Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I think maybe we need to have a national ID (delivered to citizens by black helicopter) and have election day be a national holiday (not really sure what if any kind of law could be passed in regard to the "voting period"- in terms of requiring employers to give employees the day off)
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wikiYes, we indeed should give out free I Ds. And since there is now no reason to have one, make them something you need to vote. Maybe driver's licences, and other Identification stuff should be used, too. Not sarcasm.
The most edgy person on the Internet.National holiday for voting is a good idea as well. Oregon at least circumvented that problem with mail-in ballots, but a lot of states had businesses suddenly dump shitloads of work on their employees on election day.
Erm...you realize the purpose of an ID is...to be an ID and not to be a cheap tax, right. Processing the service for free doesn't somehow make it less of an ID.
edited 26th Jun '13 10:51:49 AM by Pykrete
I suggest the national ID so as to make toothless the stupid laws like the one in Texas that say you can use a gun license for another state but can't use a student ID or social security card (pretty clear there which demographics Texas Republicans are trying to help/harm).
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wikiThere is a way to get an ID in Canada that doesn't involve going to the DMV or the local Service(Insert Province Here). You can register for an ID card...at a liquor store (albeit at specific chains). I'm completely serious. Sure, it takes a while for it to get processed and all that, but a liquor store is accessible to most people even if they don't drink.
The problem isn't really racism itself, so much as ruthlessness. People like the Texas Tea Party guy I linked earlier may or may not hate black people — but the reason he's explicitly targeting them with voter suppression is because they tend to vote Democrat. Likewise, most of our party's economic policies right now aren't categorically racist, but reinforcing existing economic strata will disproportionately screw minorities, because they got put in the lowest strata decades ago by actual racism.
I mean, black people are voting Democrat for a reason.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:01:38 AM by Pykrete
pretty much this.
Its the same why a lot of Latinos, despite having technically "conservative" values, vote democrat. because while republicans may not specifically be racist (though I know quite a few racists in my area of the world), their policies do tend to utterly ignore people who vote for the other guy.
It also doesnt help that certain parts of the base are explicitly racist and refuse to vote in anyone who cant at least make a good go at pretending to be racist long enough to get nominated.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:02:24 AM by midgetsnowman
Sadly, that's correct. I'm not sure how we'd fix that other than pouring money on the lower class, but that never works, in all reality. What bills/whatevers have people come up with to fix that?
EDIT: Democrats are not exactly saints of bipartisanship either. I wish somebody would be.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:03:35 AM by Ringsea
The most edgy person on the Internet.
usually, all I ever see them do is insist if we murder regulation and let capitalism run free and wild, people will lift themselves up by their bootstraps to dethrone walmart naturally.
which is a problem as anyone with any actual chops in econ knows full well it doesnt quite work that way.
edit: I agree Dems arent. But then. I'm only Dem because voting green party wastes my vote, even if they better reflect my views. The dems are kind of a three way split between ex-republicans, moderate lefties, and hardcore lefties like me.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:05:06 AM by midgetsnowman
Also, I know this isn't the "Voter ID law" thread, but I can't think of any good justification for the various laws that try to cut early voting days and the like, particularly weekends right before election day, which coincidentally is when a lot of black churches will organize taking congregants to the polls.
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wikiShould we do it? In the sense that I would like to establish a national identity card program that is free for all citizens and easy to obtain, yes. Could we then, having established this system, use it to verify voter eligibility? Yes. But let's not mince words about Republicans' intentions here. Their objective is not to make voting fair; it's to disenfranchise minorities. The concern over voter fraud is window dressing.
Now that VRA has been defanged, we should see further pushes by red states to enact ID laws, redistrict, and in other ways continue their pattern of making it harder for poor and minority voters to get heard.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:15:39 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The problem is in heavily red states with gerrymandered districts, the "dumb ones" are the ones with the most power because their voting districts are so rabidly evanglical and reactionary that they pretty much hate democrats.
I've seen it in my hometown, which is a solidly red district. We've had people even create local political movements demanding the schools not renew a contract with bus driving services for schools because it'd require a small tax increase and "if kids have to walk to school we solve the obesity epidemic" (keep in mind a good 5th of the local students live in the countryside and theres only ONE high school for the entire town period)
Or the time the hs band tried to have the evolution of man with instruments in every stage of man's development as a "evolution of Band" joke andthe school was forced to recall all the shirts because some parents rioted at the school "forcing" evolution on their kids.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:20:48 AM by midgetsnowman
Cross-posting this from the LGBT thread:
So, this happened today:
- The federal government now fully recognizes same-sex marriages. This applies to military benefits, immigration laws, social security, medicare, health insurance (which is regulated by the federal government instead of states ever since 2009), as well as 11,000 other rights. This is fucking huge.
- Although some states can choose not to perform them (section 2 was not being considered in this case because Edith Windsor's lawyers decided to not touch that part), if you get married in another state and move to another one, you still retain the rights granted by the federal government.
- LGBT people are now a class subject to heightened scrutiny. No law can be made that discriminates against them unless it can be proven by that state's government that it has strong reasoning to do this. Because LGBT people are now considered a group being protected by the 5th amendment, this will make defending same-sex marriage bans more difficult.
- Private parties cannot take the place of the government in defending a law. Very procedural ruling, but important nonetheless.
- Prop 8 thrown out. This means that same-sex marriage is legal in California.
- With same-sex marriage now legal in California, the US's most populous state, the majority of Americans now live in jurisdictions where same-sex marriage is legal.
Same-sex marriage is essentially legal nationwide. Most rights pertaining to married couples are at the federal level. Same-sex couples can get married in another state and be protected by the federal government.
@Ringsea; That's one of the more interesting uses of No True Scotsman that I've seen. "By their acts shall ye know them" — I may be quoting it incorrectly, but I believe that's in one of the books that many Republicans seem to enjoy throwing in our faces.
Individually, you may not be racist, theocratic jerkoffs, but you wouldn't know that to look at the people you put in office and the laws you enact.
edited 26th Jun '13 11:19:14 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!""Their objective is not to make voting fair; it's to disenfranchise minorities."
I don't think that is exactly true- it is more that their objective is to disenfranchise democrats, and since minorities tend to be democrats, their being harmed is generally a corollary of that (that's why the Republican Voter ID laws often disallow the use of student identifications- presumably on the assumption that they are possessed by stereotypically liberal college students).
edited 26th Jun '13 11:19:49 AM by Hodor
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wikiI'd not mind voter ID nearly as much except for the fact that here in Wisconsin, the law was passed in such a way that it required DMV access, which large swathes of the state DO NOT have convenient access to, THEN they started shuttering and cutting hours of DM Vs in districts that had higher proportions of Democratic voters while upping the hours in Republican districts.
There was little to no thought of making the ID freely available first. It wasn't about protecting voting integrity, it was about disenfranchising people.
Plus they upped the required time that someone reside in their current residence to 3 months, which disproportionately affects students and younger voters, who, surprise surprise, move around a lot.
Finally, there is so little voting fraud that would actually be stopped by a voter id law. The most comprehensive study of voting fraud
of all sorts found just 2098 examples, and the biggest method of voter fraud is actually absentee ballot fraud, not double voting or voter impersonation. Voter Impersonation counts for .5% of all accusations and double voting only 7.3%.
And this is data for the entire country since 2000.
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

True. And thats why we dont set up clinics to examine people psychologically for their likelihood to kill someone ahead of the fact.