Thursday, November 10, 2011

Voter ID Is A Racist Conspiracy

Or so says the NAACP. Chairman Benjamin Todd Jealous was joined by civil rights hysteric Rev. Al Sharpton and ethics-challenged Rep. Charles Rangel to denounce the current wave of voter suppression laws. In case you don't know, simple, inexpensive and readily-available official ID required for voting purposes is "voter suppression."

In reality, the only voting that gets suppressed by requiring valid identification is fraudulent or illegal voting. But since Democrats count on those votes, they are outraged. The race card is always a good way of attacking reasonable and unburdensome law. The same party that required rigged voting tests to suppress black voting in the South now wants no requirements to vote.

Using class warfare and race warfare as his stalking-horses, Jealous appeared on the steps of New York City Hall to announce: "The rallies are intended to get this conversation out of the thought leader class and down to the street corners, so folks understand that their rights are being attacked. This is the greatest assault on voting rights, happening right now, that we have seen since the dawn of Jim Crow."

The sanctity of the ballot box has been eroded badly over the past few decades. Patriots gave their lives to get the vote, but today it's too much effort to get out of bed, go to a polling place, show your valid ID, and mark a ballot. Absentee ballots for unusual circumstances have been replaced with mail-in ballots for the lazy. Early voting takes place with weeks to go before the election, disregarding the fact that a lot can happen during those weeks. Physical presence at the polls is made to sound archaic. Oregon has already experimented with voting by I-Pad.

Voting is not something that ought to be made as easy as buying a new shirt on Amazon.com. The franchise was a right for which people fought hard, risked much, and treaured greatly. Now, it's devolving into something that you grudgingly work into your busy schedule, if you can. Or it's something annoying that interferes in your life, like having to stop at a red light. Registering to vote is an imposition on one's life, requiring that a form actually be filled out with some information. It could take as long as five or even six minutes. What a burden!

Those who are of the least value to society, the lazy and shiftless, don't want to be further burdened by having to prove they are who they say they are in order to vote. The same people who can fill out reams of paperwork to get those beautiful, easy-to-use EBT free-food-from-the-government cards are somehow being oppressed by having to do a great deal less to get a valid state-issued identification card.

But that's not what the NAACP thinks. Going after the national movement to require valid identification already in place in Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin, and about to go into operation in Texas and South Carolina, Jealous says the requirements are draconian and oppressive. On the day that Mississippi amended its constitution to require valid photo voter ID, he charged that blacks, Hispanics, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and the poor are less likely to have the required photo IDs. He also argues that others would be disfranchised like students with school IDs, those who don't carry ID on their persons, and (get this) women who have ID that doesn't reflect their married names.

What a load of horse manure. Anybody too lazy or mentally-deficient to do the simple, inexpensive task of getting a valid state-issued photo ID shouldn't be voting anyway. How many legal Social Security recipients didn't have to prove who they were by validating their identity? How many adults (i.e., voters) don't have either a driver's license or an easily-obtained state ID? Most states will issue the IDs for free if the registrant is in dire financial straits, and many will even provide public transportation or home visits by state officials to assist in obtaining the ID.

But the Democrats and the NAACP prefer the "vote early, vote often, vote fraudulently, vote illegally" path. Requiring people to show up at the polls with a valid ID and eliminating all other forms of voting except for absentee ballots issued carefully under very special circumstances should be the norm. But it isn't, and won't be. In fact, voting is made far too easy for those who have no stake in America's success, along with illegal immigrants, and in Chicago, dead people. On the other hand, soldiers risking their lives on foreign battlefields have their absentee votes disqualified on ridiculous technical grounds.

Jealous, Sharpton and Rangel all demand that the Attorney General investigate the constitutionality of voter ID laws and take action against the states which have them. This would be the same Attorney General who dismissed voter intimidation convictions against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia--cases which had already been won. In the House of Representatives, a group including the Black Caucus sent a request to all fifty state secretaries of state to oppose voter identification laws.

Joining the gang of three at the news conference were the United Federation of Teachers, the Health Care Workers Union, the National Council of La Raza and the Asian-American Legal Defense. Aside from the statements, the group has called for a national day of protest against the voter ID laws for December 10. I don't think I'll be joining them.

25 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

Hawk - just this morning, my local liberal "news" rag, the Knoxville "News" Sentinel" had a oped letter from an outraged citizen on just this. As we know, this unfair law "targets" long term Democrat constituency groups such as the one featured in your article. The writer cites "studies" showing how infrequently "fraud" occurs and concludes it is a Republican trick to steal close elections. What bastards those Republicans are.

tryanmax said...

Dems won't think voting is easy enough until club-wielding thugs, uh, er, clipboard-carrying social workers arrive on every doorstep to collect them.

Of course, if provision were made to prominently display an "R" or a "D" on every potential form of ID, I bet we could easily convince those dirty donkeys of the need to see "zee paypahz."

Tennessee Jed said...

Not only that, but Commenterama is equally guilty of just the fraud you are talking about. Look at the pictures of the folks who "follow" this site. You will note long time friend and commenter Joel Farnham has entered his picture twice. I think Joel is just engaging in some kind of vast right wing racist conspiracy to overstate the importance of Commenterama (l.o.l.)

T-Rav said...

LawHawk, would that it were as difficult as buying a shirt on Amazon. At least there you have to give them some personal information. In a lot of places, the voter officials just ask for your name and address and then take you at your word without checking. Sometimes, not even that.

Mississippi did pass a voter ID law in the elections Tuesday night. Given the high black population, though, it's probably only a matter of time before it gets challenged by the stupid lawyers. (No offense.)

T-Rav said...

Jed, I think we should be more concerned about all those folks who just have a blank silhouette as their picture. Who are they? We don't know who they are. This is an evil trick by Commentarama, and the corporations are probably involved somehow! You know what that means--it's time for #OccupyCommentarama.

Unknown said...

Tennessee: We're going to see that kind of thing everywhere as Democrats become more desperate about the 2012 elections. When one interviewer asked Hans von Spakovsky why this was such an issue when there is "so little" fraud, he replied: "I'm not sure how much fraud they think is acceptable."

Unknown said...

tryanmax: It would probably be easier and cleaner just to have all the blank ballots sent to Democratic headquarters so only paid operatives would have to exert any effort whatsoever.

Unknown said...

Tennessee: Joel is just an astute observer of our brilliance. (Andrew, you can put the checkbook away now)

Unknown said...

T-Rav: As for Mississippi, they went one step farther than the others. The voters amended the state constitution to require valid ID to vote. That means that if the Democrats gain a temporary majority in the legislature, the representatives can't simply pass a law that rescinds the requirement.

Joel Farnham said...

Jed,

I resemble that remark! ;-)

Actually, I screwed up. Or more precisely, Google did. It doesn't recognize two people are one and the same so it allowed me to register twice at this blog. It allows it all over. All you need is a second legitimate browser and a second legitimate e-mail.

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk,

It is really nice that states are getting a clue about voter registration. Eventually we will find out that liberals are a small minority.

tryanmax said...

I just always assumed those silhouettes were the sockpuppets.

Unknown said...

Joel: Don't give it a second thought. It just means you can vote twice in the next Commentarama poll (if you have proper photo ID).

tryanmax said...

And, frankly, I don't know how I feel about members with endorsements from Australian bread companies.

Unknown said...

tryanmax: If they pony up enough money, we'll let those corporate bread people from Australia vote too.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, The "follow" thing should not be taken seriously. I think Google created it as a way to show support and get easy updates, but it's nowhere near correct.

At least half the people on our follow list don't visit the site anymore. And at the same time, our daily traffic is between 2-3 times what you see in terms of the number of followers. The film site actually gets more visitors than this site when it posts, but it only has 24 followers.

At the same time, I've seen sites with 400-500 "followers" that clearly aren't being visited by more than a couple people.

So ignore the followers number at all websites.

I would actually take it down except people like it as a convenience because they get updates that way.

Unknown said...

Andrew: I like all the pretty pictures of our followers, even the ones who don't follow us anymore (not to mention those who follow us twice or more). LOL

T-Rav said...

tryanmax, those silhouette boxes are where the sockpuppets go when they get lost in the dryer.

StanH said...

This infuriates me. When my wife and I walk into our polling place we have to show our ID’s. Many of the same poll workers have been there for twenty years, and my wife and I know them, but we still have to show ID. The only reason someone would have any trouble with making someone show their ID, is to cheat. It brings me back to something I like to say, “laws are for the other people.” I’m yet to get a list of laws that I can ignore from my representatives…sheesh!

Unknown said...

T-Rav: Now I know why they look like that.

Unknown said...

Stan: I'm with you. During my earlier voting days, the local precinct workers pretty much knew everybody. Often the polls were located in neighbors' garages, and a couple of times in my own garage, and I still had to show my ID. But in San Francisco, no ID required, they had no idea who I was, and I could just as easily have been Osama bin Laden giving them my name and address.

tryanmax said...

Don’t forget, voter registration is a matter of public record. I can go online and look up a list of names, gather a bunch of friends, and we then can walk into a precinct claiming the names we’ve looked up. We could do the same thing in any number of precincts and make a day of it. I have no idea whether voter fraud actually happens that way, but the point is I have no intention of ever committing voter fraud and I still know how to do it. Gives you an idea just how wide that door is open, doesn’t it?

Unknown said...

tryanmax: Everything you said is true and accurate. In Chicago, the machine was good at finding registered voters who had died since the past election, then sending in one of their operatives to cast the ballot. There's no way to make this perfect, but ID would make it much more honest. At least dead people would have a hard time showing their ID when they're wheeled into the polling place in their caskets.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

It's ironic that those who say voter ID is racist happen to have so many racists among them, including the La Raza clowns.

Here in Washington state we have had many instances of dead people and prisoners voting, people voting more than once, as well as some military absentee ballots not counted.

And in close elections it's surprising how many "misplaced" boxes of ballots suddenly show up when a democrat is in trouble.

Even with the mostly leftist Seattle population the donks still often need help, since most of rural Wa. and eastern Wa. is conservative or libertarian.

Nice post, Lawhawk! I fully concur we all need voter ID's to make it harder for the democrats, I mean cheaters to commit voter fraud.

Unknown said...

USSBen: Irony escapes the unintelligent. La Raza does indeed simply mean "the race." That's both inaccurate and ethnocentric. But it's OK to be racist and ethnocentric if you're a Democrat.

I'm with you on close elections. That's why I've said so often that we need to win big so they can't cheat.

These clowns know that voter ID isn't racist, but without the race card they have no cards at all.

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