he’ll get a complete handle on the problem; but, Obama is jiving you to the cleaners, and those supporting him are thinking likewise, so I will put it to you that this election IS about responsibility, that’s certainly what I WANT it to be about, and if Americans elect to continue being irresponsible come November, then China has an important choice to make.

        “I’m prepared to guarantee our debt through 20 January 2013, and I want $100 billion annual surplus in our budget to show good faith. But, if the people elect Obama, then you and China are on notice that you proceed at your own risk thereafter, because the first thing you do to get out of a hole is stop digging, and we have to STOP borrowing money. America’s unborn are not going to honor a communist’s loan to a socialist administration to pay for current expenses.

        “Against that, the Constitution won’t count for ŧwáŧ: I’ll change the Constitution if I have to, to make that so, and China will suck hind tit.

        “In other words, whatever Chinese money comes our way after January I consider a gift.”

        THAT’S no joke!

        There ARE some things in the budget which have to be paid. There’s no lock box on Social Security, and Congress long ago spent the money; but, to extract the pieces of paper it could spend, Congress had to substitute pieces of paper it couldn’t spend — constitutionally guaranteed T-bonds. In other words, it simply isn’t true that the Republican Congress would be abandoning the senior citizens for refusal to open once again the federal checkbook, because before it writes any checks (for things like waging war on the far side of the planet), it first has to pay the bonds in full.

        It’s not Republicans, it’s OBAMA who doesn’t pay the bonds in full (ask my mother).

        What will get tossed in the hopper? The Constitution at first reading has nothing in it about education at all, so there’s an entire federal department which apparently needs no funding, &c., &c. Granted that if I DO get elected president, I would have the Congressional Black Caucus to dinner to discuss how such an action might impact Brown programs (some education programs derive from the Brown v. Board decision half a century ago, so the Constitution isn’t completely barren here).

        But, you get the gist: There simply won’t be very much money left once what we’re obligated to pay by the previous frauds and sleights of hand gets pushed out the door; and, were I to keep Leon Panetta at Defense for doing such a great job, my guess is that, within six months or so, he’d be the most miserable man in Washington.

        Moreover, none of this even gets us to what was the essence of the main complaint: Obama’s saddling of coming generations (who can’t vote — yet) with uncompensated costs for meeting HIS current expenses. That has been the gist of the last couple of threads, these conspiracies you claim on the part of “mean ol’ Republicans” to keep prospective voters from voting. Are such claims true? Are they demodonkey fantasy? The one thing we KNOW for certain is that those yet to come AREN’T going to vote, yet they will get the bill.

        Taxation without representation!

        It is then that people like you will find out what the Second Amendment was designed to accomplish. Read it, Jerry (it’s in the Federalist # 28, and it’s still part of the Constitution despite Virginia having lost the Civil War). Owning the gun isn’t the freedom, nor is anything about owning guns in the Constitution (of all places) so that we can murder the hedgehogs or murder each other in the streets of New York or Chicago. But, the Republican or Libertartian middle eventually will throw up its hands at the impossibility of it all (not to mention the unfairness), and they will leave the socialist extremes with the corruption and the bill, which by that time will be so large that the revolution cannot other than succeed — after Obama and company are safely out the back door.

        All the more reason why the Chinese should not loan us any more money (they’ll just be giving it away).

        And, I can see all of that; you can’t pull the wool over my eyes with half-cooked statistics.

        I took the opportunity last night to watch C-SPAN, which ran all of the acceptance speeches by Democrats from at least Harry Truman in 1948 to Obama in 2008 (I’m an historian; it’s my job to know stuff like that). This allowed for an interesting comparison. Obama didn’t give a good speech; he didn’t give a great speech; he gave a SPECTACULAR speech; and, if he does it again, that probably will get him 4 points in the polls.

        However, at some point, the people at large will recognize the truth of what my brother said four years ago, which is that Obama is primarily an empty, talking suit.

        They will recognize that the rhetoric does not match the reality.

        When they do, the house will come tumbling down. If it’s before the election, Romney will win.

        There’s going to be another financial incident in October. Some of the indicating numbers right now aren’t reflecting historical extremes, so I can’t yet say how strong it will be. Nor will I presume to blame Obama for bad weather; but, what even you have to admit, Jerry, is that the corn crop was decimated by the drought at the same time that increasing numbers of major banks in Europe are falling apart.

        The last time that happened was 1893.

        Game over.

  19. I live in PA, and our department of transportation acknowledged that they are Ill-equipped to provide everyone in PA with a valid ID before the election. So even If everyone could afford it, there aren’t enough resources to get it done In time. That being said, legislature in PA gave it a big “oh well” and is sticking by the voter-ID thingy. (I do believe it’s in the house now).

    1. Which goes a long way towards what I said in the other thread. If this were about voter fraud, it could be worked on smartly over time and not rushed through right before a major election. That this is in same states (or with at least some Republican politicians) about disfranchising voters in primarily Democratic leaning areas right before a major election is becoming more and more clear with their own words and the sloppy and blatant nature of some of their actions.

      1. Jerry, it’s not sloppy at all. They’re winning the war to disenfranchise voters, so they no longer have to hide why they’re doing it.

        It’s been blatant from the start, and now they can just admit as much with little to no repercussions.

    2. Hey, Grey, welcome back!

      As I mentioned elsewhere, what you have to prove to vote is that you are who you are, that you are a citizen of the country, that you actually reside in the state where you vote, and (in some jurisdictions) that you live in the precinct where you vote.

      If Pennsylvania’s statutes allow for that (and Florida’s do), the law is constitutional. If they require that you spend dozens of dollars to get some “only” specified ID, with no other options, then like the Texas law, that probably will be struck down.

      No federal court is going to listen to some state claim (as Texas apparently did in argument) that failure to pay for a state photo ID constitutes acquiescense to the proposition that one chooses not to vote. I stress I am working from a news report here written by an opponent of the law; but, if the report be accurate, the law has no chance.

      On a separate front, I hear that a federal judge just rolled back Ohio’s effort to close down early voting for the three days prior to the election (even though Ohioans can vote early as soon as October 3d). It is, of course, impossible for Florida’s law to be constitutional and Ohio’s unconstitutional, simply because Ohio wants to be closed ONE extra day. On-duty soldiers clearly are a different class of voters from civilians since their orders (from the President) conceivably could keep them from the polls. Therefore, expect this ruling not to survive challenge in the appellate courts or, if needed, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

  20. “.I have a friend who voted for Bush Jr. because she ”had to do the Republican thing”, despite it not being in her interest as a single mother.
    .Latinos in Texas voted in droves for Bush Jr. despite his policies not being favorable for them. Why did they do it? According to people I talked withon the Internet, it’s because A) he was from Texas and B) he spoke better Spanish.”
    .
    Well, aRE YOU A SINGLE MOTHER? Then how do you know what her “best interest” is? Receive more aid? better schools? If one wanted to be perfectly blunt one could say it would have been in her best interest not to have a baby with a bum and have government act as her parent…but seriously, why do you have the temerity to suggest you know what her “best interest” is?
    .
    Your Hispanic example is even more outrageous. First, are you Hispanic? How condescending if you aren’t..how arrogant if you are..how clueless in any case.
    .
    There is a reason Bush got such a large percentage of the Hispanic vote in 2004..He truly did speak their language…If you disregard “identity politics” issues like immigration it is clear that an improving economy, No Child Left Behind and Bush’s strong faith appealed to Latinos..Toss in that he truly did try a comprehensive immigration reform that was criticized as too lenient (“amnesty” by many on the Right and had those on the Left bìŧçhìņg about a border fence and you can see they at least appreciated his honest efforts to address the immigratio issue in a bipartisan, humane way.

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