[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Whether it is racist to say so is not a question I have much interest in debating, but it is pretty clear that certain groups are less intelligent and less politically active than others.
Income/net worth and IQ are positively correlated. Even more telling, impoverished children suffer from reduced or disrupted prefrontal function, translating into significantly lower IQ over adult lifetime: Study: Poverty dramatically affects children's brains - USATODAY.com
Income level is positively correlated with political participation:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/30022656?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101099394723
So, the poor are likely to be less intelligent and less politically active. They find it harder to get to polling places (or anywhere, for that matter) and they are in many cases simply not informed enough to know/care about national politics. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that any additional requirement will make the poor less likely to participate in a system whose appeal to them is already questionable.
Again, this isn’t meant to say that voter ID laws are wrong. Just that they will almost certainly reduce voter turnout among certain groups of people–most of whom tend to vote for one party and not the other–who are otherwise eligible to vote.[/quote]
Right. See, I don’t care. I agree with you that probably some small segment of the population–of all skin colors there Zeb–is so absolutely inept at life that they don’t know how to get around their own town, let alone read a voter ballot in some states. Thing is, I don’t care and it is complete reasonable that if you are too inept to prove you are who you say you are you don’t get to vote for the most important election in the world. Identity is the most fundamental of all proofs, it should be required. Hell, you could get somebody to help you get an ID and get your stuff together. I don’t care if a mentally challenged person votes, or even a mentall unstable one–more power to them! As long as they can show who they are. I don’t have to agree with their choice of candidate but I do want people involved in the process. Unfortunately that comes with a basic provision of proving you are who you say you are.
It doesn’t sound like you have a problem with that either. As you mentioned in some earlier post, just because a certain provision will affect some people more than others does not mean it is a bad, illconsidered, or illegitimate provision in the first place.[/quote]
Good post. I agree, though I also agree with the extremely obvious notion that a significant driving motive underlying this effort is a Republican push to get an edge at the polls. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be considered. I’m just calling a spade a spade.[/quote]
Haha. Politics is a no-holds-barred game. That said, not sure I agree 100% there. I think it is common sense to want somebody to prove who they say they are, and that holding that position as a Republican doesn’t necessarily mean that your motive is wanting an edge in the polls. I would be more inclined to give that motive to gerrymandering.
However the motive for poll edge might have something to do with the timing of said regulation push by Reps I suppose. That seems a reasonable conclusion to me. The flip side to that–which I also very strongly believe–is that human nature dictates we don’t attempt to solve a problem until it’s thrown in our face as imminent (witness budget, debt, entitlements, everything), which doesn’t have as much to do with party as much as innate human laziness and procrastination (or more likely in this case a sense by the party leadership that other things and goals have urgency in political necessity over it until election I suppose).[/quote]
Tough to argue with this, it’s balanced and well-reasoned. Politics is a dirty game, and I’m by no means accusing only one side of playing dirty.