Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

I live 2.5 hours away from the place I can get photo ID. EVERYBODY down here does (or more). Most US states you can drive across one of their dimensions in less time than that.

I STILL don't get the big fucking deal over needing ID to vote, even if it's inconvenient.
 
I live 2.5 hours away from the place I can get photo ID. EVERYBODY down here does (or more). Most US states you can drive across one of their dimensions in less time than that.

I STILL don't get the big fucking deal over needing ID to vote, even if it's inconvenient.
The inconvenience has a different effect depending on the people's economic class, and all other factors correlating with it (race, party affiliation, ...), so it's seen as unfair.

If you guys had a National ID, and required that for voting, there would be no disenfranchisement argument to be made.
 
The inconvenience has a different effect depending on the people's economic class, and all other factors correlating with it (race, party affiliation, ...), so it's seen as unfair.

If you guys had a National ID, and required that for voting, there would be no disenfranchisement argument to be made.
Trust me, where I live is close to the bottom of the economic scale for the province I live in, which has traditionally been near the bottom in terms of economics. And you DO need ID to vote here too, and have as along as I've been voting.

I just don't get the concept of what people have been doing for however long without SOME type of ID. Job? Welfare? I dunno, almost fucking anything? You need ID for pretty much everything, so how is it that this is a huge deal for elections? People WILL make the trip. Will it suck to make that longer trip? Yes, once every 5 years or so. Could it theoretically disenfranchise a few people?

If your election is that damned close that those few would have made the difference, then you NEED the IDs to tell that it's not a huge fraud in the first place!
 

GasBandit

Staff member
The Federal Constitution has no guarantee of any so-called right to vote. The 24th amendment only states that you can't discriminate on the basis of race when it comes to voting.

Since minorities tends to be poorer than white people, some people make the jump that anything that inconvenience is a four person more than a rich person is de facto racial discrimination.
 
Since minorities tends to be poorer than white people, some people make the jump that anything that inconvenience is a four person more than a rich person is de facto racial discrimination.
Last I checked, class warfare is much more politically damaging/corrosive in the United States than racial politics. Given an issue where the root cause is class-related, but where a racial correlation exists, it's much easier to fight against it from that angle.

Or, in other words, the U.S. never got over the Red Scare, so racebaiting is the next best tool in the drawer.
 
Or, in other words, the U.S. never got over the Red Scare, so racebaiting is the next best tool in the drawer.
Which Red Scare are you talking about? The 1950s one with the McCarthy hearings, or the late 1910s one with the anarchists?

It happens every few years. Only the bogeyman changes to keep up with the most profitable fearmongering. Today it's "Muslims" and "immigrants."
 
Which Red Scare are you talking about? The 1950s one with the McCarthy hearings, or the late 1910s one with the anarchists?

It happens every few years. Only the bogeyman changes to keep up with the most profitable fearmongering. Today it's "Muslims" and "immigrants."
I was under the impression that the name applied to both.

I consider blindness to economic classes as separate from any xenophobic FOTM/outgroup du jour, though.
 
Requiring the IDs and then closing most ID-getting places in the state is bullshit.

However, unlike that article surmises, I don't see the Justice Department (or anyone else) doing anything about it.
 
Requiring the IDs and then closing most ID-getting places in the state is bullshit.
That's not what they're doing though. The ones they're closing are responsible for less than 5% of drivers license transactions even when combined. The places that more than a handful of people actually go to for drivers licenses are still open.
 
That's not what they're doing though. The ones they're closing are responsible for less than 5% of drivers license transactions even when combined. The places that more than a handful of people actually go to for drivers licenses are still open.
Oh, the article made it sound like they were closing down all except in two areas.
 
I'm with @Eriol. It doesn't affect me, and so empirically it shouldn't affect anyone else, ever. That's just plain science.
I know you're being sarcastic, but my point is that I'm in a very similar situation to those in the article (no way to get government ID anywhere close to me), along with EVERYBODY who lives within hours of me, and it's just not a problem to actually go to the "big centre" that's near us once every few months. Heck, the local facebook group OFTEN has listings of "going to Corner Brook tomorrow, anybody need something and/or a ride?" So it self-regulates a lot better, and is not a disaster.
 
Oh, the article made it sound like they were closing down all except in two areas.
That article also made it sound like the 8 closings they talked about were the majority of all the closings . . . until near the end where it mentions there were 31 total. It leaves a lot of questions about these closings unanswered. Including especially how is the "other" race or class affected by these closings?
 
I'm pretty sure talking about the Atlantic slave trade bringing over people from Africa counts as mentioning how they were slaves. Yes, they said "workers", but what sort of workers would the slave trade be bringing over other than slaves? Maybe I'm overly generous to the intentions of people I don't know, but that just logically follows for me.
 
It should mention Africans being brought over as slaves in a clearer tone, but slavery IS technically a form of immigration. The book isn't wrong about that part.
 
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