Obama to GOP: stop pretending there’s a problem with voting fraud
Our demagogue of a race-baiting community-organizer president has this to say about Republican efforts at promoting voter ID [emphasis mine]:
President Barack Obama struck hard at restrictive voting rights laws Friday, calling them a Republican political tactic conceived to address a made-up problem.
Pretending that there’s widespread impropriety, he said, is just about keeping Democrats from winning.
“The real voter fraud is people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud,” Obama said, in a speech to Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in New York – an organization that he said should serve as a national model for organizing people around voting, led by a man who deserved “a big round of applause.”
The voting rights argument is a key element of the White House’s strategy to have the president focus on boosting base turnout for the midterms, especially among core Obama voters.
“There are well-organized and well-funded efforts to undo [the] gains” of the civil rights movement, Obama told the largely African-American crowd. “Just as inequality feeds on justice, opportunity requires justice, and justice requires the right to vote.”
Not content to argue the merits of whether there’s enough voter fraud to warrant efforts at voter ID laws, or whether voter ID laws actually constitute enough of a stumbling block to hamper a significant number of voters, minority or otherwise, Obama is willing—nay, eager—to couch the issue in the most divisive and partisan way.
What he’s actually saying is that the Republicans are lying. Not only lying, but lying in order to disinfranchise black people and reverse the gains of the civil rights movement. Put that way, it’s almost breath-taking in its divisive demonizing of the opposition, divisive in a way that I cannot recall any other president, Democrat or Republican, approaching.
Oh, and a corollary of what Obama is saying is that Al Sharpton (race-baiter and proven liar extraordinaire), is a man who deserves a big round of applause.
Another thing on which to meditate—this is the same Barack Obama who first made his name on the national level by saying at the Democratic Convention of 2004:
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America””there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.
That’s the same Barack Obama who sat for twenty years in the racist and anti-American church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and saw no evil, heard no evil.
As for voter fraud, who on earth doesn’t think it exists? We can argue about its extent, but there is no question that the phenomenon occurs, and that documented cases represent some fraction of the whole (see also this and this), whether it’s the tip of a large iceberg or of something far smaller. There is also little question that, in this day and age, requiring some sort of voter ID is not an especially onerous burden, and that the vast majority of the American people understand that and support it.
The activist game is the only social-political game there is.
It doesn’t need to be true. It doesn’t even need to be popular in the aggregate. It just needs to be effective in the collective.
Eric:
I understand and to a large extent agree with what you’re saying. My question is this: how does it translate to what the average conservative voter can do, short of running for office?
We’d like for Obama and the Dems (Hey! A Name For A Band!) to stop pretending there isn’t voter fraud–which they say Repubs are committing .
Neo, a voter can vote, and a runner can run. Those things are needed, but there’s a middle-ground that represents a greater responsibility than voting, yet not the life-changing and bankruptcy risking leap-of-faith that is running for office. Breitbart’s undercover sting operations can serve as a model to expose voter fraud. These left-wing community organizing outfits focused on winning have long ago lost sight of right and wrong. So the solution is to make up a ridiculous story, then go to your local sharper-image or spy-camera store and plunk down a Benjamin. Camera-up. Then go fishing for leaches. Tape the tapeworms and expose them. If enough voter fraud conspiracy, tacit acceptance of fraud, and even active abetting of it is exposed, then maybe, just maybe the sleepers will awaken.
What Obama said, “Just as inequality feeds on justice,….” Pinhead. Of course, consider his audience.
What Eric means is for us to get off our duffs and get her done. Agitate. Tea Party up, but no more Mr Nice Guy. Draw on the Nevada rancher as an example; there are little Harry Reids under every rock, in every precinct, so go get ’em.
If there is no voter fraud, why aren’t blacks pushing for photo IDs? That would prove that it doesn’t exist.
I hope to be cremated and then buried in an unmarked grave after I die, my name forgotten. For me, Hell would be spending the rest of eternity voting numerous times for Democrats that I loathed while I was alive….
Join the Tea Party if you want the assistance of an organization that hasn’t been hijacked yet.
Otherwise, go solo, build your bunker, change yourself, and make your area a harder target for Leftist mobs and rape squads in the soon to be conflict.
Jenk, that’s why they are Demoncrats. They have necromancer abilities.
Neo,
The belief that “running for office” is a viable solution for all that ails us was a mistake.
Voting and elected office is only one piece, and more, it’s not a primary piece. It reacts to other social cultural/political pieces.
You know that policy and law neither generate nor operate in a vacuum. Law and policy, as with culture, are dynamic. It’s one of the perspective-changing lessons of law school, right? Human-made rules and regulations aren’t immutable physics. Law and policy are conceived, interpreted, amended, and enforced contextually and organically. Congress is contextual and organic. SCOTUS is contextual and organic. Activism is contextual and organic.
What can the average conservative voter do?
1st, let go of the beliefs that ‘going Galt’ and magical Republicans in elected office are sufficient solutions in the competition with full-spectrum Left activism.
2nd, change your worldview. Each average conservative – learn, do, and be activist. Study the ways and means of the effective activists in history, both heroes and villains, whether or not you agree with their social causes. In addition to digestible real-world examples, such as the civil-military normalization campaign at Columbia, there’s plenty of theory and how-to literature on-line and in books. Eg, Bill Moyer’s Doing Democracy. Appetizer: http://doingdemocracy.com/ .
Learn to see your community up through America and the whole Occident through activist eyes – as a social cultural/political competitive arena. Think and feel like activists.
3rd, don’t charge the gates prematurely.
Be aggressive, but also be smart, which includes first learning the theory and how-to of activist social movements.
Consult experienced activist changers like Steve Beren and David Horowitz. Don’t limit them to diagnosing Left activism. Rather, charge them to also prescribe competitive Right activism. Place Right activists like them in charge of recruitment, organization, and operations at multiple levels.
However, activist leaders can’t lead without activists to lead. It’s necessary but not sufficient to organize a cadre. Each average conservative needs to take ownership of his or her own activism. Only with a critical mass of capable activists can there be a viable social movement.
4th, when ready, think globally and act locally. Engage in the local community and learn and develop from grassroots, the campus, and the street corner. Failure is the best teacher. Grow from the ground up, seed to tree. You won’t have everything you’ll need to defeat the Left at the beginning. The things you’ll need later you’ll acquire from the campaign. As Sun Tzu taught, opportunities multiply as they are seized.
The IRS running shenanigans? Work around it.
Activism is the power of the people to win at asymmetrical social contests. That means resilience, creativity, flexibility, adaptability, and old-fashioned persistent toughness. I don’t recall corporate tax designation being the one thing historically that has stopped a genuine people’s movement anywhere.
Example: The ROTC-return movement at Columbia University was founded and led throughout by student activists, yet at no point was there an official (ie, regulated) campus organization with the mission of ROTC advocacy. Tax-deductible donations, a letter-head, and office address have their uses but aren’t necessary conditions for the people to join together and act at grassroots.
The social movement can’t be half-hearted and self-consciously settle for a sanitized cargo-cult simulacrum of Left activism. It must be all-in. Do what’s necessary for the mission, including when what’s necessary is ugly, not what’s convenient and pretty.
Do what the Tea Party movement started to do before losing their bearing. This time, learn to do activism correctly and learn from the Tea Party’s errors. I mean practical methodological errors, not ideological errors.
The Tea Party started off doing it right. Their basic self-sabotaging errors were, one, limiting their outreach to their obvious in-group rather than virally proselytizing and spreading throughout the demographic spectrum, especially in the cities and on campuses, and two, becoming sidetracked by the goal of elected offices.
The primary power of the Tea Party to make a difference was in the social movement, not in placing members in elected office. To be clear, elected office does matter; it’s just not the difference-making center of gravity.
The Tea Party should not have joined the GOP. The GOP should have joined the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party should have been a growing independent social force that holds elected officials accountable and incentivizing (reward and punishment) them through the power of the social movement, like the Left does to the Dems.
So again, what should the average conservative voter do? Become activist, for real this time.
* The Tea Party should have been a growing independent social force that holds elected officials accountable and incentivizing (reward and punishment) them through the full-spectrum social, cultural, political power of the social movement, like the Left does to the Dems.
Perhaps Obama should extrapolte from talk radio. Why does liberal talk radio die or require a subsidy to stay alive? Fraudulent ideas don’t sell in the real world as opposed to the ivory tower or other hothouse environments. It doesn’t help that some callers are treated with contempt,which is not a valid argument.
Eric, you should stop talking about the Tea Party, because that’s a propaganda negative for you in case you haven’t noticed that yet.
Did you somehow miss my warning to you on this topic a few months ago?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/10/tense-video-feds-taser-pro-nevada-rancher-protester-during-clash/
This is what somebody probably meant by “Nevada rancher” time.
Ymarsarkar: “Eric, you should stop talking about the Tea Party, because that’s a propaganda negative for you in case you haven’t noticed that yet.”
I’m not against the Tea Party. I wanted them to succeed as a counter social movement to dislodge the Left, and they had a good start. The Tea Party movement can be revived still to live up to its beginning promise.
However, it’s a self-sabotaging error by the Right to believe the Tea Party as-is is a sufficient solution, just as it’s an error to believe going Galt or waiting for a magical Republican candidate are sufficient solutions.
Don Carlos: “What Eric means is for us to get off our duffs and get her done. Agitate. Tea Party up, but no more Mr Nice Guy.”
Yep, whether with a Tea Party revival or other insurgent entities, do it right this time. The activist game isn’t HS debate club. It’s neighborhood turf war.
They passed a law in Texas in time for the last primary requiring a photo ID to vote. It didn’t seem like it was too much of a hardship for anyone in the precinct where I vote, or even at the early-voting site. I am utterly mystified as to why the usual civil rights agitators would object to this … other than it would put an extra task upon them in arranging for a rigged race.
Obama, bless his heart*, has set back race relations in the US by at least half a century. Not that white ethnics are going to rush out and revive the KKK … but too many more news stories about heinous instances of black-on-white or black-on-anything-else violence, too many more instances of infamously corrupt and/or incompetent black politicians and functionaries, and too many more black celebs and academics tossing around the race card at the drop of a hat … and I believe there will be a certain kind of frozen politeness and ostracism that will take over. I can see a day coming very soon where whites will choose very quietly not associate with, hire, or go into business with an AA, unless and until they are satisfied that the particular AA in question is a decent human being; not a bundle of over-indulged incompetencies with a chip on their shoulder.
Right along with this, I should point out that I know and have known (especially in the military) many absolutely splendid officers and NCOs who had (as one of them wryly put it) the year-round permanent tan. I would and have trusted any of them with anything, up to and including my life and that of my daughter. My next-door neighbors are a multi-gen family, also AA. We have known their sons since they were in middle school, and they are turning out to be hard-working and responsible young men – the oldest of them has held down a job since he was 16, and he just now bought a new car for himself, to the astonishment and pride of his mother and grandmother. (It’s a modest little Midsubishi four-door, nothing extravagant or flashy.) Their father did have an Obama bumper-sticker on his own vehicle for a while – it’s since worn off or been peeled off, and I did see the grandmother (retired civil servant church lady of unimpeachable rectitude) wearing an Obama tee … but not for several years.
I suppose this is one more reason for me to despise Obama. My neighbors invested such hope and pride in him – proof positive that AA’s had arrived, were fully equal in the great American body politic! His success was their success … and yet he is and was a shabby little Chicago machine pol, with ‘the year-round-permanent-tan.’ A corrupt and incompetent puppet, his career advanced by insider efforts.
I am certain that he has let my neighbors down unspeakably, just as he has let down so many hard-working, patriotic and striving middle-class AA’s who want to get ahead on their own merits. Of course, I don’t think they would say so to me, and I wouldn’t ask — but I wonder sometimes if they would rather have had someone like Alan West as the first AA president. Someone of real and solid accomplishment – not a hollow fraud in a bespoke suit.
No, there are things that can’t be said, if we hope to get along as neighbors and citizens. But I am fairly certain that from now on, white Americans will be looking very straightly at their AA neighbors, business associates, or politicians, academics and entertainment personalities and quietly forming their own opinion. (It’s how we riot these days – very quietly.)
*When said by a southern lady of certain vintage in a mild and soft voice, under certain circumstances this particular phrase expresses a whole different range of wishes. At the extreme end, it means that the person of whom it is said should be sodomized with a rusty chain saw. Not that I would EVAH think that, or even encourage it [bats eyes] but that’s what it can mean. I only wish to inform. [bats eyes again.]
(TSA guy monitoring this website – hey, it’s Chicken Florentine for dinner, and I think there will be leftovers. Stop by for a go-box around 7:00 CST. You know the address. )
Expect President Smells of Sulphur to get even worse during what remains of his term.
Do you defeat your opponent by becoming just like him? I don’t think so.
Reagan did the opposite of Obama. He leaned heavily on “welfare queen” rhetoric in his unsuccessful 1976 campaign for the presidential nomination, but dropped it after that and concentrated on not being divisive.
“Do you defeat your opponent by becoming just like him? I don’t think so.”
I am of the same opinion. I can not engage in the tactics of the leftists in order to defeat the leftists in the market place of ideas. There has to be a better way, a way that is based in the reality of economics and the best aspects of human nature. Centralized power, the welfare/entitlement state, and crony ‘capitalism’ corrupt our society. The metaphorical ring must be destroyed, wielding the ring for good does not produce ‘good’ because the ring corrupts the best of intentions from the strongest of hearts. McCain is a perfect example, Palinesque fortitude is the antidote.
“There is no voter fraud” is as phony as the “War on Women.” Yet they get away with it because the MSM is on their side.
Obama is a proven multiple liar. He lied many times about his healthcare law. He lies about this issue and the MSM says, “Nothing to see here, move along.” It”s enraging! But we have to keep trying. Rome wasn’t built in a day and turning the fortunes of the country around must be done one day at a time, one person at a time.
Sgt. Mom: I do not get the sense that you feel you can be frank with your tanned neighbors; you seem to be surmising their thoughts on Obama, but not knowing.
So in that sense a gulf still exists.
Eric is something of a One-Note Sally, but he is right, up to a point. I would defer in this case to our friend Richard Fernandez who wrote years ago something to the effect of, “When you fight werewolves in the dark, do not be surprised when you look in the mirror in the morning and see whiskers.”
Where I think Eric is getting off on the wrong foot is that he thinks we should play their game by their rules only more ruthlessly. He’s overlooking the fact that they are what they are precisely because THEY HAVE NO RULES; we who do cannot completely emulate them without sacrificing our souls.
What we can do is harden our souls and resist their patently false siren song of “justice” and stay our own course. Put forward our own ideas and push them relentlessly with no regard to the faux wounded bleats of the other side. We have the right ideas, but our natural decency and compassion forces us to hesitate when they scream. Don’t.
Channel your inner William Tecumseh Sherman and bring the war to them on your terms not theirs. This is not easy as most people don’t enjoy seeing suffering, but only by making them realize that their suffering will end only after they abandon their efforts against us and ignoring their howls while doing so can this be brought to a reasonably quick resolution.
Note that I did not say “end”. Alas, with this enemy there really isn’t an end, only a temporary defeat. They will withdraw, fly a white flag and lick their wounds, but when they think the time is right they will strike again. Perhaps not in the same way, but they will. They are the reason that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
I’ll close by paraphrasing another of our friends, Bill Whittle, who asserts that as scary as they can be, with fangs and claws, sheepdogs must never become wolves, ESPECIALLY when fighting wolves….
Its not just about voter ID. This is one of many tactics our republican representatives are using to suppress the minority voter turn out. We are on the wrong side of history.
1. Changing polling locations. An election official can make this call just days before an election.
2. Changing polling hours or eliminating early voting days. This may be particularly problematic in urban counties where long polling lines are most likely, as Henry Grabar reported last fall.
3. Reducing the number of polling places. This raises the same problem as above, particularly when the eliminated polling places had disproportionately served minority communities.
4. At-large elections. At-large elections for school-board members or city councils often dilute the voting power of minorities who have greater influence in single-candidate district elections. In an at-large election, a cohesive voting block with 51 percent of the vote can elect 100 percent of the officials.
5. Packing majority-minority districts. Election maps drawn to push all of a community’s minorities in one or a handful of districts can dilute their voting power.
6. Dividing minority districts. Similarly, election maps can slice minority communities into multiple districts so that they have no cumulative influence in any one place. The line between these two tactics is a fine one (and also illustrates why the VRA was useful for assessing facts on the ground).
7. Voter ID laws: This increasingly popular tactic, sometimes likened to a modern-day poll tax, has the potential to disenfranchise voters who don’t have a driver’s license, or who don’t have the money or ability to obtain one (a disproportionate share of these people are minorities). Such laws can also have a disproportionate impact in cities, where many people don’t own cars.
8. Onerous candidate qualifications. In 2007, a Texas provision tried to limit those people eligible to become water district supervisors to landowners who were registered to vote.
9. Changing multi-lingual voter assistance. Making it harder for non-English language speakers to vote is a good way to dilute their power.
10. Changing election dates. Another trick that may not require legislative approval.
11. Creating new elections. In 2006, the DOJ objected to a plan in the Houston area that would have eliminated some joint elections and required voters to travel to multiple polling places.
12. Canceling elections. We’re not even really sure how Kilmichael, Mississippi, thought they could get away with this.
Black voter turnout exceeds white turnout. No one is losing their right to vote. Obama is shameless and the media let him get away with it.
Jenk: good poiints.
I’d like to see some positive activism. Buycotts, not boycotts.
THIS is why True the Vote was harassed the most by far with IRS personal and business audits, ATF, FBI, OSHA, etc.. Catherine Englebrecht’s organization is involved in purging the dead, the relocated, and the made-up citizens from the voter rolls.
Obama and Holder’s War on Voter ID is simple: they know they need illegals and fake/duplicate voters in order for the Democrats to win (after Obamacare and 6 years of failure in office). Obamacare is providing them access to all of the valuable personal identity information (why else would ACORN and La Raza be authorized Obamacare navigators if not to get people to register and/or register & vote on their behalf?). However, Voter ID makes this a lot harder to do.
Unfortunately, voting for your state’s Voter ID legislation is not enough, since Holder and the courts can halt or undo it. I would suggest getting involved in having your state’s voter rolls purged. Don’t know if there is anything regular citizens can do about making sure military ballots go out on time, too.
Sgt. Mom; that is all very well put; But, I’m not sure if race relations have really been “set back.”
More, likely, I suspect that race relations have been truly exposed. Many blacks now feel more empowered to say what they really think – they hate white people! They hate Asians, etc.
Before only the outright bigots, such as Sharpton, would speak their mind so. Since the election and re-election of Obama, more black (or “AA” as you call them) bigots are showing their true colors (no pun intended). Black power at any price – the nation be damned!
I remember a TV interview with the gentlemanly Thurgood Marshall, who when asked if he thought he made life better for black Americans by having served on the Supreme Court, answered that he hoped that he made life better for ALL Americans.
For the life of me, I cannot imagine ANY black leader, politician or otherwise, saying such a thing today. He (or she, as in Condi Rice) would so quickly be labeled an Uncle Tom or a traitor to his race. Instead we would hear; “hell yes, I’m all about making things better for Blacks, America owes us!”
To your point, yep, I’m am quite suspect of any black before I get to know him/her. A couple of my former black friends no longer consider me a friend because I dared to call Obama what he is – a fraud. Truth be told, I guess they weren’t friends if they are so willing to “side” with a politician over me because of the color of his skin. I just hope (actually, I know) black family members won’t pull that same idiot move – distance themselves from me because of my political viewpoint on some idiot politician.
I would contend that the opfor is SLOPPY.
It is also ARROGANT.
The combination means that those willing to network and do the footwork there is no end of deceit and hypocrisy to plow up.
Towards this end might I suggest that Dropbox and the like be used to pass around the dirt?
“On April 9, 2014, Dropbox announced that Condoleezza Rice would be joining their board of directors.[27] prompting protests from some users who were concerned about her appointment (source BBC News, 11 April 2014) Rice is a director of Rice Hadley Gates LLC which has provided consultancy to Dropbox. (source Bloomberg Business Week, April 09, 2014) The board also includes Stephen Hadley, former US national security adviser, and former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.”
Wiki
The key thing is to have a better nexus of dirt — rather than having to depend upon the digital diaspora — such as exists in the blogosphere.
The structure ought to be centered around key villains of influence.
It needs to permit crowd sourcing of Leftist connections — rather than depend upon a dedicated handful.
As it stands, we’re being out crowd sourced; for it’s the collective that is gang tackling Palin, Rice, Cruz, et. al.
Look back at the astroturf attack on Cain. With the passage of time, all of his accusers have been debunked. Axelrod simply HAD to be at the core.
If the Koch family wants to be effective — fund opfor research that links deep into the ‘bench’ of Reid, Pelosi, et. al.
As I posted on the Koch thread, Reid is massively implicated in the Bundy hustle.
Reid took big bucks from Red Chinese investors — shunted to his kin. (Son, IIRC)($500,000 at one go.)
The Chinese were being given a sweet heart deal in Harry’s backyard — with plenty of Federal loans, etc. — to construct a Green energy project. (The bleeding will never end.)
That project could not go forward without an environmental offset — from lands in the exact same ecosystem. (ie just over the butte)
So — amazingly — Harry volunteers the Bundy range!
Harry puts his own boy on the case — within hours of being confirmed by the Senate!
What a coincidence!
Plainly, everyone connected with Harry is dirty. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
See also Pelosi and her husband’s astounding bidding success WRT retired USPS offices in down town Oakland and elsewhere. A million here, a million there, and you’re talking real corruption.
Ah, Chicago on the Potomac. What a sewer.
iscal Conservative Says:
April 12th, 2014 at 8:49 pm
“Its not just about voter ID. This is one of many tactics our republican representatives are using to suppress the minority voter turn out. We are on the wrong side of history.”
What’s with the WE kemosabe?
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
1. Enforce individual autonomy via firearms training and Tim Larkin esque training. Have the person motivate themselves to change themselves, rather than attempting to change the world.
2. Protect the high schools and colleges. Do something about all the teacher unions molestors and rapists there. Something, anything, would be better than the pro bully environment and pro sexual assault and sex slave culture of college parties. Having the next generation of voters being the Left’s personal sex toys and traumatized/conditioned via rape, isn’t a good thing and will require decades to recondition and heal.
3. There’s no particular need to get rid of immigrants, legal or illegal, or welfare recipients. All that is required is that in exchange for whatever benefits they want, their right to protest, fund, support, and participate in political power are stripped from them until the time that they are no longer under the american government’s thumb. Since the issue is political power, due to the Left’s evil control, then remove the politics. If people want welfare, then let them become animals, with neither a voice nor a vote. Tell the Left to shut the hell up if they back talk on this matter, they have no right to tell us what ‘Human rights’ are.
4. Find a way to personally hurt the PillowCs, the Reids, the Feinsteins. Personally. Hurt. Them.
Forget voter ID (but only for a moment). What the hell is the President of the United States doing honoring a vicious, malevolent bigoted demagogue like Sharpton?
To be honest, I need to retract my last comment. It is a total whitewash to refer to Sharpton merely as a “demagogue”. He has the blood of at least nine people on his hands in Crown Heights and the Freddie’s fire. He has murdered more people than Charles Manson.
Its pretty obvious that most people here haven’t even bothered to look at the statistics on voter fraud. Virtually non existent. But don’t take my word for it.
In Missouri in 2000, for example, the Secretary of State claimed that 79 voters were registered with addresses at vacant lots, but subsequent investigation revealed that the lots in question actually housed valid and legitimate residences.
2004 election in Ohio revealed a voter fraud rate of 0.00004%.
2004 gubernatorial election in Washington State. though voter fraud does happen, it happens approximately 0.0009%
A 1995 investigation into votes allegedly cast in Baltimore by deceased voters and those with disenfranchising felony convictions revealed that the voters in question were both alive and felony-free.
Many of the inaccurate claims result from lists of voters compared to other lists – of deceased individuals, persons with felony convictions, voters in other states, etc.
In Florida in 2000, a list of purged voters later became notorious when it was discovered that the “matching” process captured eligible voters with names similar to – but decidedly different from – the names of persons with felony convictions, sometimes in other states entirely.
A 2005 attempt to identify supposed double voters in New Jersey mistakenly accused people with similar names but whose middle names or suffixes were clearly different, such as “J.T. Kearns, Jr.” and “J.T. Kearns, Sr.,” of being the same person. Even when names and birth dates match across lists, that does not mean there was voter fraud.
it is more likely than not that among just 23 individuals, two will share a birthday. Similar statistics show that for most reasonably common names, it is extremely likely that at least two people with the same name in a state will share the same date of birth.
Other allegations of fraudulent voting often turn out to be the result of common clerical errors, incomplete information, or faulty assumptions. Most allegations of voter fraud simply evaporate when more rigorous analysis is conducted.
Show me significant data showing that voter id fraud is an issue in this country and I will gladly concede.
ymarsakar
On Point #1 I agree with you completely.
On Point #2 not so much, but only because I agree with Point #1–both of the Fort Hood shootings disturbed me greatly. If our military men, those who we send overseas to fight, cannot defend themselves at home on military bases because of inane regulations, how can we possibly defend other institutions except by implementing Point #1? Impossible under the current circumstances but possible if you ignore the lawfare against it.
On Point #3 again I agree. See Robert Heinlein on that subject.
On Point #4, see my comment on General Sherman….
FOAF Says:
April 12th, 2014 at 11:21 pm
“To be honest, I need to retract my last comment. It is a total whitewash to refer to Sharpton merely as a “demagogue”. He has the blood of at least nine people on his hands in Crown Heights and the Freddie’s fire. He has murdered more people than Charles Manson.”
Well stated. The advantage of being old is that I remember lots of stuff, including Charles Manson and Al Sharpton at their peaks of evil. All the soap in the world will not wash the blood off their hands.
Obama is an evil demon. All the PR in the world will not hide his disgusting war on the American people. He and his minions WILL NOT win.
“4. Find a way to personally hurt the PillowCs, the Reids, the Feinsteins. Personally. Hurt. Them.”
I’m sure there are many ways to hurt these criminals.
Fisc Con, we have much better things to do here than to, for the thousandth time, debunk all your old lies.
Begone! and never darken our towels again.
Promethea,
ever hear the term Demoncrats?
See, demons right! Demons were originally supposed to be fallen angels.
FOAF,
a lot of stuff on the Left needs to be cleared out.
Although I’m the person that wrote that the Left should be wiped from the face of existence. The compromise is merely wiping them from this planet.
Jenk,
Diversity Casey pulled the same move with the Iraqis in Casey’s failed “Iraqi Face” occupation plan. That was why Fallujah I lead to massive AWOLs. The families of the Sunni Triangle were disarmed by Casey’s forces. Not a whole lot counter insurgency can do about that when every terrorist can blackmail or threaten every unarmed family member. SO Casey pulled the same trick with Ft. Hood, talking about diversity was at danger. There’s a whole lot of them gun grabbers in the US military right now, given what Hussein has done with promotion rolls. The Left is planning to hijack the US military branches, specifically the Navy and Army, just like the Left hijacked feminism, women’s rights, black civil liberties, etc.
Btw, I have to question why Democrat operatives like Fiscal Conservative thinks they can bypass the individual firewall filters of our 3% minority merely because they think a cognomen is a way to pose for a political identity.
I don’t think a lot of us associate our identities with our politics. Not any more, at least. It’s not really about politics any more, you see.
Whatever the dems are paying, it ain’t enough.
FOAF, as for what Hussein O thinks he is doing, have you never heard the P o S say that he is good at killing people?
Literally, quoted word for word, “I’m good at killing people”? Like his “joke” about siccing the IRS on his political enemies?
Yea, sitting in the White House ordering some drone pilot to push the button counts as “good at killing” in some circles.
Fiscal Conservative:
As far as I’m concerned, even one case of voter fraud is an abomination. And voter ID is a very reasonable way to deal with the phenomenon.
However, far more cases than that have been found. And there’s no question that the cases that have been found are certainly not 100% of those that have occurred.
I guess you’re incapable of following links, because I provided several links to documented voter fraud in my post. Or (as I suspect), you don’t consider those frauds “significant” enough—“significant” no doubt being defined always as more than whatever the evidence might show.
But here’s more evidence anyway. Not all those cases are of the type that would have been prevented by voter ID laws, but many are.
Here’s another, and here’s one of my personal favorites:
This reasoning ought to make sense to anyone not blinded by partisanship and demagoguery [emphasis mine]:
Voter fraud is hard to prove in the absence of ID laws, and adds to the paucity of cases. So the argument against voter ID laws is a form of circular reasoning. Lack of ID laws and difficulty of conviction makes voter fraud hard to prove, and the relatively low number of convictions is then used by people such as yourself to argue against implementing voter ID laws. The following quote refers to Wisconsin, but it is true (or something similar is true) in many other states:
There are many more cases—such as, for example, this, where over a hundred people were convicted but the actual number of violations was thought to be in the thousands (there was a book written about that fraud and others perpetrated in the 2008 election of Al Franken and probably contributing to his close win, which was certainly “significant” since it was instrumental in giving the Democrats a majority in the Senate).
Then there’s this, about how easy it is (and how likely it is) that illegal aliens vote in rather large numbers in certain states, and how hard it is to prove.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
As for whether voter ID laws actually suppress black votes, see this for evidence that they do not.
Neo: ” . . .even one case of voter fraud is an abomination.”
True, very true.
To say that voter fraud is not high or even just a few and therefore no worth trying to fix is to really say something along the lines of “who cares is some people jump the turnstile in the subway” or to say “so what if some people cheat on their taxes; none of it matters.”
Well, it does matter. It matters to those of us who do NOT cheat.
It matters that we try our best to have voting be a fraud-free as possible. Otherwise, why should we even have voting if we don’t care that some people cheat? Why bother trying to make collecting taxes fair if some people cheat, why bother having government if some people are going to cheat.
That’s why it matters. It is not just what direct impact it has; but the perceived impact as well.
They want gun users to face background checks and licensing fees.
But for someone that can vote in a tyrant or mass murderer into permanent power, they won’t even let them have a picture id check, what is needed for many civil functions.
SGT Mom’s TSA guy watching us here can strip search and feel up 9 year olds and 90 year old grandmas.
But no picture ID if you vote Democrat.
That make sense to the “FCs” out there?
Fiscal Conservative, read this and then tell us that voter fraud doesn’t matter:
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6793577/ns/politics/t/republican-challenges-washington-vote/
Republican Dino Rossi and the state GOP announced Friday they will contest the gubernatorial election that gave his Democratic foe, Christine Gregoire, a 129-vote victory.
Republicans have been building a case over the past few weeks, gathering evidence of voting irregularities, including illegal provisional ballots and a handful of votes cast by dead people. They are pushing for a revote, an unprecedented step in a statewide election.
“There are so many improperly cast and counted ballots that this election is invalid,” Rossi said. “You cannot tell who won. The only way for us to get out of this problem is for us to have a revote.”
Gregoire, a three-term attorney general, lost the first count by 261 votes to Rossi, a real estate agent and former state senator. Rossi won a machine recount by 42 votes but lost a hand recount of 2.9 million ballots.
Gregoire, whose inauguration is scheduled for Wednesday, has called the idea of a revote “absolutely ludicrous” but acknowledged Rossi’s right to contest the election.
“I don’t take any of this personally,” she told a news conference in Olympia. “I respect the right of others to file an action in the courts. That is their right.”
Inauguration to proceed
The party filed a lawsuit contesting the election in Chelan County, in north-central Washington. GOP attorney Harry Korrell said Republicans would not seek to block Gregoire’s inauguration.
Democratic lawyers said an election challenge is unfounded and the state constitution will not allow a revote.
“No court will find this election should be set aside,” Democratic Party attorney Jenny Durkan said. Even if illegal votes were cast, she said, “it would not change the outcome of the election.”
A 261 vote loss converted to a 129 vote win. 390 votes out of 2,9 million cast – and fraud makes no difference? It boggles the mind.
Then there’s this:
By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter
Workers accused of concocting the biggest voter-registration-fraud scheme in state history said they were under pressure from the community-organizing group that hired them to sign up more voters, according to charging papers filed Thursday.
To boost their output, the defendants allegedly went to the downtown Seattle Public Library, where they filled out voter-registration forms using names they made up or found in phone books, newspapers and baby-naming books.
One defendant “said it was hard work making up all those cards,” and another “said he would often sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out cards,” according to a probable-cause statement written by King County sheriff’s Detective Christopher Johnson.
Prosecutors in King and Pierce counties filed felony charges Thursday against seven employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, claiming they turned in more than 1,800 phony voter-registration forms, including an estimated 55 in Pierce County.
The defendants have not entered pleas. They are scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 2.
None of the defendants has been arrested in connection with the alleged scheme. Two are in jail in unrelated cases.
“This is the worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington. There has been nothing comparable to this,” state Secretary of State Sam Reed said at a news conference with Satterberg, King County Executive Ron Sims and acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan.
State and local officials said they have signed a five-year agreement with ACORN that requires the organization to beef up its training and procedures for detecting and reporting fraud. ACORN agreed to pay King County $25,000 for investigative costs and acknowledged it could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again.
Most of the alleged fraud took place in King County, whose Elections Canvassing Board on Thursday revoked 1,762 voter registrations filled out by ACORN canvassers. Most of the registrations used the addresses of Seattle homeless shelters.”
Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2003808207_votefraud27m.html
Sorry this has been so long, but Fiscal Conservative’s unsourced allegations needed to be answered. This is only the tip of the iceberg and is evidence of the need for voter ID.
“Fiscal Conservative”
That’s a good one! Like the “concerned conservatives” who swore up and down how they voted for Reagan but somehow had to vote for Obama in 2008 and 2012.
stop pretending, you
are only sending
the Barry signals
while you’re tapping, a
President’s laughing
corpse, yours, he shovels
J. what makes you think FC here isn’t part of the voting machine for Democrats?
An outlook of cynicism permeates leftism. Fiscal Conserative is emblematic of this and personifies it for us, albeit unintentionally and unwittingly.
This cynicism leads to the projection, “They’re all corrupt.” Which can be easily retooled to, “We are no more corrupt than [we imagine] you are.”
Ergo, the ends justify the means, the ends being power, the means are wide open.
“Do you defeat your opponent by becoming just like him? I don’t think so.”
Do you defeat your opponent by playing by the rules while said opponents feels constrained by no rules? That is a fool’s errand. I’m not saying behave lawlessly, but rather punch 20 times as hard. You have got to make it painful for these thugs to lie, cheat and steal.
As for voter fraud, the only people agitating against it are those who think that they will benefit from it. Does that sound harsh? Ask them about the precincts that reported in excess of 100% registered voters voting. In swing states. Invariably, they try to change the subject, or pretend that it’s an insignificant problem. Look no further than the 2000 election to see how easy it would be to steal an election with only a small number of fraudulent votes.
How does requiring positive identification cause disenfranchisement? Even third-world nations, and the UN, require accountability in order to legitimize democracy.
Democrats need to explain their selective support for positive identification. If Democrats believe that accountability is not a relevant feature of democracy, then any and all efforts to require positive identification, including registration, taxation, immigration, etc. must be equally nullified.
I wonder how many people will support the Democrat dream of “equal” treatment, when it means unequal treatment by design.
Physics Geek: I agree that if you wrestle a pig you have to get muddy ( unlike establishment Republicans that still think we’re playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules ). HOWEVER, there is NO limit to how low the Left will sink to get their way. No sense of decency that will stop them, no evil they won’t commit in furtherance of their goals. And the day you stop and say this is madness, they get to declare victory. Better to retreat and live to fight another day than become the despicable thing you are fighting against.
Btw Zimmer boy over there, who people here may know as Zachr something, was always hand waving at us about voter fraud being a non issue or just a minor one.
Retreat to where? For how long? From what?
Death is not something one can run from, same for taxes. A dead demon is also not something that needs retreating from, unless one is worried about catching the zombie virus.
parker: “There has to be a better way”
The activism I advocate for the Right is distasteful to me, too. It’s not about want. It’s about need. There ought to be a better way. I wish there was. There is no better way.
The only alternatives to activism that have been proposed are going Galt and waiting for a fantasy messianic savior Republican candidate who’ll magically do all the heavy-lifting of defeating the Left and manufacturing a full-spectrum social cultural/political cure.
Neither alternative is realistic. An insurgent uprising by the people of the Right with an activist social movement is the only way, and that only allows the Right to begin competing for America’s soul. It doesn’t guarantee victory.
Even if Reagan 2.0 emerged, and the Reagan myth was true in its time, it’s not 1980 anymore. The game has changed. The ideal GOP candidate, even if he won the 2016 election, would still require an independent, competitive Right activist social movement to take back the critical nodes from the Left throughout the social cultural/political spectrum.
As is, the Left can easily afford to lose an election cycle as long as they hold everything else. A President is powerful, but still constrained by the limits of his office and 4-8 years. Activists are needed both to facilitate the magical messianic-savior President and take the lead on curing every other influential social piece infected by the Left.
Of course, no politician should be trusted like a messianic savior. You would want an independent activist movement controlled by the people of the Right that is powerful enough to be an accountability check on elected officials, including the President, like Democrats answer to the Left.
Jenk: “Where I think Eric is getting off on the wrong foot is that he thinks we should play their game by their rules only more ruthlessly.”
The activist game is the only social-political game there is. “Their” game is the only game.
The only reason the activist game is thought to be “their” game is the Right has ceded it to the Left, with the logical and expected unfolding-disastrous result.
“I’ll close by paraphrasing another of our friends, Bill Whittle, who asserts that as scary as they can be, with fangs and claws, sheepdogs must never become wolves, ESPECIALLY when fighting wolves….”
Sheepdogs that lay down and whine while wolves are taking over the pen and feasting on the flock are failures as sheepdogs.
The analogy falls short because in the social cultural/political arena, there are no human ranchers with guns who’ll run up to kill the wolves and rescue the flock when the sheepdogs have failed to fight the mutton-gorged wolves.
There is no contingency plan. The people of the Right are the only protection America has from the Left, and right now, the wolves of the Left are feasting comfortably on the flock, while confident the sheepdogs of the Right aren’t dangerous.
I could never engage in Alinsky-type activism because it is based on hatred, not to mention dishonesty.
The kind of activism I can get behind is the community outreach type to get to those constituencies with naturally conservative values — especially Hispanics and Asian Americans — that should be in the Republican ranks now but aren’t for a variety of reasons. Governor Susana Martinez has talked at length about this, and has emphasized the failure of Republicans to simply sit down and talk with such groups.
We’re never going to change the prevalent zeitgeist, modernism is too powerful and vast in its scope. But we can encourage and befriend those whose own cultures are still grounded in faith and family.
People are forgetting war as the ultimate agent of change.
And pacifists are losers. Self-proclaimed losers, but losers.
The TSA is less about keeping America safe and more about keeping the aristos like Reid and M O Hussein safe.
Ann: “We’re never going to change the prevalent zeitgeist, modernism is too powerful and vast in its scope. But we can encourage and befriend those whose own cultures are still grounded in faith and family.”
But the progressives are a faith unto themselves. And the Latinos and Asians aren’t hip to that yet.
As Jonah Goldberg says, “….today’s liberal elites are the same liberal elites that we’ve always had. They come from the ranks of mainline Protestants that have run this country for generations (with some fellow-travelling Jews and Catholics, to be sure). But there’s a hitch. They champion a:
‘social gospel, without the gospel. For all of them, the sole proof of redemption is the holding of a proper sense of social ills. The only available confidence about their salvation, as something superadded to experience, is the self-esteem that comes with feeling they oppose the social evils of bigotry and power and the groupthink of the mob.’
This strikes me as pretty close to exactly right. They’re still elitist moralizers but without the religious doctrine. In place of religious experience, they take their spiritual sustenance from self-satisfaction, often smug self-satisfaction.
One problem with most (but not all) political religions is that they tend to convince themselves that their one true faith is simply the Truth. Marxists believed in “scientific socialism” and all that jazz. Liberalism is still convinced that it is the sole legitimate worldview of the “reality-based community.”
The whole thing is a good read:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375611/when-liberalism-fails-jonah-goldberg
We are facing a religion that has abandoned the Church and the Christian God for the promise of Heaven on Earth. Exposing them for the intolerant moralizers they are is the way forward. Humor and satire in the fashion of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert is, IMO, the way to expose them. We need conservative comedians. Dennis Miller tries, but he’s a bit too unfocused. Tim Allen is trying too, but his show hasn’t become a huge hit. Comedy on the Telly has a huge impact on society.
“Fiscal Conservative, read this and then tell us that voter fraud doesn’t matter”
FC could see all the zombies from “Night of the Living Dead” lining up to vote and he’d still tell us voter fraud doesn’t matter. It’s all about the narrative.
Republicans are racist, sexist, and live-ist!!!
Notice that FOAF has made no actual arguments, only piggy backing of others just to send jabs my way. Try thinking up your own jeers buddy. Now, commence insults. Sigh
JJ and neo-neocon. Thank you for the constructive criticism. I will source my arguments.
FC forgot moi. *Jab*
A person that can’t explain what his views are off the top of his hand, and has to check sources, has a remote control on top of them. There’s a kind of filter or religious priesthood check there.
A person that has to check back at his propaganda HQ for how to respond to these things, means they have yet to actually see these things in action and come up with their own mental counters. That’s where the “delay is”.
If, for example, one of us, like Don, or J. or FOAF started commenting on a different website and they implied or called them a Democrat, a Leftist operator, or some such label, the identity of the one in question would be under assault and they would react by defending that identity or demonstrating their bonafide truths.
Yet FC, for those two Big Bold words he puts up as his identity, has not sought to defend his own self imposed identity. But instead has chosen to react by falling back on his “sources” (handlers).
Ayashi. Suspicious.
Does FC not understand his very identity is under attack? Or perhaps his real identity is something else entirely.
Did the OFA not teach their stringers how to do loyalty checks? Or are we going to use the excuse of ignorance and lack of experience here, because of youth or some such thing.
Call me simplistic, but voting should be limited to US citizens who are legally registered in their voting districts, and whose identity can be verified through proper identification. The only reason to oppose this requirement is to enable ballot box stuffing in some form. Period.
For similar views about the Left’s religion of morality and puritanism, see this.
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/11/saving-science-fiction-from-strong-female-characters-part-4/
Cant say I have ever read any of the posters here
resorting to terms like “buddy” to assail a fellow poster
seems like something we d expect to come out of an
Eric Holder fan.
Voter ID laws are problematic for the Left because they often have their OFA minions voting under different names, and nobody checks it. Since there’s no requirement for proof.
Forging photo ids becomes proof that can be used for prosecution, after all.
Molly, they had to put the national friendly park rangers recalled from Nevada (complete with the sniper package), to somewhere useful.
Y, just that situation has occurred in NH
we were a *swing state* (yeah even our mere 4 electoral votes were in contention )
A democrat operative, VOTED in NH from a Manchester NH Elm street address (this was proven checking post election rolls) & THE SAME INDIVIDUAL voted in the also voted Missouri ! (That was proven by post election
checking). How could she travel around THAT FAST ???
Well maybe she sent a minion to one of the locations
after all no photo ID needed.
excuse the unintentional gibberish,
should read, *same individual voted in Missouri*
Probably not what happened in that particular case, Molly, but I know people who have admitted to double voting:
* They own two homes, so they absentee vote under their prime residence address and then vote in person from their second residence in FL.
*College students who absentee vote from their parent’s residence and them vote again in person from the state in which they attend school.
Yeah, all Democrats.
So, would Voter ID laws prevent the in-person voting since they don’t have IDs issued in these states? Or would they get over that hurdle by presenting a utility bill in their vacation home/college state and just claim they’ve recently moved?
Right you are, Fisc! Minorities don’t drive cars, have senior citizen bus passes, buy alcohol, buy tobacco, fly, or take the train and bus (now in some places). Who doesn’t have a photo ID these days? Some survivalists living off the grid in the mountains somewhere? And they’re all white people!
Fisc, I’m from Philadelphia, and in Philly we have a slogan: “Vote early, and vote often!” Why, in Philly, we like to vote so much even dead people do it!
Go sit in the Liar’s Corner with your buddy Eric Holder!
Also, since many rich (Demoncrat) families have serfs and slaves working for them, they can get their votes in for Reid and Co once immigrants and criminals are given the Vote.
Democrats have long been using the vote as just another weapon, a weapon of rape against women, a weapon of stealing against men, and a weapon of war against humanity.
The rest of us, however, sometimes believed we were in a political battle with the Left, that bipartisanship would work, and that bubba bubba stuff.
Ann: “I could never engage in Alinsky-type activism because it is based on hatred, not to mention dishonesty.
The kind of activism I can get behind is the community outreach type to get to those constituencies with naturally conservative values – especially Hispanics and Asian Americans – that should be in the Republican ranks now but aren’t for a variety of reasons.”
That would be a good – and critical – start.
I also agree that the GOP and Right has done a poor job of reaching out to potential constituents who are low-hanging fruit and ripe for the picking. That falls in with activism.
There’s much more to activism than Alinsky’s rules.
The simplest explanation for activist strategy is it’s a competitive approach designed to normalize preferred values and stigmatize opposing values. Either/or: winner/loser, norm/stigma, subject/object.
From the activist’s competitive perspective, you’re allowed to be tolerant and generous to your opponents…when and only when victory is secured. Winning the norm/stigma contest is the prerequisite for being a good winner.
For activists, there’s no such thing as a good loser. There’s only a stigmatized loser, or if the winner is generous, a marginalized loser.
Activism is a workshop of tools for different settings, different audiences, and different purposes. Many of them are shared by other social competitive endeavors, such as election campaigns, product advertising, and yes, war.
Alinsky’s rules are just one set of tools in the workshop that go to the stigma side of the norm/stigma approach.
You certainly can be a productive activist if you limit yourself to working the norm side. Sometimes, working the norm side is enough to win.
The student-veteran activists and ROTC advocates at Columbia University worked the norm side and won without (as far as I’m aware) using Alinsky’s rules or other stigmatizing tactics.
But in order to win, they did work very hard to overcome the campus left’s stigmatizing tactics.
It’s possible to win the activist game tastefully with honor, depending on several factors. But understand that honor is a handicap in real-world competition, not just the activist game.
The good guys who cling to honor don’t always succeed against impossible odds. What Bush, Petraeus, et al, and COIN accomplished in the Iraq mission was the exception, not the rule. And in the end, Left activists may have defeated our peace mission in Iraq anyway.
Which brings me to another reason why a first, always, and non-stop Right activist social movement is necessary. Even should the Right gets its act together and defeat the Left across the board in the activist game, the Left won’t quit. They will never, ever quit. If anything, knocking them out of power will re-energize their insurgent activism.
If and when the Right defeats the Left, Right activists will need to be on guard forever because Left activists will regroup and try to regain their social dominance again. And again. And again. Forever.
I apologize Ymarsakar for forgetting about you. Never again! About the name I chose, is neo-neocon also under suspicion? OR maybe I need to have a blog that you can also spend your afternoon agreeing with its content for you not to be suspicious of me. I assure you the Dems do not pay me to speak my mind. Otherwise you would find me littered across the blogosphere hailing Obama as the next coming of Jesus. Unfortunately, I still have to wake up tomorrow for that darn 9-5.
Lets talk about the real issue here. I happen to have an opposing view on this one issue mainly because of the odd timing of the implementation of the voting id laws and the other tactics which I listed previously that have come in a flurry over the last few years. Surely you cannot think this is all a sudden concern for the integrity of our voting system? Surely you are not that naive? The naivety must be on my part as i’m sure you will agree.
Since I have an opposing view on this issue from most(everyone as it seems), it is deemed as propaganda and you are trying to delegitimize me by connecting me to the AG Holder. Opposing views are not always propaganda. But lets face it we will never see eye to eye on this issue. Whether you are suspicious or not does not matter much to me. You have already made up your mind on the issue and cannot be convinced otherwise faced with facts or studies on the issue.
I do not mind being the lighting rod every once in a while. It forces me to defend my views by, yes, checking my sources(which is apparently a deplorable act). So while I do agree that even one instance of voter id fraud is reprehensible, there is a better chance of being hit by lightning. Lets not confuse this with voter registration fraud(which JJ seems to be doing in his post by sighting registration fraud cases to make a case for voter id laws) which the law does not cover. Those are two separate issues. But I digress.
Molly NH. I assailed a fellow poster by calling him buddy? Assailed? You just made my day.
Fiscal Conservative:
For what it’s worth, I saw your name as a possible pun. It either was straightforward—meaning you’re fiscally conservative but otherwise moderate and/or liberal—or a joke, meaning something like “My goal is to fisk conservatives.”
But whatever your motives, straightforward or un, the discussion is of interest.
As I indicated earlier, the rarity of voter fraud is not a good argument for ignoring the phenomenon—because, as the Minnesota Al Franken example tells us, even a few fraudulent votes can end up making a HUGE difference. Voter fraud is also unproven to be as rare as you might think it is, because it is hard to discover and convictions are hard to get for the previously-explained reasons.
However, to take up some of your other points/questions, since according to recent polls the American public agrees 78% with the Republican rather than the Democratic side, I don’t know why you seem to be saying that Republicans are on the wrong side of history on this particular issue.
In addition, you question “the odd timing of the implementation of the voting id laws and the other tactics which I listed previously that have come in a flurry over the last few years. Surely you cannot think this is all a sudden concern for the integrity of our voting system? Surely you are not that naive? The naivety must be on my part as i’m sure you will agree.”
I realize that last sentence was sarcasm on your part, but while I wouldn’t describe you as naive necessarily I would describe you as ignoring a whole bunch of reasons this “flurry” might have come in the last few years.
The first is the election of 2000, which was so extraordinarily close that it is almost unimaginable. The vote in Florida could have been highly affected by a very tiny amount of fraud (as it almost certainly was in the senatorial race in 2008 in Minnesota). The election of 2000 was a real turning point for many Americans of both parties, and for a while there was a reaction of wanting to make voting less subject to glitches of all kinds, including fraud. It certainly made ME more aware of the dangers and possibilities, and I have no problem thinking it made a lot of other people feel the same way.
The 2008 Franken election, likewise.
In addition, and perhaps as important, the Motor Voter Law was passed in 1993 and implemented by 1995. It took a couple of years, plus the election of 2000, for people to really take the measure of how Motor Voter opened the door to possible fraud. Note, also (if you want to be suspicious) that the Motor Voter Law was “spearheaded by the husband and wife team of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward.” I assume you’ve heard of them in the context of the Cloward-Piven strategy.
Fiscal Conservative:
And don’t forget the presidential election of 1960. We’ll never know for certain, but if you think it isn’t at least highly likely that Daley was up to some shenanigans, I think you are naive.
Yeah FC you did assail a poster
the *context* of your use of the term “buddy”
is hardly akin to *Hail fellow well met*
Obviously you fail to perceive the tenor of the blog
FC, your very name is a patently contrived attempt at battlespace preparation. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
And none of the usual “four-letter words” are as repellent as that smarmy, supercilious, passive-aggressive “sigh”. Which is undoubtedly why I see it so often in posts from leftist trolls.
Molly NH the only problem with me debating your silly point is I myself will begin to sound silly and you will in turn beat me with your experience in, well, silliness. As you can tell I am not taking you very seriously. Please feel free to continue your misguided attempt at pedagogy. Believe it or not I am not your enemy and will never be.
FOAF you give me much more credit than I deserve. Perhaps I should have named myself ‘Not A Republican’ to put you more at ease. How strange it must seem to you for a conservative to disagree with the base of the party. Apparently we all have to agree with each other in order to have a meaningful debate(oxymoron anyone?). Once again neo-neocon presents me with an actual case and constructive argument for the topic at hand and you sir, very eloquently I must say, end up calling me a troll. Need I say more? Sigh. You may continue if you like, as it is your right to do so, but I chose not to engage you anymore.