From CBrachyrhynchos, in the comments at Feministe, and then quoted on Faux Real:
Portly Dyke’s post wasn’t so much about not voting, it’s about this whole idea that we should circle the wagons and not call Clinton or Obama to task when they reveal how they will be road blocks for progressives.
And I’ll agree with Portly Dyke. I’m not a Log Cabin Democrat willing to put partisanship over basic human rights and decency. When Obama and Clinton reveal their anti-progressive stripes, I’m going to call them on it.
I’ll make the claim now. With the way our two-party system is set up, partisanship is incompatible with liberalism and progressivism. We may make the pragmatic choice to hold our nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. But we should make it clear that our obligations are to social, economic and ecological justice, and the honeymoon between Democratic politicians and the left ends five minutes after they are sworn in.
Queers are being murdered. Kids are being murdered. And I’m sick of mewing about compromise, partisanship, bipartisanship and baby steps. I’m sick of having “lesser of two evils” thrown in my face every time I point out that the Dem’s shit really does stink. I’m sick of how presidential politics has become the litmus test when I want to change the entire fucking system: the congress, the courts, the statehouse, city hall, the trustees, the board of directors, the school board, the teachers, ceos, middle managers and line managers, the stockholders, the store shelves, the media producers, distributors, and audiences.
Obama or Clinton may be the best we can do this election cycle, but they ain’t the best we can do.
Obama or Clinton would almost certainly be better than McCain or McCain’s VP, whoever he or she may be. (McCain apparently has some health issues that make his VP choice more relevant than typical.) But if either of them wins then the day after they are sworn in they become the enemy. Both are mediocre democratic politicians. Neither is the progressives’ dream. But at least they might be willing to listen to progressives and consider doing the right thing. McCain probably wouldn’t.
I think it’s sad that no politicians are seriously discussing reforming the electoral system so that it is not so heavily biased towards a two-party system. The only way that the kind of opinions that various “fringe” groups (like true progressives, environmentalists, libertarians, etc) will ever get any real representation is if they can have parties that represent them actually get representation, as minorities, within the government. As it stands, supporting a 3rd party is a suicidal gesture – not only does it accomplish nothing (your 3rd party representative will have absolutely zero power if it is not a majority at the level you are voting), it is actively counterproductive since voting for a 3rd party loses your ability to support the real, viable majority option that you’d like to support.
Dianne, McCain isn’t exactly the conservatives’ dream, either. But I’d contest that he’s not likely to listen to the left. Take a closer look at his record and you’ll see that he’s spent more time reaching across the aisle than just about any other Republican.
And I’ll agree that lots of those institutions named need to be changed, although perhaps not in the direction that many here would like.
Silenced is Foo, our system of government wasn’t designed to favor two parties. In fact, at the Federal level there’s no mention of political parties at all in the Constitution. State election laws recognize parties, and certainly in Illinois they favor established parties and do their best to discourage smaller ones. This should definitely change. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth restating in this context; let political parties bear the cost of nominating their own candidates instead of giving the major parties free use of the public funds to publicize and choose them. If the Democrats and Republicans had to organize their own primaries the quasi-democratic facade would be stripped away from the mechanism and their standing would be made more equal with minor parties.
Speaking of minor parties; one of their major faults is that in a number of cases they are one-issue groups, which doesn’t mobilize anyone who isn’t highly committed to that one issue. A party has to be about more than environmentalism or pro-life in order to get broad-based support.
I’d be interested to hear what kind of changes you think would favor the participation of 3rd parties in American politics.
A party has to be about more than environmentalism or pro-life in order to get broad-based support.
Just to debunk the myth in your presence, RonF.
http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/
Very few 3rd parties are single issue parties. No more than the Republic (snark) Party is solely concerned with taxes.
But at least they might be willing to listen to progressives and consider doing the right thing. McCain probably wouldn’t.
Probably backwards, actually. Democrats have to be leery of progressives lest they get tarred as being on the extreme left. McCain can listen and if he likes a progressive idea, he can even implement it, and laugh off complaints that he’s a secret commie in a way that Hillary Clinton simply cannot.
Only Nixon could go to China, etc.
I’m sick of how presidential politics has become the litmus test when I want to change the entire fucking system…
Presidential politics are the litmus because presidential politics offer a realistic prospect for change. Very few other people want to change the “entire fucking system”. How much attention should the 95% pay to the views of the 5%?
It’s legitimate for the 5% to make their effort, of course, and there are social benefits from them doing so; the ideas and political pressure that can come out of that type of dissent can be healthy or valuable to society. But as a society we’re not going to go Marxist or ubergreen or radical feminist or whichever combination of flavors constitutes the author’s particular revolution; it’s a waste of time for actual political activists to focus on that kind of “hopeful monster” activism.
It makes sense to try and get Hillary Clinton in office. Trying to get Angela Davis into office is crazy. If that’s what you want, go with God, but don’t expect many other people to devote their lives and treasure to the cause.
We could have a third party, but no third party has done a good enough job of appealing to enough people.
When I read this:
I am not especially surprised that such an appeal would ‘fail to resonate’ (to put things mildly) with most folks.
And I”m not really sure about the idea of giving more power to those who are way, way, far from the norm. When you say “we want representation of fringe groups” do you really mean that you want representation of ALL fringe groups? Do you want them ALL to have more power (including the insanely conservative ones, the insanely anti-environmental ones, and the plain-old-insane ones?) I’m not sure that liberals would win that fight.
We could have a third party, but no third party has done a good enough job of appealing to enough people.
Sure they have! The Republican party started out as a third party (kind of), and displaced the Whigs. Sure, that was 140 years ago, but whaddya want.
Democrats have to be leery of progressives lest they get tarred as being on the extreme left. McCain can listen and if he likes a progressive idea, he can even implement it,
He could, but is there any reason to think that he would? Clinton, like her husband, could do a lot of good on the margins, in cases where there isn’t a lot of publicity. A number of decent reforms, including earned income credit and S-CHIP came out of the Clinton administration. Even the infamous “don’t ask don’t tell” policy was the result of attempting a real reform of the military’s policy on gays which was stymied by politics and Clinton’s lack of backbone. A second Clinton or first Obama administration might act in a similar manner: disappointing to those with high expectations, but not a true disaster either. Clinton (or Obama) would appoint better judges and than McCain as well. She might feel the need to prove her machismo by doing something stupid militarily (as might Obama), but since McCain runs around singing “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” there’s a lot of room for stupidity before reaching the proportions that McCain has already declared.
Progrssives, vote Clinton or Obama but prepare to be underwhelmed. I sincerely advise Robert, Ron, and other conservative Alas readers to consider doing the same. McCain’s proposed bombing campaign could lead to another seriously expensive (higher taxes!) and dangerous war. And either Clinton or Obama is likely to have more libertarianish policies domestically. Unless you want the government further into your business, think twice about voting republican. Especially if Huckabee does get the VP spot. (I don’t expect him to, but you never know.) Or Giuliani.
@RonF – just because the system doesn’t explicitly mention 2 parties, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t encourage the concept. I’m talking about the game theory of the situation – the way you make the rules does have unintended consequences.
For example, let’s say that the libertarian party got 10% of the vote in the congressional election. How many seats would they get? In all likelihood, zero… unless most of those voters happened to reside in the same congressional district. Which means that 10% of the voters would be completely disenfranchised just because they refused to pigeonhole themselves into a major party vote. If they did that in the presidential election, they wouldn’t even count towards a vote for the president, because of the electoral college, much less have any actual influence on government.
Regional representation means that, unless your views mostly align with the attitudes of the region, you have no voice in government. As far as your constituency is concerned, you don’t exist.
See what I mean? Now, obviously, proportional representation has it’s own laundry-list of flaws. But it bothers me that nobody in the US government or major parties is even mentioning the issue.
To be clear: I consider myself a moderate, and probably wouldn’t vote for a 3rd party even if I had the chance. But the reality is that there is no real chance – a vote for a 3rd party is a vote thrown away.
He could, but is there any reason to think that he would?
Did Nixon go to China?
But it bothers me that nobody in the US government or major parties is even mentioning the issue.
We rejected proportional representation (which was not a new idea) in 1776. Why should they mention the issue? They don’t mention making me King of America, either. Yet this disenfranchises my millions of supporters, just because we want to do something differently.
Votes for third parties are thrown away when the third party doesn’t win. But this is true of second parties as well.
Is the plea for third party viability really a plea to move towards a parliamentary or other proportional representation system? If so, why beat around the bush? Instead of complaining about third party this and that, just say that you want to establish proportional representation.
It’s not a new issue; it’s not an ill defined issue. You don’t need to invent new language for it. Everyone knows what it is. IMO there’s nothing more inherently liberal about it; it’s just different. But your views may vary. Still, if THAT’S your issue, what’s up with the complaints about liberalism?
And as for why it’s not on the radar: What, you expect one (or both) of the major parties to suggest radically changing the entire structure of the government, rewriting the constitution, etc? What a surprise that no major candidate has proposed that yet; it’d surely be wildly popular with the voters.
Dianne:
Even the infamous “don’t ask don’t tell” policy was the result of attempting a real reform of the military’s policy on gays which was stymied by politics and Clinton’s lack of backbone.
Watch the terminology there. It’s Congress’ policy regarding gays in the military. Congress makes the policies, the executive enforces them, the military deals with them. What role top military and DoD officials may have in asking for a given policy can vary, but it’s the Congress’ policy.
but since McCain runs around singing “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” there’s a lot of room for stupidity before reaching the proportions that McCain has already declared.
McCain was asked a question and made a joke before seriously answering the question without actually proposing any such thing. Whereas Obama has quite seriously proposed bombing or otherwise attacking AlQueda targets inside Pakistan with or without Pakistani approval, something that would cause quite an upheaval in our relationship with that country and something that even the Bush administration has refused to do.
Silenced is Foo, I understand your position but as Robert has pointed out, given that a particular district can only represent one party at a time, the logic you lay out would mean that we would end up with to a one-party system, which is not what we have. Just because a party is in the minority doesn’t mean that it can’t gain the majority at some point; Robert has given us an example.
Interestingly enough, Illinois for years had a kind of a combination regional and proportional representational system in the General Assembly (the name for it’s legislature). There were 59 House districts as well as 59 Senatorial districts. Each House district, however, was represented by 3 members. When you opened up your ballot, you could vote for one, two, or three people in your district. If you voted for one, it was a “bullet”; that meant that one person got 3 votes. The result was that the majority tended to spread out their votes to two or 3 people, two of whom were elected, and the minority generally settled on a single candidate and voted “bullets” for them. So a majority Republican district would send two Republicans and one Democrat to the House, and everyone considered that their viewpoint would be represented. This was done away with the late ’70’s or early 80’s, if memory serves. It was a result of an effort to reform the General Assembly (a job akin to cleaning $hit out of a horse barn with a toothbrush, but I digress) by reducing the membership by a third. Each Senatorial district was split into two House districts, with each House district then only sending one representative to the GA. People at the time complained that they felt unrepresented. I wouldn’t mind going back to the old system.
And I do object to the word “disenfranchised”. The “franchise” refers to the right to vote. If you can vote, you are not disenfranchised. The fact that your candidate didn’t win does not disenfranchise you. And you can still petition your representative and donate to political parties. That does have an effect, regardless of party. Ask the politicians who were intending to vote for immigration “reform” until they got an absolute firestorm of protest from their constituents.
They don’t mention making me King of America, either
Probably just an oversight.
Is the plea for third party viability really a plea to move towards a parliamentary or other proportional representation system?
I don’t know. I kind of like proportional representation systems myself, from what I’ve seen of them (limited) and am happy to overtly advocate for it*. For one thing, I think some parties work very well as gadfly/minority parties but would be disasters as majority/controlling parties. The PDS (ex-communist) in Germany is a classic example: as a minority party they are advocates for sensible policies, such as not following the US into a ridiculous, aggressive, disasterous war. As a majority or ruling party they’d probably ruin the country.
*If the change is proposed through legal, non-violent means such as a constitutional convention, of course.
Whereas Obama has quite seriously proposed bombing or otherwise attacking AlQueda targets inside Pakistan with or without Pakistani approval, something that would cause quite an upheaval in our relationship with that country and something that even the Bush administration has refused to do.
One reason I have serious reservations about Obama. And another reason to want a multi-party system: none of the “serious” candidates is truly anti-war. If we had a proportional representational system, those unhappy about having no candidates interested in peace could express their discontent by voting, say, green. As it is, doing so really is wasting your vote. Of course, one could argue that voting democrat in New York or Republican in Texas is also wasting your vote: the outcome is a foregone conclusion anyway.
However, I’m not sure proposing strikes in Pakistan is such a truly radical departure: didn’t Clinton bomb Afghanistan, with some missles landing in Pakistan? I don’t approve of the move, but it didn’t seem to cause anything drastic to happen either, unless that was what motivated al Qaeda to get off its collective rear and launch a serious attack.
Link, please, RonF? I recall Obama saying something different … which is that he wouldn’t rule out taking military action if the circumstances call for it. (“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”) John Edwards took a virtually identical position.
You say that not even Bush has taken Obama’s position. That’s news to me. Has Bush ever ruled out taking action against Pakistan if Bush believes circumstances warrant it? If so, please prove it with a link.
Ron, is it your position that we should rule out military action in Pakistan, if we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act?
* * *
Of course, I don’t agree with what Obama said, not because it was wrong (whether it’s right or wrong depends on how one defines “actionable,” and I suspect Obama in practice will define “actionable” pretty narrowly), but because in context it’s a pro-war posture that all “serious” candidates for President believe they must emulate.
I think it would be pretty silly to interpret Obama’s remarks as Obama committing himself to invading Pakistan if he’s elected, however; or as evidence that Obama is as hawkish as Clinton or McCain. Of the three viable candidates for President, Obama is the least hawkish.
Robert for King! As long as I get appointed head of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency.
For those of you who are not familiar with the structure of American government; the head law enforcement official under the President is the Attorney General. He is a member of the Cabinet and heads the Justice Department, under which all law enforcement falls. There is an agency in the Justice Department that is in charge of enforcement of all laws dealing with either alcohol, tobacco or firearms production, distribution and use. I have to wonder if any other country has that particular combination in one law enforcement agency.
From Reuters I got:
When I said that Obama has proposed bombing Al-Queda positions in Pakistan with or without their approval, I figured that “as appropriate” was implicit; I didn’t mean that the planes would start flying at 12:01 PM January 20th 2009. Nor did I think that anyone would interpret it that way, and it didn’t occur to me to make the distinction. Let me do so now, then.
As far as Bush ruling that out, my opinion is that he’s done so de facto, since there’s been plenty of provocation and he hasn’t done it. From what I’ve seen Bush do and from the quotes from Obama, it’s my opinion that Obama is more likely to bomb Pakistan without their permission than Bush is. Bush is at least trying to prop up Musharraf; I don’t think Obama gives a $hit about him.
My position? I’d put large sums of money on the bet that there are Al-Queda installations in Pakistan in the tribal areas and that we know where at least some of them are. Flying a few UAVs in the area would probably reveal more info. But I’d have to see a lot more success coming out of them and/or an absolute and overt refusal to do anything about it on the Pakistani government’s side (I don’t think Musharraf is going to be in power much longer, probably not by the time that our new President takes his or her oath of office) before I’d bless invading Pakistan. Obama’s position surprised me and makes me a little nervous.
the honeymoon between Democratic politicians and the left ends five minutes after they are sworn in.
The same goes for the right and Republican politicians. In fact, the honeymoon there died a long time ago, about the time that a bunch of Republicans got voted in on the “Contract with America” platform and then proceeded to stick their snouts up to their ears in the pork trough. That’s one reason why McCain is having some of the problems he is. Many conservatives feel he’s a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and certainly no conservative. While they’ll vote for him, they have no enthusiasm for him.
Hm. On the basis of a Goole search I go here. They (and I know nothing about this site) quote from a speech that Sen. Obama gave at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. He is reported to have said:
Now, in this context I interpret his use of the word “actionable” as “we get evidence we can count on in time to execute a strike that’s likely to succeed”. Which can be pretty quick, even if we use carrier-based planes instead of ones in Iraq. And the whole thing sounds like once he gets something actionable, he gives Musharraf a call and gives him an ultimatum along the lines of “act now, or we will”. That sounds like a stronger power play and a quicker trigger pull than anything President Bush has done in Pakistan so far.
Ron, that quote is from the same speech I linked to — my link includes the entire speech, however.
Your link was very interesting, however. From your link:
So Bush is entirely willing to bomb Pakistan without the permission of the Pakistan government.
That’ll teach me to read the whole post. Hah!
So, then, that puts him closer to Bush. Although I must ask whether “Washington Post revealed” = “it actually happened”. Is there any confirmation of this elsewhere?
I wonder what the reaction to this in Pakistan is? I also have to wonder whether or not we ran this one through Musharraf or not, and if we did on what basis.
Quite frankly, I really wouldn’t be too worried if the Society to Ban Cheese or the Movement to Repeal Women’s Suffrage were allowed representation proportional to their numbers. On the other hand, if the 60% of the country that favors single-payer healthcare were able to vote for a candidate that shares their views (without worrying that they were going to split the progressive vote and allow McCain into office), I would be quite pleased.
On the other hand, if the 60% of the country that favors single-payer healthcare were able to vote for a candidate that shares their views (without worrying that they were going to split the progressive vote and allow McCain into office), I would be quite pleased.
How about the 58% of the country that favor teaching creationism in the public schools?
Or the 60% that think illegal immigration poses a “critical threat” to the nation, and (presumably) that strong steps should be taken to neutralize the threat.
There are more majority opinions than just the ones you like.
These issues and more are major reasons why we are a democratic republic and not a pure democracy.
Robert, there’s no parallel. Bjartmarr brought up an example of an policy issue that is wanted by a strong majority of the public, but that no plausible candidate for President — or, with a very few exceptions, any national office — is willing to advocate in public. Given current politics, it’s actually pretty much unimaginable that a plausible candidate for President could publicly agree with most American on single-payer health care. (Or on something like marijuana legalization.)
In contrast, there were plenty of plausible candidates for the Republican nomination who staked out fiercely anti-immigrant positions; it’s only because the Republican primary process allows candidates to win who haven’t actually won the support of a majority of primary voters, that the one and only Republican candidate who wasn’t far right on immigration issues won. (In my opinion, that’s a flaw in the Republican primary design and should be fixed — and of course, that is somewhat of a parallel to the point Bjartmarr was making. So if that’s all you meant, then I see your point, but I wouldn’t assume that Bjartmarr would disagree with you.)
Similarly, there’s no lack of plausible Republican candidates for national office who are willing to say, in public, that they think creationism should be taught in public schools alongside real science — that’s George Bush’s opinion, iirc. The main barrier to creationism being taught in public schools isn’t who gets elected; it’s that teaching religion in public schools is unconstitutional.
I don’t want direct democracy; I don’t want every issue to be decided by a direct popular vote. But I do think there’s something wrong with a system which can effectively lock out the views of very large segments of the public from ever being represented in national office, or even having plausible candidates for national office.
O.K. I’m going to keep jumping on this. Name one candidate who advocated an anti-immigrant position. An immigrant is someone who moves to a country not of their birth in order to live there. The unmodified term “immigrants” means all such persons. Anti-immigrant can only mean a position opposing immigration and immigrants. I’ve heard of no major party candidate (at least, no one running for President, unless Ron Paul got whacky on this one) who has advocated closing the borders. I have heard no one advocate changing the status of immigrants who are citizens. I have heard no one who has advocated changing the status of immigrants who are here on legal visas and who obey the law. Every one I listened to or read about who opposed completely open borders acknowledged the contributions that immigrants have made and was clear that immigration to the U.S. needs to continue.
The immigration issues that are being debated are limited to how to deal with illegal aliens. Anti-illegal aliens != “anti-immigrant”. Conflating a position that opposes legalizing the presence and employment of illegal aliens with opposing immigrants and immigration in general is invalid and seems to me to be a deliberate obfuscation of the issue. No one that I have seen is anti-immigrant.
Ron, if you agree to start using the terms “undocumented workers” and “undocumented immigrants” instead of “illegal immigrants,” then I’ll start using “anti-undocumented immigrant” instead of “anti-immigrant.” :-)
You make a good point, but it seems a paradox, doesn’t it? How is it that large segments of the public can hold a view (e.g., legalization of marijuana) and yet not have that view represented at the ballot box?
Here’s how to resolve that paradox. It is a general misconception that candidates are supposed to represent the views of the public. They don’t. They represent the views of the voters. And when only 25% of the eligible voters actually show up at the ballot box, you get anomalies like this. Primary voters famously (infamously?) are disproportionately comprised of the party faithful, who tend to have more extreme views than the electorate at large. How many times have we seen the expression that after the primaries, the candidates have to move to the center without offending their base? That’s not the candidates’ fault.
When you say “the public favors ‘x'”, generally that’s based on responses to a survey or a poll; someone knocking on the public’s door or sending them a mailing or calling them up and asking the question; it’s the pollsters reaching out to the public, not the public reaching out. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that does not and should not count. If more than one out of 4 members of the public can’t be bothered to get up off their ass and vote, then no – the public doesn’t really want ‘x’, and they shouldn’t get ‘x’. Talk is cheap. Real desire is demonstrated by action, not words.
The system isn’t locking out the views of the voters. The voters aren’t using the system and are locking themselves out. Surveys and polls don’t measure what people really want; elections (including referenda) do.
I don’t use the phrases “illegal immigrants” or “undocumented immigrants” or “undocumented workers”. That’s because this debate is only about whether or not the people involved are in the U.S. legally. Whether or not they intend to stay here and live permanently (i.e., are immigrants or not) is immaterial. What kind of documentation they have is immaterial. Whether or not they have jobs is immaterial. Any of those phrases excludes part of the group of people that this debate is about. The only phrase that describes exactly who this debate is about and excludes exactly who this debate is not about is “illegal alien”. “Immigrant” just doesn’t cut it, because it refers in part to people who are not part of this debate. This debate is not about immigrants.
Ron, is there any reason in the world to think that primary voters in Democratic primaries — who I’d expect to be an usually liberal group — would be much less supportive of single-payer than the general public?
I’ve never seen any poll data to support your thesis — even though pollsters commonly ask questions such as “did you vote in the last election.”
EDITED TO ADD: And by the way, there’s a lot we can do to make it easier for adult citizens to vote. Republicans generally oppose pro-vote policies — presumably because the more people vote, the worse you folks do in elections.
Ron, people who have far more personally invested in this debate than you do have said they find the term “illegal immigrant” insulting. If you can’t be bothered to respect them enough to alter your language, I’m not going to alter my language when referring to your position.
By the way, I routinely use the term “pro-life,” although I’ve used other terms as well, and “pro-choice.” Even though these terms are arguably not accurate (someone can be pro-life and favor the death penalty, for example, or pro-choice but favor zoning laws which limit some choices), everyone knows perfectly well what they mean. Just as you understand that the term “hot dog” refers to a particular kind of meat sausage, not a hound with a high temperature.
Similarly, everyone knows what policy positions and rhetoric I’m referring to when I say the Republican party is “anti-immigrant.” There is no sincere confusion created in politically informed readers by my use of the term “anti-immigrant.” So the (paraphrased) “don’t use that term because it is confusing and inaccurate” argument you’re making doesn’t hold water — it’s no more confusing and inaccurate than “hot dog” “pro life” and “pro choice” are.
Robert said:
Or the 60% that think illegal immigration poses a “critical threat” to the nation, and (presumably) that strong steps should be taken to neutralize the threat.
Case in point. Why did immigration “reform” fail when a majority of the legislature initially seemed to favor it? Because the electorate got off it’s ass and petitioned their legislators in a not-recently seen wave of phone calls, letters, faxes and e-mails and told them “Vote for this and you’re toast.” When the electorate actually goes to some effort to make it’s views known, they are heard.
We may have to agree to disagree on this, Amp. I think that the popularization of the term “anti-immigrant” is a deliberate attempt to make people think that those it is applied to oppose all immigrants and immigration and look anti-American. When I have discussed this viewpoint I’ve been accused of that very thing, and to be using opposition to illegal aliens as a stalking horse to obsucre my “real” desire to close the borders (not by you, certainly). I do not think that everyone understands it the way you say they do, and I think it’s presumptive to say that they do. But I have no way to prove it, I admit. This is my opinion. Words mean something, and people should say what they mean. If you accuse someone of being anti-immigrant then I have every right to presume that they mean exactly that.
They think “illegal immigrant” is insulting? Boy, they must really get toasted at “illegal alien”. Tough. “Alien” is the legal term used to describe non-citizens (and has been since the Republic’s founding) and this is a debate on various persons’ legal status.
Surely there’s a compromise. How about “criminal trespasser”?
Gotta run, sorry.
Robert, there’s no parallel. Bjartmarr brought up an example of an policy issue that is wanted by a strong majority of the public, but that no plausible candidate for President — or, with a very few exceptions, any national office — is willing to advocate in public.
OK, that’s facially a fair point. I would argue, though, that the reason for this is that the 60% who want “single payer”, for the most part, don’t actually know what that means or implies. The politicians do know. The disconnect is coming from the people thinking they can get free health care, and the politicians knowing that’s impossible. It isn’t that the pols don’t want to please the people, it’s that they know the people’s actual desire isn’t doable.
Given current politics, it’s actually pretty much unimaginable that a plausible candidate for President could publicly agree with most American on single-payer health care. (Or on something like marijuana legalization.)
Mmmm, on marijuana legalization, I think you’re wrong and we’re just waiting for someone brave enough to come out and say it. And that person may well lose, but they’ll have short-circuited the third rail.
I think Bjartmarr’s point was simpler than you’re making it. S/he is saying, hey, all these people want something from the political system and they don’t get it, the disconnect is problematic. But I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
As discussed above, “immigrant” =/ “illegal immigrant.” I would like to have more legal immigration, and less illegal immigration. I also believe that we need to continue to promote immigration in general. Do you claim those are equivalent terms? Would you call my position “anti-immigrant”–which would be a blatant and unethical misrepresentation of my stated position? If you wouldn’t summarize my argument that way, why would you support others who do so?
By personally invested, are you referring to the people, we’re talking about: illegal immigrants, undocumented aliens, or however you choose to refer to them? They are deliberately trying to win support through semantics, and are often intentionally trying to confuse the issue. That’s smart of them, but the claim of “insult” in that context is of limited worth. I’m not exactly sure why anyone should give in to that, or why your version of “respect” basically amounts to “do what they/I want.” And finally in a conversation about illegal immigration, it’s pretty damn ridiculous to have the term you are discussing verboten, don’t you think?
Hell, if we’re playing the I-Choose-My-Moniker Game, would you mind referring to opponents of illegal immigration only by the phrase “Law Abiding Americans,” or perhaps “Adherents of The Constitution,” or some other equally ridiculous phrase? You can do so for other groups, too–“racist” is certainly insulting, so perhaps “Lover of British and Other European Heritage” would be more appropriate.
I know this sounds snarky… it’s just that the concept that we can’t even refer to what we’re talking about is sort of crazy to me. It’s immigration, right? And–the subject at hand–it’s either legal, or not. therefore “legal immigration” and “illegal immigration” are perfectly valid terms. If people don’t like hearing them, we could make them legal (your view) or prevent them from immigrating illegally (my view) but the semantics thing seems like madness.
FWIW, I think that there ARE clearly some insulting terms out there. Even one of the more commonly used ones, “illegals,” is problematic. But I don’t think you can define the whole term out of existence.
people who have far more personally invested in this debate than you do have said they find the term “illegal immigrant” insulting
Is personal investment in an issue the metric by which to judge whose terminology is preferred? Who defines what kinds of personal investment “counts”? Does generational distance from the act of immigration count? Noted restrictionist John Derbyshire is a first-generation immigrant married to another first-generation immigrant; I doubt you are closer than three or four generations. He would say “illegal immigrant”. Hell, he’d probably say “criminal trespasser”. Shall we use his terms, since his personal investment is way greater than yours?
I’m not buying it. The personal investment metric boils down to a shorthand of “whose feelings do I care the most about”. Which, fine, but that’s not something we can use across platforms and across discussions. If the people who are “insulted” by the 100% facially accurate term “illegal immigrant” want to come up with something that is equally descriptive and accurate, but not insulting, good luck to them; the existing offerings are pathetic jokes that attempt to win the argument by defining it out of existence. I suspect that the insult comes from the rejection the label accurately conveys, not the label itself. You can’t fix reality by changing the label put on it.
I was late for choir practice, but I see that Robert and Sailorman have advanced the case; better, perhaps, than I!
Republicans generally oppose pro-vote policies — presumably because the more people vote, the worse you folks do in elections.
The use of the word “you” here implies that I’m a Republican. I have voted for Democrats for President, Senator, Representative, etc., many times. In fact, in the last election I voted for now-Sen. Obama over his opponent, and I have consistently supported the Lipinskis (both pere and fils) over their opponents to represent my district in the House.
As far as the rest of that statement, I can’t answer for “Republicans” either. I would wonder what the classification of “pro-voter” encompasses, and I’d challenge what you yourself label as a presumption. When I have opposed measures to change voter registration procedures, I have done so because it seems rather insane to me to permit people to register to vote without having to actually prove that they are eligible to do so.
And by the way, there’s a lot we can do to make it easier for adult citizens to vote.
What is the problem with the current voter registration systems? When I have changed my residence from one location to another (admittedly some time ago, but I’m not aware procedures have gotten more difficult) all I had to do was show up with my license and a utility bill at the village hall and it was done in 5 minutes.
Now, if this is not the case elsewhere, fine. Tell me what the problem is, I’m willing to listen. But from what I know so far this is a solution looking for a problem. There are huge numbers of already registered voters who don’t go to the polls. What barriers do eligible but unregistered people have to register to vote? It’s the job of the government to make it reasonably easy to register to vote. It’s not the job of the government to cram it down people’s throats.
I agree with Amp on the voter thing. We do a really shitty job at encouraging people to vote.
What could we do? Well, lots of things.
Two global changes we could do are to
1) make election day a federal holiday, thus eliminating one of the main things that make it difficult for folks to vote; and
2) allow people to register at the polling place, thus eliminating one of the other main things that maes it difficult for people to vote, especially poor people.
As you said “all I had to do was show up with my license and a utility bill at the village hall and it was done in 5 minutes.” which is great, right? Unless you don’t have a car (or a license.) Or you don’t pay utilities. Or maybe you can manage to take time off to vote, but not to vote AND to make a (separate) trip to register. And so on. then, maybe, it isn’t so easy.
We do a really shitty job at encouraging people to vote.
This starts from an incorrect predicate – that the “we” in the statement has a role to play here.
We don’t have a government that goes out and seeks validation from the voters or tries to encourage more people to become voters.
Rather, we have a body of citizens, who by their regular exercise of the franchise, create a government.
I do not want to “encourage” anyone to stand up and take on the responsibilities of citizenship. I want people who are motivated on their own to do it. Citizenship is not something we cajole people into, it is something they do for themselves.
First of all, the distinctions between “encourage,” “remain neutral,” and “discourage” are not always clear. Is providing time to vote “encouraging?” or is it merely “making it possible?”
If your perception is that “people who want to vote will do so if they care enough,” then (and this is a rare use of the word for me) that seems like a very privileged outlook, in the vein of “let them eat cake.” A barrier that is easy for one person to overcome may be hard or impossible for her neighbor to overcome. Rather than asking whether the neighbor has “enough” desire to vote, why not remove the barrier?
What makes the most sense to me is to make the barriers to voting as LOW AS POSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE. because after all, we’re all citizens, and therefore we’re all equal participants in the government. And you know what? We DO want people to vote. The country will be a better place if there is less of a disconnect between the rule-makers and those bound by the rules.
Really? You don’t want to teach our kids that part of what makes America great is the political system? Democracy? You don’t want to instill values in people that inspire them to become involved in the political process and attempt to control their own destiny?
Because one thing’s for sure: Right now, class, not motivation, is the driving factor in votes. Who has the ability to take a day off? Who has the ability to take extra time off to register? Who tends to stay in one place; to own homes; to pay utilities? Who has easy transport to the local post office? Who has easy access to a telephone to try to figure things out? Who has easy access to a car to get to the polling place, or money for the bus (if the bus runs on time, to the right location)?
Do you think those factors relate to motivation? To competency? Because as far as I can tell, they have shit to do with that, and pretty much everything to do with what your life is like OUTSIDE of the political process.
Last time I voted, I took off a quick half hour, drove to the polls, and went back to work. Time before that, I left work 1/2 hour early, waited in line for 2 hours, and then went home. Time before that, I got dropped off by a friend.
If I was working at a job that didn’t give me time off, am I a bad citizen? If I don’t have a car? if I can’t afford to get to the polls? i sipmly can’t believe you don’t see that.
Fine. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.
“Fine. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.”
Is there any place that doesn’t allow absentee ballots? Or is the very act of requesting one such a demanding process?
A certain percentage of the population is simply not into politics. They are not aware of the current political debate. I am sure we all have seen the “man on the street” interviews where smiling people can’t even name the current VP, a representative, or even the most basic questions of the constitution or our government. It is a very good thing that people like this don’t vote.
Absentee ballots (as they currently stand) are not a solution. Using massachusetts as an example:
1) you have to register to vote–which, as we should have seen in the past presidential election, is not always easy even for people who should be entitled to vote. Though that is less of a problem in MA, I think, but just making it past registration seems to be a problem for many
2) You can only do the absentee thing three weeks before the election, generally speaking, as they won’t have been printed yet.
3) You only get to use one under certain terms. Using one improperly is an up-to-$10,000 fine. From the Mass. absentee-ballot application:
That pretty much eliminates the “convenience” argument and the “I really want to vote but can’t get off work” arguments. Can you lie? Sure! but lying in order to fulfill your civic duty is a bit of a problem, don’t you think? Not to mention it’s a felony.
That also assumes that the places actually have absentee ballots (e.g. that they didn’t run out, etc.) And that you have a mailing address. Etc etc etc.
I agree that it makes a lot of sense that election day should be a non-work day. Rather than create another holiday, it could be held on a Saturday or Sunday. Sure, some people work those days, but far fewer, and the current laws about requiring employers to grant time off to vote could be applied.
I have to wonder why Tuesday was picked in the first place. It seems odd. Did they figure it would take people that long to sober up from the weekend?
As you said “all I had to do was show up with my license and a utility bill at the village hall and it was done in 5 minutes.” which is great, right? Unless you don’t have a car (or a license.) Or you don’t pay utilities. Or maybe you can manage to take time off to vote, but not to vote AND to make a (separate) trip to register. And so on. then, maybe, it isn’t so easy.
As far as I know, every state in the country has a provision to grant non-drivers a State ID. It looks like a license and has the same documentation requirements, but you don’t have to prove you know traffic laws and can drive and it does not grant driving privileges. And other proofs of residence serve besides a utility bill – a copy of your lease, or your rent receipts, or several other kinds of documents. Not being able to take time to register seems unlikely to me. And as far as having ID goes, there are all kinds of things in your life that require you to have ID. You’ve got to have ID to live, and if you do, you’ve got ID to vote.
You’ve also got two years to register between elections; I find it very hard to believe that someone couldn’t find 1/2 an hour in 2 years to register to vote.
Because one thing’s for sure: Right now, class, not motivation, is the driving factor in votes. Who has the ability to take a day off?
You don’t need to take a day off to vote. Who takes a day off to vote?
Who has the ability to take extra time off to register?
You don’t need to take time off to register. Almost any city/village has at least one day a week where they are open late and/or have weekend hours.
Who tends to stay in one place
You’d have to move an awful lot to interfere with your ability to vote. True, there are homeless people, but that’s not a significant slice of the electorate, and I’ll agree that some kind of provision needs to be made for them in the law.
to own homes; to pay utilities?
Neither one is necessary to prove eligibility to vote.
Who has easy transport to the local post office?
You lost me on this one.
Who has easy access to a telephone to try to figure things out?
Everybody. Welfare pays for a basic phone bill. Who doesn’t have a phone, or access to one? Damn few people. And instructions on how to register and how to vote are printed in the paper and announced on TV and radio every year.
Who has easy access to a car to get to the polling place, or money for the bus (if the bus runs on time, to the right location)?
If you can’t get access to transportation to get to the polling place and/or where you register, how do you go to work or (if you don’t work) get food? Polling places are not set up in obscure, inconvenient places. They are set up in churches, markets, schools and public buildings. The major political parties advertise phone numbers you can call to get a ride to the polling place. If you are elderly and confined, I read stories every year about how registrants go to and ballots are distributed at retirement homes and hospices, etc. Inability to get a ballot doesn’t seem to be a barrier to voting.
Do you think those factors relate to motivation? To competency? Because as far as I can tell, they have shit to do with that, and pretty much everything to do with what your life is like OUTSIDE of the political process.
I don’t think the factors you have named keep people from voting. I think it’s motivation. I think it’s laziness masquerading as cynicism. I think it’s ignorance.
If I was working at a job that didn’t give me time off, am I a bad citizen? If I don’t have a car? if I can’t afford to get to the polls? i sipmly can’t believe you don’t see that.
Every time I vote I get up a 1/2 hour early, go to the polling place that opens at 6 AM, vote, and don’t miss one minute of work. Either that, or I go after work. The polls are open 13 hours in Illinois, and I’ll wager other states as well, specifically to accomodate people who work various hours. As far as I can see, very few people would need to take any time off from work to vote (and if you do, the law requires your employer to give it to you outside of vacation, etc.), you don’t need to spend any more money to vote than you do to go to the grocery store, and you don’t need any more transportation than you need to live your life in general. I don’t believe that all these things you reference are really issues or barriers at all; only people who are homebound might be affected, and there are large numbers of such who overcome even that every Election Day.
We just had a special election for a House seat in a Chicago suburban district in Illinois. It was held on a Saturday. It was held in a district where pretty much everybody has a car. Publicity was widespread. I don’t even live in the district and I couldn’t escape the ads. There were numerous TV stories and newspaper editorials. The campaign was controversial. Yet turnout was ~20% – 25%. That wasn’t due to inconvenience or work conflicts. That was sheer ignorance and lethargy. I’m not buying that inconvenience or inability to vote is any significant barrier in American elections.
There is a just and sensible argument to be made in favor of ensuring that anyone who wishes to vote, be able to. But conceding that, there is a principle of equity that argues for making voting somewhat *more* inconvenient at the margin.
The more difficult voting becomes, then the more motivated a voter must be. “I kinda wanted to vote for Hillary” won’t get someone out in a snowstorm; similar logic applies to going an extra three blocks because a polling place was consolidated. I believe it reasonable to assume that motivation strongly correlates with passion for / interest in; there are few people passionately consumed with the 2008 election who won’t bother to actually vote, and vice versa.
Accordingly, an increase in the number of voters caused by a decrease in voting’s inconvenience, is going to primarily consist of people who care less than the people who were already going to vote. This dilutes the impact of the people who care the most – the ones who will climb mountains to cast their vote.
In human life in general, most folk defer automatically to a nebulous but nonetheless firm conception that the people who care the most ought generally to get their way over the people who don’t care much. If you want pizza and I really don’t care where we go as long as its food, it makes sense to go for pizza; why not make you happy, since it costs me nothing?
In political life, I think this same feeling holds. If I’m not passionately concerned about an area of civic life, then I am inclined to let the people who are so concerned control it. Many people are not all that interested in politics; why not leave them in peace and freedom to work out their own lives? So long as those who ARE interested are able to pursue that interest, I believe a voting system can be perfectly democratic even if not everyone is dragging themselves out to pull a lever.
This principle doesn’t require that we give motivated voters more weight in the system than the unmotivated; my vote in 2000 (a broken-glass Republican vote) shouldn’t count for more than my neighbor’s desultory Democratic vote in the same race. But neither should the system go to a great deal of trouble to roust my neighbor and dilute the voice of the people who get to the polls on their own.
In the arguments from the more-voting-please side of the fence, I detect a certain hollowness. I will concede that there may well be voters for whom the existing lavish arrangements are not sufficiently cradle-to-grave as to guarantee participation. But like Ron, I won’t concede that anyone who actually cares is going to have too much trouble for reasons of convenience or the overwhelming oppressiveness of having to show up with an ID of some kind. When there is genuine injustice, let us by all means remedy it.
I don’t think that not getting a holiday to go vote constitutes such an injustice. And I think that making voting a little bit of a pain, registration a little bit of a hurdle, is likely to end up having more positive impacts on the quality of an election than negative ones. Frank, the guy who isn’t quite sure whether it was Obama or Hillary who opposed the war from the beginning, is a little more likely to be the one staying home.
We can do without Frank’s input.
You missed the point that the groups of which I was speaking were the insane ones, despite the word occuring three times in my short post. I have a hard time believing that that was unintentional.
(I also have a hard time understanding how Amp has the patience to go over it with you in detail, but that’s his business.)
The proper response at this point is not, “Hey, here’s my idea of what Bjartmarr means.” The proper response is to go back, read what I wrote and the context in which I wrote it, and then write “Gee, yeah, I guess you’re right: a lack of PR doesn’t meaningfully protect the public against insane fringe groups at all.” (Not that I would be opposed to hearing an intellectually honest and well-thought-out argument to the contrary. But that’s not what you did.)
The other proper response is, “Sorry I tried to obfuscate your point by lecturing you about an obvious, but irrelevant, fact”, but that’s probably a little too much for me to expect.
But “insane” is a word that means a different thing to everyone in the world when applied to which views are “crazy”.
There is a principle of equity that argues for making voting somewhat *more* inconvenient at the margin.
“Oh, sure, yeah, this is the right place to vote… But before I let you go in, you have to score 50,000 on this Ms. Pac-Man machine. Here’s a quarter.”
Or… what sort of justifiable impediment were you imagining? Being unable to get that day off work? That’s no more related to political awareness or motivation than my example above.
Some people, due to being in a more precarious job situation, CANNOT take that day off to vote. Yet, by some state laws, that fact isn’t a good enough excuse to get an absentee ballot. It isn’t that it’s preventing the insufficiently motivated from voting; it’s that it’s preventing those with insufficient free time from voting.
What you’re failing to consider is the bottom part of the ratio : (desire to vote)/(opportunity to vote). Agreed, it’s good that people with a high desire to vote go out and vote. However, whether or not they do vote depends upon both desire and ability.
If anything, people who need to work especially inflexible or odd hours are likely to be impacted more by governmental economic decisions, since free time is a luxury that often comes with economic stability.
And anyways, people who don’t want to vote, won’t vote, no matter how convenient or inconvenient it is.
Some people, due to being in a more precarious job situation, CANNOT take that day off to vote.
The typical polling place is open for at least 12 hours.
And it isn’t like they announce at 7 AM, “oh yeah! voting day is today!” on some random day. It’s scheduled literally years in advance. If your job situation is so precarious that you can’t tell your boss “I have to make sure to be out of here before 6 PM, fourteen months from now”, then you have problems far larger than a relative difficulty in accessing the franchise.
It isn’t that it’s preventing the insufficiently motivated from voting; it’s that it’s preventing those with insufficient free time from voting.
Free time and motivation are more or less substitutes for one another. I don’t have enough free time to learn the guitar this month – but somehow, I had enough free time to schedule two rounds of D&D, oodles of play time with my daughter, and an hour of TV a night with my wife.
Show me the person who cannot vote because they have “insufficient free time”, and I will show you someone who has watched television in the month of the election, someone who has gone out for a beer with a friend in the month of the election, someone who went to the library in the month of the election.
Look, if we were talking about something that happens every day and takes three hours each time, there would be considerable justice in the argument that the less fortunate are being deprived of the franchise. It’s not three hours every day, it’s anywhere from ten minutes to a few hours, once every four years. There’s nobody in America who can’t make that kind of time if they have ANY commitment to politics at all.
Again – legitimate abuses? Point them out and let’s fix them. “I can’t possibly vote because there is no opportunity?” Then you’re too dumb to live and have starved to death by now.
Using that same logic, we could support poll taxes. Our buddy Frank, who doesn’t know who the current Veep is, is less likely to want to cough up 20 bucks for the privilege of voting, is he not? You could maybe kind of sort of make an argument that slight inconvenience works as a good idiot filter, and I might maybe kind of sort of agree… but only on the condition that the inconvenience is equal across the board. As it stands now, it is not.
Even then, I’d be wary. My wording above was not accidental; voting is a right, not a privilege. At what point does a more informed, more dedicated subset of the voting public converge into a political bloc wielding disproportionate power? I’d wager that in aristocracies, the aristocrats were more informed and dedicated than everyone else – how else do you explain how such societies held out for so long? Oligarchies can have elections. They’d hold elections among the oligarchs. What defines a democratic election is one in which mass participation from the greatest number is consideration number one.
Of course, one could also argue that democratic elections work best only within the context of a democratic society. (Part of the reason that popular elections in and of themselves do not a democracy make). You could argue that that’s not the case today – you could always make such a case – but I’d say I’d be less amenable to the bare idea of a “voting hurdle” if the democratic spirit of the broad public wasn’t such a big fat non-existent joke.
As for the nuts and bolts of electioneering, I’d advocate the following. One piece of official identification lets you register same-day. Build an official voter database that precludes the need to make eligibility dependent on current geography, at least within the the same state. Mandate a paper trail or some sort of independent record for all voters. Create a law that says excess voting equipment, by a certain margin (say, by 20%), must always be provided to every precinct where there was a shortage during the last election cycle of its type. Allow random federal inspections of all voting machines, without so much as a reason or a prior warning, even as they are still in the factory – the same way they do with slot machines, based on the premise that the integrity of our democratic elections is at least as important as gamblers’ money. And as for the persistent problem of third party representation, just institute instant runoff voting.
Like sylph said: the hurdles which you appear to think are equitably distributed just aren’t.
More to the point, I am MUCH more concerned that everyone who wants to vote gets to vote. I am less concerned at this point that there will be an influx of people who don’t really care.
I don’t think the hurdles are equitably distributed. I think that for the most part, the hurdles don’t arise to the level of barring a genuinely motivated person. Show me the person who wasn’t able to vote because of the hurdle.
“Show me the person who wasn’t able to vote because of the hurdle.”
Since when is that the right standard? Shouldn’t it be “Show me the person who has just as much right to vote as anyone else, and who has just as much interest as a variety of more-privileged people who didn’t have the same hurdles (or the same effect from them) who didn’t vote, even though they would have?”
Or is “genuinely” simply a word to make the argument circular? Do people who find the hurdles too much to bear therefore indicate “non genuine” desire to vote?
My own standard is pretty simple: I think that we need to be equitable, to avoid having only rich people vote. I think that if people WANT to vote, and we make it difficult for them so that they DON’T vote, it’s a problem.
Anyway, look at this complaint by the ACLU, about Georgia’s photo ID law. I note that the ID was a hell of a lot cheaper than a driver’s license, which someone above seemed to think was fairly easy to get:
http://www.votingrights.org/resources/downloads/Georgia Photo ID COMPLAINT 9-19-05.pdf
In fact, for someone like me, I wouldn’t need an ID at all, because I have a license. And if I did need one, getting it would be comparatively simple.
Shouldn’t it be “Show me the person who has just as much right to vote as anyone else, and who has just as much interest as a variety of more-privileged people who didn’t have the same hurdles (or the same effect from them) who didn’t vote, even though they would have?”
No, it shouldn’t be. Because we cannot possibly adjudicate our society to that standard, leaving us in a perpetual state of raging, permanent injustice. Which, screw it. If you want to vote, get your ass to the poll. If they won’t let you vote because of the color of your skin or what not, call me. I will get my rifle and I will join you in sweeping the streets clean of the scum who would stand between you and your civil rights.
Short of that? There are worse problems more demanding of attention.
Robert, in 2000 Jeb Bush’s administration used transparent legal maneuvers to disenfranchise thousands of mostly people of color. I have never once seen you object to that; in fact, you defend it with excuses. (Paraphrased: “It doesn’t matter whether or not blacks were disenfranchised, because it was a tie.”)
When put to the test, you didn’t defend the voting rights of people of color; you make excuses for disenfranchisement, and looked for any excuse to say that it didn’t happen. Actions talk louder than words; say all the pretty words about rifles in the street you want, when push comes to shove you defend disenfranchisement.
It’s notable that the poll tax is fully defensible with all the arguments you’re making here. Presumably, you would have defended it as reasonable and desirable when it was around.
In practice, it’s rare that POC are denied equal voting rights primarily because of armed racists in the street; your party’s leaders figured out long ago that other methods are more effective and defensible.
That might be a reason not to advocate for measures to make it easier and simpler for people to vote. It’s not a reason to oppose such measures.
Show me the person who can’t spare 20 bucks once every four years.
As for the Georgia ID requirements, it was in a sense a special case because the abuse was blatant and obvious; they made sure not to place a single ID office inside Atlanta, thereby decreasing the genuine-ness of black and urban voters.
But perhaps it’s not a special case. Every time we need to decide what slight barriers or filters are appropriate, we need to decide on what metric is appropriate, who counts as “genuine”, and what “slight” really means. Someone somewhere is making these decisions, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts they prefer closed doors.
As for the nuts and bolts of electioneering, I’d advocate the following. One piece of official identification lets you register same-day.
As long as you need to prove citizenship to get that ID, cool.
Build an official voter database that precludes the need to make eligibility dependent on current geography, at least within the the same state.
Not sure where you’re going with this. I live in Illinois. I live in a municipality, a county, a fire protection district, a sanitary district, an elementary school district, a high school district, a community college district, a mosquito abatement district, a township, a forest perserve district, a county judicial district, a state judicial district, a State Representative district, a State Senate district, and others. One of these changes if I walk across the street from my house. Others change if you walk a half-block. Two blocks, and a few more change. Eight blocks, and it’s a different county. All of these have officials, referenda or both on the ballot. When I go to vote there are people from a 1/2 mile radius there, but there’s 4 different precincts to vote in depending on where you live. How else do you accomodate this?
Mandate a paper trail or some sort of independent record for all voters.
Will it be possible for someone else to determine how RonF voted through examination of that record?
Create a law that says excess voting equipment, by a certain margin (say, by 20%), must always be provided to every precinct where there was a shortage during the last election cycle of its type. Allow random federal inspections of all voting machines, without so much as a reason or a prior warning, even as they are still in the factory – the same way they do with slot machines, based on the premise that the integrity of our democratic elections is at least as important as gamblers’ money.
Cool.
And as for the persistent problem of third party representation, just institute instant runoff voting.
What’s the problem, and what does this do to alleviate it?
It is sort of like a catch-22: those who would be most likely to vote for changes in the voting system are, because of the voting system, least likely to do so.
What defines a democratic election is one in which mass participation from the greatest number is consideration number one.
What defines a democratic election is one in which all adults can vote. So far, I haven’t seen anyone state an actual reason why an eligible voter can’t register and vote in the U.S. It’s true that some people have on occasion tried to create discriminatory barriers; those are abuses that have been corrected, and vigilance is due to ensure that such things don’t recur. But overall, people who have the ordinary resources to live have the resources to vote.
I did a little research. I haven’t nailed down the list, but apparently not every state has a law requiring employers to provide their employees paid time off of work to vote if their shift is such that they do not have 2 or 3 consecutive hours outside of their shift to vote. I would wholeheartedly support a Federal law to that effect for Federal elections and State laws for non-federal ones in the states that do not have such laws. Note that none of the existing laws (apparently there are at least 30 states that have such laws) grant a day off; nobody seems to think that you need to take a whole day off to vote, so I can’t see why the idea that people need to take a day off to vote persists here.
I think it’s the business of the government to make sure that everyone who wants to vote can do so. I don’t think it’s the business of the government to make sure that everyone votes, or to try to motivate people to vote. Voting is a personal decision. Our schools should make sure that their graduates understand the principles of democracy, the principles and mechanisms of how our democratic republic works and what the value of voting is. Past that, it’s up to the candidates and political parties to try to motivate people to vote, and it’s up to the voters to provide their own motivation to get informed and to vote. I think that the low voter numbers we have in the U.S. is an indictment of the electorate, but it’s not the business of the government to change that.
The extreme example of governmental motivation is in Australia, where you are fined if you don’t vote. An Australian friend of mine had to pick up and cast a ballot at an Australian consulate in Chicago to avoid a fine.
The idea would be that the identification required would have had citizenship as a prerequisite. I’m not in favour of getting people to clean out their bureaus to find their passport so that they can vote. In addition to looking suspiciously like a ploy to depress turnout, there’s something very “B-movie-about-Nazis”-esque about always being asked for your ‘papers’.
My main concern is countering the intentional shuffling of precincts in order to disenfranchise those most likely to move around and least likely to be informed of such matters. Basically, I think that if there’s a statewide election, such as for the Senate, Governor, or the President, I think you should be able to cast your vote from anywhere within that state. Ditto for Congressional races and congressional districts. I don’t see how this should be impossible given our current level of technology; if your vote for municipal comptroller is invalid because you showed at the wrong polling station in Illinois, I don’t see why your vote for Governor for the State of Illinois shouldn’t count also. (State laws may differ; maybe this is how it already works in Illinois.) I also think that with electronic voting, this sifting can be made instantaneous and hassle-free. I don’t trust the current provisional ballot system.
No, because that would defeat the whole purpose of having that record in the first place. Anyone who can secretly keep track of everyone’s votes is capable of secretly manipulating everyone’s votes. What I have in mind is a paper receipt that is for the voter’s to keep, so that in the event of a disputed election or manual recount, we have something to go on. And if there’s any truth to the claims that some voting machines are rigged, this would make it fairly obvious to spot.
The problem is a bit of an “Emperor Has No Clothes” scenario, something that the more pompous among us might call a pernicious Nash equilibrium. Third parties are unpopular not because of their platform or their candidates (for the most part), but because people perceive other people as perceiving them unpopular. Instant runoff voting works by listing your votes in order of preference, and weeding out the least popular candidate in each step of vote-counting until we arrive at a majority winner.
For instance, my primary votes under an instant runoff system would have been thus:
(Democrat)
1. Al Gore (write-in)
2. John Edwards
3. Barack Obama
(Republican, forgetting for the moment that I’m not allowed to vote in both primaries)
1. Ron Paul
2. Chuck Hagel (write-in)
3. John McCain
Let’s say the Democratic vote broke down thus:
Clinton 29%
Obama 26%
Edwards 16%
Gore (write-in) 14%
Kucinich 9%
Biden 4%
Gravel/Dodd/Vilsack/That guy from Minnesota running as a vampire 2%
From here, there’s no universally agreed upon method to jump to second-balloting. Let’s say we winnow the vote to all but the top three candidates, since no one candidate has the majority (it’s impossible to win with a mere plurality under instant runoff). So it becomes:
Clinton 39%
Obama 38%
Edwards 23%
-with my Gore vote shifting to Edwards, since he was my number two choice. Since we still don’t have a majority, we do another round:
Obama 53%
Clinton 47%
-with my Edwards vote shifting to Obama, since he was my number three choice.
Thus, I get to vote for the candidates I really feel connected to, while retaining the ability to vote for the “least worst” option. Under such a system, people will free to vote for the candidate and/or party they really want with no fear of wasting their vote. I think they’d be surprised just how many other people would vote the same way, who were in turn shied away from voting according to true allegiances based on how *they* were expected to vote. It’s the best way I think to break the two-party gridlock, as well as the two-or-three-acceptable-candidate gridlock *within* those two parties.
If you truly think that third parties are unpopular because they deserve it, instant runoff voting will have no effect whatsoever. People would just vote Democrat or Republican as their first choice, and a clear majority would be found on the first ballot in most safe districts. In swing districts, Greens and Libertarians may hold something of a trump card, but they already do under our current system.
Actually, the thought of the B-movie Nazi thing has gone through my mind as well. The idea of a national ID card is unattractive. But the topic of voter fraud comes up numerous times on all sides of the debate, and you can’t really control voter fraud if you don’t have reliable ID for voters. A fake license or ID and a valid proof of residency are in the hands of millions of people in this country who are already using them for illegal purposes. It just isn’t too much of a stretch of the imagination to see them being used for another non-violent illegal activity, especially for what some elections have at stake for the people who own them.
As far as the voting location goes; see, I don’t trust electronic balloting at all to sort out results as reliably, as accurately and as secure as physical balloting. Understand that I’m not taking a Luddite viewpoint, nor do I have some ulterior motive in retaining any present methods of corruptingresults. I’m a network engineer. I’m not an expert on encryption, but even so I know a fair amount about networking and data and I just don’t trust the technology at this point. Absent the technology, you can’t vote in one spot and get the right ballots for where you live unless it’s just the right spot.
Instant runoff I have to think about.
There you go with “can’t” again. i really don’t understand why that’s the standard, unless you completely ignore equitability. Do you support criminal defense lawyers for the poor, a la Gideon? because half the people who get those probably can afford a lawyer.. if they sold their house, their car, quit their job, etc.
I have no problem with the concept of personal choice, or that we will be OK with requirements that are less than zero. But th requirements can only be those which, as applied to EVERY CITIZEN (not only rich ones) do not in any way be onerous enough to have a significant effect on their life.
I think that peopl are constantly trying to create discriminatory barriers–in particular against the poor and POC–and that they do so by the death of a thousand cuts.
Sure. two problems, though:
1) isn’t it a bit insane that even ordinary people with ordinary resources won’t always be able to vote? It’s not that hard to provide; why on earth don’t we provide it?
2) don’t you realize that there are many, many, people in the country who are citizens, and who don’t have “ordinary resources?” What about them?
problem is, a large percentage
1) isn’t it a bit insane that even ordinary people with ordinary resources won’t always be able to vote? It’s not that hard to provide; why on earth don’t we provide it?
We do. So far I’ve seen it proposed that it takes an entire day to vote and that polling places are apparently located in obscure places that require transportation requirements beyond the means of people who otherwise manage to have access to sufficient transportation to survive.
2) don’t you realize that there are many, many, people in the country who are citizens, and who don’t have “ordinary resources?” What about them?
They can and do vote as well. Someone who’s homeless and has become so disconnected from society that they have no money and no ID would have a problem voting, but that’s a pretty low number of people. If you want to propose some way of assisting such people, I’d be interested to hear it. Otherwise I don’t see who is excluded from registering and voting by the present systems for such things.
But the requirements can only be those which, as applied to EVERY CITIZEN (not only rich ones) do not in any way be onerous enough to have a significant effect on their life.
I think that this is the present situation. I hvaen’t seen anything that would put significant barriers in the way of registering or voting to people who aren’t rich.
But th requirements can only be those which, as applied to EVERY CITIZEN (not only rich ones) do not in any way be onerous enough to have a significant effect on their life.
Education is more important than the franchise. Our public educational system places burdens, tests, requirements for behavior, etc., on its constituency that are several orders of magnitude more significant than those imposed on people trying to vote. They are often onerous, and certainly have significant effects on people’s lives, to the point of folks having to move to certain places in order to be able to get the schooling they want. Yet you tolerate this with nary a peep that I’ve ever heard.
Heck, food stamps are a lot more urgent than either the franchise or the educational system, and you should see the crap those folks have to put up with.
I don’t think you actually believe what you say you believe. I don’t think you’re lying, I just think you’re grabbing on to a universalist theoretical justification that you don’t apply with anything like universality.
I’m sorry, but the risk of voter fraud is not something we can simply dismiss. And all this whimpering about suppressed voter turn-out is just a bunch of hooey.
Here’s my proposal: Before each election let’s require each voter to check him- or herself into a cell to undergo genetic testing to corroborate his or her identity. We’d keep them in custody until the test results returned, generally in about a week, and then accept their ballot. Not to worry, the state would pick up the tab for the tests and prison accommodations, and would even provide compensation equal to the rate of compensation for jury duty. Surely no one could complain that they COULDN’T vote as a result of these policies. And since the policies are facially neutral, they couldn’t result in skewing voting results in favor of one social group and against another, right?
Whadaya say?
Read my statement in context. What was being proposed was that securing a better position for the higher-information, right kind of voters* was more important than that more people get to vote. Under a democracy, the goal should be the former.
Only in the short term. In the long term, the franchise is more important. I’m reminded of LBJ remarking that securing the franchise for Black citizens was more important than civil rights legislation, because it would force Strom Thurmond to “kiss every Black ass in South Carolina”. I don’t think he anticipated the extent of the Southern Strategy, but he was right in the fundamentals. The problem with putting programs and legislation first is that it puts the disenfranchised minority at the mercy of the group in power. Even if that group is open and benevolent, that is still undesirable. That is why perfect access to voting is more crucial than perfect access to education or food stamps, even though the latter are still important and I have no idea why you would think it would be considered otherwise.
I’m reminded of LBJ remarking that securing the franchise for Black citizens was more important than civil rights legislation
If six generations of activists hadn’t been toiling to raise the educational opportunities for blacks prior to LBJ, would securing them the franchise do any good?
That is why perfect access to voting is more crucial than perfect access to education or food stamps, even though the latter are still important and I have no idea why you would think it would be considered otherwise.
Perfect access to anything is not achievable. All we can do is “good enough”. For me, good enough means that any reasonably motivated person is able to exercise their right. YMMV.
If six generations of activists hadn’t been toiling to raise the educational opportunities for blacks prior to LBJ, would securing them the franchise do any good?
There’s an example of this, actually. Consider that in the North, blacks were not prevented from voting, but their educational opportunities were limited. You ended up with a easily influenced electoral bloc that, especially in urban areas, often voted according to the directives of political machine operatives against what we would perceive to be against their actual best interests.
Of course, there are many people who think that this is, to a lesser extent, the current situation, as a means to explain why so many blacks vote Democratic. But I digress ….
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I think the folks who are almost voting–but not quite–are sought after by the progressive side since they’d be most manipulable.
It isn’t the repubs who are faking the eligibility of the uninvited guests–did I get that right?–the Alzheimers patients in nursing homes, the homeless.
So if you are pretending to be puzzled about the resistance, consider that the other side knows what’s going on.
I acknowledge that in the real world all progress is intertwined. But do you see anything wrong with LBJ’s analysis? Flash back to the 60’s: what do you think was more important: momentary civil rights legislation from a white congress (however benevolent) or securing the franchise for Black citizens? Extrapolate that to today, and for all disadvantaged citizens of all races.
Or, the Republicans push policies that hurt senior citizens and those in poverty, so it’s in their interest to prevent these people from voting. Add to that an insular cabal of crotchety men whose last scruples were ravaged from bitterness over feminism, civil rights, and the fact that bosses are no longer referred to as “sir”, and you have a recipe for unethical, degenerate clusterfuck.
Really, why do need to push such demonstrably false claims to defend a system you hate? Listen to your fellow Freepers – democracy violates natural law.
Listen to your fellow Freepers – democracy violates natural law.
Actually, the viewp0int of the denizens of Free Republic take their cue from the Declaration of Independence:
Now, your mileage may differ, but from the rather extensive discussions of this from time to time on Free Republic the general consensus of how to interpret this there is that a) rights are granted by God, b) governments exist to secure rights (not grant them), c) a government’s legitimacy can only be granted though the consent of the governed, and d) if that consent is withdrawn, the government has no right to govern and the people have the God-given right to form a new government according to whatever forms they choose. They consider Natural Law to hold that the people have the right to determine their form of government, which is the essence of democracy.
Now, you may argue against the proposition that the above passage is rightly interpreted in this fashion, but the issue at hand is not your personal opinion but the assertion you have made regarding the opinions of Freepers. I would be very interested to see you point to any discussions on Free Republic where there is established a consensus that democracy violates Natural Law.
Hmm. I don’t frequent Free Republic nearly as much as you do, so I’ll accept that I was wrong to use “Freeper” as shorthand for “insane Right wing opinions”. I guess it’s others that are primarily responsible.
Don’t worry, I fully understand that such opinions are in the extreme minority when taken among American conservatives as a whole. But that margin rises up exponentially when we go from “American conservatives” to “online Right wingers who troll discussions with rants about the homeless”.
I’ll certainly grant that the signal-to-noise ratio on Free Republic is not as favorable as I’d like. There are some people on there with opinions that are way out there. But then, I could say the same (in the opposite direction) of some people I’ve seen on here, or on some of the sites that I’ve hit through the blogroll here. You definitely have to turn on your filters.
But most of them are rational people and they tend to think that a democratic republic, flawed as it can be, is the best governmental system out there and that natural law favors democracy.
And I have to say that the link you gave was rather dense. I plowed though about 2 paras and then gave it up as a low priority. Not that you’re responsible for that, mind you.