Regarding the “R v D thing”,
I should clarify that I was not saying that this should be discussed from an R v D standpoint and I certainly don’t want to reinforce the false dichotomy that is prevalent in the US. However, the fact of the matter...ok my opinion on the matter is that the rationale behind voter ID laws are, unfortunately, a political R v D thing. Conservative activist Phyllis Shlafly, in a column she wrote, stated “The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama’s ground game”.
Furthermore, if there was some actual merit to the law (besides being effective at disenfranchising Democrat voters) then it would actual have to be effective at preventing significant voter fraud. No one has addressed anything that I said in the first charge so it remains an ineffective solution to relatively non-existent problem (10 cases over 12 years of major elections). Even without debating any of the “counter-points” to the second charge, I’ll concede to you that “this law is likely ineffective but, hey, it’s *maybe* not racists...that’s a plus!”.
I do agree with people that this should not be an R v D thing. The democratic process should not be a partisan issue but it abhorrently has become one. Look at the recent government shut down as another example. The republicans have been attempting to undermine Obama at every turn, throwing the entire country under the bus with him. The democrats, and Obama, have shown they will promise all these nice things and then switch to “business as usual” once they get in office (and I was a big fan of Obama in 2008). It’s time to, like Cajun said, toss them all out. Vote independent! Tell the oligarchic state you’re down with the BS.
However, don’t skip over the biggest issue which is the corporate control over government due to campaign financing. A great rundown of this issue is given by Lawrence Lessig in “Republic, Lost” (a talk on the subject can be
seen here). The issue is not about politicians or parties, the issue is systemic.
(Also, a little side note TGS4, Stalin’s Soviet Union was not communism; it was totalitarianism. It was proclaimed as communism in the west to create a fear of far-left ideology (and it worked amazingly well…I mean look at this thread). It was pronounced as communism in USSR to blind the citizenry to the fact the government was actually creating a totalitarian state)