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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

* 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?