Saturday, April 23, 2011

"Voting is a Privilege, Not a Right"

That would seem to be the mindset of the Confederacy party. That's the rationale behind their push to prevent students and minorities from voting: That the ability to vote should be limited to older white folk.

The Speaker of the House in Minnesota, some sheet-wearer named Kurt Zellers, has that view of voting. By "privilege", that means that the state can deny you the chance to vote if they feel like it, just like they can take away you driver's license.

Or course, now having shared with the public what he really thinks about voting, Zellers is trying to walk it back. Because that pesky document, the United States Constitution, in Article I, Section 2, as well as Amendments 14, 17, 20 and 27, would tend to hold otherwise.

But that's the thing about the Confederacy party, as well as the Teabaggers: They love them the Constitution, until it tells them something that they don't like. The older Confederates wrote the book on denying people the right to vote, which they enforced with both the mechanism of the state and with night-riders. Both the cops and the Klan killed dark-skinned people who tried to vote and they did that for many decades.

The modern Confederates are just trying to be more subtle about it. Their aims, however, are the same as they always have been.

4 comments:

  1. I confronted one of these right-wing voter integrity people about the fact that the photo ID laws disproportionately affect poor and minority voters, and he said "it's not racism, we're just trying to keep people from voting twice!" So I said, "why not do like in Iraq or Afghanistan and do the purple thumb thing, then, instead of requiring photo ID?" He sputtered and stuttered but had no real answer for me. Because there isn't one. Other than racism.

    - Badtux the "They need to wear their pointy hats" Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  2. BadTux
    That's what right wingers usually do when confronted with logic or facts. Sputter and start spitting out derogatory comments and name calling.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm amazed that anyone would even dare assert that. If there's one right most Americans ought to be familiar with, it's that they have the right to vote.

    ReplyDelete

House Rules #1, #2 and #6 apply to all comments. Rule #3 also applies to political comments.

In short, don't be a jackass. THIS MEANS YOU!
If you never see your comments posted, see Rule #7.

All comments must be on point and address either the points raised in the blog post or points raised by commenters in response.
Any comments that drift off onto other topics are subject to deletion.

(Please don't feed the trolls.)

中國詞不評論,冒抹除的風險。僅英語。

COMMENT MODERATION IS IN EFFECT UFN. This means that if you are an insulting dick, nobody will ever see it.