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Republicans Plan Voter Challenges in Florida
An anonymous reader writes "Greg Palast, the journalist who first reported on the initial Florida voter scandal (Warning large PDF), thinks he's found a new threat for this election, reported here at the BBC. He did uncover some interesting shenanigans last time, is this significant, or is he just fishing this time?"
Ohio has counties with 30,000 more registrations than there are people, and we're talking about 1200 questionable registrations in Florida.
In other news, a box of paperclips was found in a local Republican campaign office. Regional Democrats agreed that said paperclips could only be used for evil.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
If they are so worried about keeping likely Democratic voters from casting ballots, maybe they really don't have root on all the electronic voting machines.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Isn't it possible that someone wanted to send letters them letters asking them to vote for Bush?
Please consider that source. Visit his website and ask yourself if he is capable of unbiased critical thought or is this another hatchet-job.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
What would really be funny is if all 1,886 of those black voters switched their affiliation to the Republican party to get "the man" off their backs, voted for complete idiots at the primaries, and then still voted Democrat on election day.
The idea behind voter challenges is that anyone can challenge the legitimacy and eligibility of a voter. This is especially important in states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California where there are large numbers of illegal immigrants who may be influenced to illegally vote. This is also a problem because there are even American citizens who are not eligible to vote such as felons.
Unfortunately, this law is also a door to abuse. Indiscriminate use of the challenge procedure is akin to Scientology's use of lawsuits to silence the opposition. It produces a chilling effect and keeps people away from the polls.
However, despite this list being available, the article (neither of them) does not delve deeply into the names nor the reasoning behind them, only going so far as to say that it could possibly be a Republican plot. However, if the names all belong to felons who are not eligible to vote in the first place, such a list is absolutely necessary.
This is a story looking for more research, not more explosives. Unfortunately, most people would rather toss bombs than to do the hard work of finding out what is really going on.
Well, considering that the republican party in FL has tried a number of shennanigans (remember the felons list recently?) in the hope of preventing dems from getting to the polls it's bloody hard to trust them on this. Especially in an election where bush has all but given up the black vote (he didn't even meet with the NAACP!)
Photos.
The article is somewhat brief, especially compared to the original story, you can watch the TV report on the Newsnight pages.
And pretty soon the Republican brand of freedom will no doubt be on the march all over the world.
GOP uber alles!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
What's interesting about this story is the way the it was uncovered. The "secret" email was only revealed because of the stupidity of the sender. Instead of sending it to an email address at the real bush campaign website, it was sent to georgewbush.org, an anti-bush website. georgewbush.org decided to post all email in their catch-all to in what they call the "dead letter office."
http://www.georgewbush.org/deadletteroffice/
Look for an e-mail with the subject "caging"
http://almostsmart.com
Let's see. There is some reported voter registration fraud. Here is a case in Ohio were a registrar was paid with cocaine and registered "Dick Tracy" and "George Foreman":s sf?/base/iscri/109818543096130.xml
/ a/2004/10/17/MNGAB99QEA1.DTL
l icans-Deploy-Lawyers-for-Possible-Election-Battles .cfm
/
. php
http://www.cleveland.com/crime/plaindealer/index.
along with non-anecdotal evidence of potential fraud (higher incidence of registrations from incorrect address).
There is record voter registration in important states:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c
The democrats have supposedly hired many lawyers to monitor polls, etc.:
http://www.voanews.com/english/US-Democrats-Repub
Al Gore is telling blacks to "vote early" so their vote will count, presumably not like the last time:
"Early voting is a good idea," he said. "You want to give them plenty of time to count all the votes."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/24/gore.ap
In all, it seems like the making for a very big mess, and I think this election, with things so close, I for one would be suspicious and at least investigate.
One thing I find interesting about this story, is that there is no evidence of any actual wrongdoing, just innuendo, but perhaps this is just part of the democrat playbook, which is to allege claiming voter intimidation, whether it's true or not:
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/12700
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
Perhaps - Blacks no longer their allegiance to an organization that refers to them as 'Colored People'
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/naFrom This article where they interview a guy at hte organizaiton that created that number.
"George Bush will get a higher share of the black vote than he did in 2000 because he was at the total bottom," Bositis says. "The only people who voted for him were the most totally and completely hard-core black Republican voters."
So no, the Democrats aren't losing their appeal, the repubs are just sucking less.
Furthermore, the fact that the document contains the names of not just black, but also traditionally democratic areas makes me think that this is more than just a get out the bush message effort. If it were black voters alone, you'd have a point.
Photos.
Did you pull this completely out of your ass?
First of all, Florida Hispanics tend to register white. The list was 95% false positives, heavily leaning black and Democrat.
Secondly, Choicepoint warned the Secratary of State, in writing, that there would be a large number of false positives. The Govenor's office wrote back with instructions to proceed saying they wanted it to be broad.
The requirements for matching was last name and first four letters of the first name and a date range on the birthdate of a year. They ignored suffixes, middle names, middle initials, gender, etc. They told felons who had their rights restored in other states that they had to plead for clemency from the Govenor's office, in violation of Florida state law. A 2002 law required election supervisors to use this list. This year they wouldn't let anyone see the list and when the media sued for access and won, they dropped it. This year's list had another high percentage of false positives, was largely black and had no hispanics.
The 2000 election was stolen. Greg Palast's evidence has been corraborated by two investigations. People should have gone to jail over the 2000 election, but with the GOP in control of the state executives office and the state legislature, as well as the Federal legislative and executive branches, I don't expect anything to happen.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Although I have bashed on the Republicans, the Democrats can be just as corrupt. They will undoubtedly have their own people at the polls to intimidate voters.
Soon, everyone will need a lawyer to exercise one's right to vote. Amen for American Democracy!
One of the problems with the sunset mindset of the liberal, which sticks out like a sore thumb, is the propensity for zeroing in on negatives at the expense of being able to see the big picture at all.
Do so many of you not realize that every illegal vote that is counted is the disenfranchisement of one legal voter? Can so many of you really not see from this perspective? This blindness is amazing.
If it is bad to disenfranchise 22,000 or even just 2,444 voters, how much more terrible is it to let 55,270 to 57,700 fellons vote, no questions asked? These lists are important, not for purposes of discrimination, but simply to help ensure a more-fair election. Why is this so hard to understand? You people are so emotional you can't see straight.
"Liberalism... where there are absolutely NO absolutes!"
I didn't recommend that he waste time on the black vote. I was pointing to the futility of this as reason to cast a suspicious eye on his florida strategy. In fact we're in agreement on this.
And what the hell do his black appointments have to do with this? I never claimed he was racist.
Lastly you can't point to one of his policies (vouchers) and a highly controversial one at that and say X is the friend of Y. You have to look at a president's total record which we are NOT doing here.
I'm simply saying that this development doesn't jive with good campaigning. While bush may possibly have an 18% black vote nationwide, in florida the story is different:
If the Democratic primaries are any indication, Kerry has little to worry about. In multiple states, he exceeded Mr. Clinton's turnout among blacks. In Florida alone, Kerry earned 81 percent of the black vote versus Mr. Clinton's 74 percent in 1992.
Photos.
It's simply list of 1,886 of the 46,000 voters registered in both New York and Florida. 68% of which are dems (and 1,700 of which requested absentee ballots.)2 807c.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/224449p-19
The list was 95% false positives, heavily leaning black and Democrat.
Untrue. According to the USCCR, there were ~4000 incorrect names on the list of 57,770 felons, or less than 7%. Whats more, the error rate of white people on the list was double the error rate of black people on the list.
Secondly, Choicepoint warned the Secratary of State, in writing, that there would be a large number of false positives. The Govenor's office wrote back with instructions to proceed saying they wanted it to be broad.
Right. That was the whole point of the 1998 law that commissioned the felon list (which was passed before Katherine Harris or Jeb Bush were in office, btw). The list was intended to "cast a wide net" and give the list of names to the individual county election supervisors. The county election supervisors were required to verify the names before they took any action. 22 counties didn't even use the list at all, which led the Miami Herald to conclude that the biggest problem with the list was that it ended up allowing 6,500 felons to vote.
The 2000 election was stolen. Greg Palast's evidence has been corraborated by two investigations.
No it hasn't. In fact, the USCCR didn't even hear from a single witness that was disenfranchised because they were incorrectly put on the felons list. Palast's writings most resemble the rantings of a blind partisan, not an "investigative reporter".
People should have gone to jail over the 2000 election
Why? For enforcing the law? Good luck with that.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
As the summer has drug on, I have become more convinced that there is a major problem in this country. Conservative people tend to live in the center of the nation, while liberal people live on the coasts. As a result many, many conservative people have a single liberal friend (or possibly none) and vis-a-versa. As a result most folk' spectrum runs from left to center or right to center and they really don't have any idea where the other side is coming from. Also, anyone of differing beliefs in an area leaves pretty quickly and looks back on their time in the opposite territory as simply awful.
I think 90%+ of Americans are very willing to pay for good education, security, and more or less agree (enoght to come to consensus) on social issues that should be handled by the government. Unfortunatly we're split pretty evenly on how to accomplish these issues). I've seen an increasing number of calls from both sides of the spectrum to work together a bit more rather than constant attacks that have ruled the day since Clinton took office. While Carter and Reagan both had very strident opposition, I think the opposition knew that each really desired to better the country (even if the methods differed), I'm not so sure that the opposition to Clinton and the second Bush, will even give that credit. Since we have had a President from each side, hopefully everyone can see the difference between prior opposition and latter oppositon.
So why doesn't everyone try to seek out and understand the motivations of someone who is diametricly opposed to your political philosophy. I know I've enjoyed discussions (even if we never reach an agreement or consensus) with those I've opposed than with those I agree with.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Not bring up this tidbit:
http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc66.htm
During the last election, a group didn't like the results of the Florida election so they proceeded to litigate it and question it in the media.
After this, two government groups made up of both Democrats and Republicans found no evidence of wrongdoing. Separately, a group of major newspapers looking to expose the story did an investigation and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
In the end, the media hype caused the nation to get into an uproar that caused a shift from punch cards to electronic voting. This shift was from one of the most idiot-proof and fix-proof methods of voting, to to one of the most fix-able forms of voting.
Let us hope this does not happen again.
Not allowing a voter the right to vote results in the disenfranchisement of exactly one voter. An illegal vote (assuming it is not found), given a random probability of that invalid vote, has a net expected disenfranchisement of zero. The problem is of course when the disenfranchisement and extra votes are not the result of systemmatic, random errors, but are the result of willful or unwillful bias in process. These errors are what people are concerned about in this case. Your math doesn't add up.
You reasoning seems analagous to "if it is bad to imprison 22000 innocent people, how much more terrible is it to let 55,270 guilty people free"? The analogy is probably thin, but you seem to want to err in the opposite way that our government traditionally does to guaruntee civil liberties and due process. Also, I'm not sure you'll find universal agreement that allowing felons to vote is terrible. I believe ex-cons should be able to vote, and they can in many states. Please don't tell me what the law is in florida, I know the law and I think it should be upheld (or repealed) there. I'm addressing your statement that allowing felons to vote is "terrible".
Regardng your sig, death and taxes, ha ha. You may be interested to know that many of the interesting ideas that have gone into the formation of the US have been liberal ideas. You may be interested to know that real people have a mixture of conservative and liberal ideas and values. What color is the sky in your reality?
XML causes global warming.
In other words, it concluded the exact opposite of what you pretend it concluded.
Your link is not to the USCCR's conclusion but to the dissenting opinion. You're (again) misrepresenting the conclusions of the USCCR, which were similar to Palast's conclusions. Also, Palast's conclusions have been backed up by other investigations.
Truman was the first president to address the NAACP. Truman took office in 1945.
Roosevelt was president until 1945 and never addressed the NAACP.
Therefore, Roosevelt was the first president since the 30's to skip the annual NAACP gathering.
Since Roosevelt was the first president since the 30's to skip the gathering, it is impossible for Bush to also be the first president since the 30's to skip the gathering
So, it is technically correct to say "the NAACP officials said blah" when the the NAACP officials did in fact say "blah." But, it is poor journalism to include a quote with an easily verifiable falsehood.
A good leader should be able once elected to then be a leader to the whole country. Not just those that voted for him. Simply put considering the recent american election results a democrat should be half repiblican and a republican half democrat BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VOTED.
If you are reading about the current election you get the idea that 50% of america totally distrusts the other 50% of america. The democrats think the republicans will create a police state ruled by big business, the republicans think the democrats want to invite the UN as a police force to control their right to carry machine guns.
This article is about a list found. While there is some smoke here you can see the democrats leaping off to conclusions that just ain't supported by the findings but you also see the republicans leaping to defences that just ain't supported by history. It ain't that both are wrong, it is that both seem not to care about the truth instead twisting the few facts known to suit their mindset.
The "war on terror" has this as well. Republicans think that if only america hits hard enough the world will come to heel. Never realizing that perhaps the world is barking and biting precisly because america is hitting it.
The democrats seem to believe that its current enemies could have been apeaced if only it had done X or hadn't done Y. They never seem to capable of realizing that perhaps its current enemies hate america because it is there. That just being a democracy with freedom of religion is enough to be a bitter enemy.
The most amusing is the example of foreign support for the iraq war. Democrats seem to claim that it should have had support and that countries like france, germany and russia took the moral highroad by not giving support. Like hell. These countries had major money intrests in Iraq and didn't want to lose them. More recent evidence suggests that Iraq was even buying politicians in europe. Before people cry "Republican propaganda" think this. These are the same politicians who said they would vote against software patents and didn't. The same politicians who voted for DMCA style regulation desptite the publics opinion. If they are morally and ethically corrupt on one subject why should we trust them on others?
However republicans seem somehow to believe that foreign support is not needed and that america can stand alone to defend the entire world from evil. Worse that any who speak against them are part of the evil. That americans need not be held accountable for such silly little things as war crimes. There was even an attempt by republicans to pass allow allowing a friendly country (holland) to be invaded and its soldiers killed to "rescue" any american brought before the international court. A greater insult to the world could not have been delivered as america was at the same time busy to get other countries war criminals before those same courts. One law for the world, another for america. Talk about giving fuel to america haters.
But the most worrying thing is that these ideas seem to split america right down the middle. It doesn't matter who wins the election, the other side will spent the next four years bitterly opposing everything just because they didn't win.
Bush or Kerry has a far more important job to do then "the war on terror" or "domestic economy" or any of that crap. Their most important challenge is to turn their 50.0000000000001 election lead into something like 75% "well I don't agree with everything but overall he ain't a bad leader for america right now, next election he may be a goner but for now he is doing okay enough to not constantly be trying to get him out". Can either Bush or Kerry do that? I don't think so.
Note that this is not a typical american issue, other countries are having real problems with the nature of democracy right now. It is just that dutch internal politics have little effect on the rest of the world. But when america shivers the world trembles.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Sounds alot like a conspiracy nut who got lucky in 2000, and is desperately trying to sell his next wacky theory.
granted he was right the first time, and it'll be easy to determine if he is right this time (you just have to ask the people on the list afterwards). If he is, I'll be glad to retract my statement about him being a conspiracy theorist.
This (from TFA) is pretty scary though:
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.
The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.
On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.
Hasn't florida got laws against stuff like this?
Isn't there federal laws against this?
I can't see how non-state or non-government entities can be allowed to register voters without their consent? The potential for abuse definitely outweighs the chances that it can be used for anything good.
It sounds like something that you would expect to see in a third world or ex-communist country.
Oh yeah, and before you start spewing liberal media conspiracy theories, this is a BBC article. It is not an american news source!
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Yes-True. You pointed to a dissenting opinion, not the commission's report. The report backs up the facts that I've cited and the facts that Greg Palast has cited. Your numbers are completely off.
I noted that the law forcing the supervisor's to use the list was passed in 2002. Many supervisor's still used the list and people were disenfranchised. The USCCR has a couple of pages of people they interviewed on their reports. Maybe you should read the report instead of the dissenting opinion. Not to mention the fact that the documentary Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election has interviews of people who were wrongly matched and taken off the rolls.
Palast has become a bit more rabid since 2000. I would to, if I was reporting on the debacle that was Florida 2000 was my primary job. The crap that went down in Florida was unbelievable. At the very least officials violated their oaths of office, at the worst they violated the civil rights of citizens. Those are pretty serious offences, yet there are still people like you sitting around denying it ever happened. Quite frankly, it's starting to drive me a little nuts. I guess what they say about conservatives these days and cognitive dissonance is true.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Disingenuous. Mass challenges have never occurred because there's never been a mechanism, or even motivation, to do so. But the Help America Vote Act of 2002 supplied the motivation; it is the law that provides for the provisional ballots BBC's Palast mentions above.
In any case, as John Lott pointed out in 2003:
* Black GOP voters in FL had their votes "not counted" (in the Democratic activists' definition of the term) much, much, much more frequently than their Democratic counterparts.
* Hispanics and whites showed up in error on the ineligible-to-vote felon list more frequently than blacks.
He also points out what is unquestionably the single most unambiguous (and, naturally, the least-reported) case of "voter suppression" in FL in the 2000 election:
Naturally, in Palast's 70 pages of the usual innuendo and bogus charges (coupled with the typical overseas cant of "U5 V0T3R5 AR3NT 5331NG TH3 TRUTH!!!1!11!!!"), the word "Panhandle" never appears.
Once someone leaves prison, their debt to society should be considered paid. The point of taking someone out of prison is to move them back into society, and make them participants.
But, accepting the fact that Florida doesn't allow ex-convicts to vote, the question that remains is whether the list was drawn up in a fair manner, or whether it was done in order to rig the election. If the latter--and I'm not convinced one way or the other--then telling Democrats to stop focusing on the negative is nothing more than covering for your party.
Indeed, someone does sound too emotional.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Personally, I think it comes down to Voter Responsibility. If you are going to vote, make sure that you do everything possible before going to the polls to make sure that you won't have problems at the polls. Make sure you contact your Board of Elections to make sure you are on the rolls, and work to correct it before you get to the polls.
The pen is mightier than the sword...
Pudge cleared this up back on October 7th: "The Republican party is relying on state parties to hire the lawyers, if necessary." See? The GOP isn't planning anything above the local level. If pudgy says it, it must be true!
So clearly there's no story here. Move along, folks.
the modern republican party doesn't seem like the kind of group that likes to leave things to chance...
Unless it's huge quantities of plastic explosives.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
You have to keep in mind that there are people in prison that have yet to stand trial, are serving time for misdemenors and the like. Since they are still allowed to vote this is why they are given access to ballots. The election officals in this case should pretty easily be able to determine why a person is in jail to begin with.
Save a life, sign your organ donor card.
Where "fantastic" means "full of shit," yes, Palast is a fantastic journalist. His book was filled with innuendo, half-truths, and downright lies.
I think 90%+ of Americans are very willing to pay for good education, security, and more or less agree (enoght to come to consensus) on social issues that should be handled by the government. Unfortunatly we're split pretty evenly on how to accomplish these issues).
Yes. Many of us believe the truth, that the Constitution forbids the federal government from paying for such things. Others choose convenience and personal preference over the law. But actually, it's not that even, since a majority of people don't give a damn about the Constitution anymore.
"Hey, it's a free country. Just because we're paying hate groups to take a free ride into Florida and giving them police immunity, clubs, megaphones, guns, and liquor doesn't mean we are encouraging them to do anything in particular. That's your democrats, always reading into everything."
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
You are exactly right. I have "liberal" family, but they really haven't thought things through. They are just FDR holdovers. I have to say I spend a significant amount of my time pondering the liberal mind. And I consistently come to the same conclusion: it is illogical. The reasons why can be summed up in the last statement in my grandparent post.
"Liberalism....where there are absolutely NO absolutes."
This is simplification of some pretty profound philosophical matters, but not OVERsimplification, because it is dead-on right, and at the root of all "liberal" thought. It is the illogical foundation from which all liberal thought carries out logically to illogical conclusions and practices.
Also, I do not care for the terms liberal and conservative as they are commonly used these days. I think existentialist and theist are better ways of describing in general who these people are, and how they think. This is also simplification, mind you, but which is necessary as we are not writing academic papers here.
Classic slashdot moderation... I get slammed with two troll moderations for debunking the Florida disenfranchisment myth. Are the moderators brave enough to point out exactly what was trollish in the parent?
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Hello friend, I am not sure if I understand you in some of this. If there is a law, and we all agree that law is good (until it is repealed), which you seem to, then people who should not vote but do anyway are killing the vote of exactly one person who voted in the opposite way. This is within the scope of a state, not from a national perspective.
In the clean election in state Q, 2200 votes go for presidential candidate R and 2100 go to candidate D. But, because of fear of lawsuits, state Q does nothing to prohibit people who should not vote from voting, and now 200 fraudulent votes go uncontested. There are not even any provisional ballots. All 200 vote for D, giving D the win, and effectively erasing the votes of 200 legitimate R voters. The ratios are different, but all electoral votes go to candidate D regardless. (Unless state Q is Maine, Nebraska, or possibly Colorado)
This is therefore not the same at all as comparing locking up innocent people to letting prisoners go free.
You may be interested to know that many of the interesting ideas that have gone into the formation of the US have been liberal ideas.
I am aware of this, I really don't care for the use of the words liberal and conservative honestly. Your statement lacks perspective. Liberal with respect to fundamanetlist Islam? Good. With respect to terminating life at an early stage for the sake of convenience, with the rationalization that is is "ok" because it is still at a very early stage, as if that somehow makes a difference? Bad. (so says me, but I can really say that, because I am not an existentialist)
I am not sure what you mean that real people have a mixture of "liberal" and "conservative" ideas. I am sure they do. That's the way it is, I reckon. But I am not sure why you are stating this...?
The sky in my reality is my blue. I think it is the same as your chartreuse.
Once someone leaves prison, their debt to society should be considered paid. The point of taking someone out of prison is to move them back into society, and make them participants
Well, so says you. Let us get the law changed then if that is the case.
But, accepting the fact that Florida doesn't allow ex-convicts to vote, the question that remains is whether the list was drawn up in a fair manner, or whether it was done in order to rig the election.
Of course, this is a very good point, and I agree with you.
If the latter--and I'm not convinced one way or the other--then telling Democrats to stop focusing on the negative is nothing more than covering for your party.
I am not convinced either, nor have I really looked into the matter. My post was not questioning the fact that the process is being checked, but more so the mindset and behavior of most of the posters on this site.
Personally I think it is very improbable that any Republicans seek to discriminate against ethnic groups or cultures. There is no place for such people today, and if they exist, it is probably only in trailer parks that they can be found. I am in TX. I know no people that are like this. No one I know knows people that are like this. No one anywhere (except maybe in trailers) would tolerate this kind of thing today. It is contrary to conservative/Republican core values and principles. (GOP being the party that has core values, as it is the major party that does not have existentialism at its core)
I'm just about as biased in this election as anyone here. I've already voted for a straight Democratic ticket (and the Libertarian candidates in races where there was no Democrat running).
This still looks like fishing to me. Accusing a political party of nefarious intent because they have a list of voters, any type of voters, strikes me as ridiculous.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
" It is the illogical foundation from which all liberal thought carries out logically to illogical conclusions and practices."
That's funny, because I think the same of conservative thought- illogical foundation carried out to illogical practices.
So remember, while you think you're right and liberals are dumbasses, to them, you're the dumbass.
This isn't meant as a flame- just a reminder that these sorts of opinions *are* highly subjective.
I do agree with you that liberal vs conservative isn't a terribly accurate way of describing political thought, especially since it presents the notion that there are only two choices, and these two choices are polar opposites.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
but my "evidence" is my root summary: "There are absolutely NO absolutes." Existentialism. This is the root of post-Enlightenment liberalism. I don't see a way around the illogic here.
* Existentialism results in the belief that all beliefs are equally valid. Then existential liberals turn around and proclaim their universal truths of right and wrong.
* "There are no facts, only opinions. Now ger this fact through your thick conservative head, moron!"
* Absolute tollerance, except for those who are deemed to be intollerant. From this foundation, how could they ever demonstrate to me that I am the "dumbass"? LOL
You pointed to a dissenting opinion, not the commission's report.
My mistake.
Many supervisor's still used the list and people were disenfranchised.
Sure- probably about 45 counties used the list. That means that the county supervisors in those counties took the list, attempted to verify the names on the list, and notified and removed the voters that they were able to verify as convicted felons. It doesn't mean that everybody on the list from those counties was prevented from voting. And note that the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the list is that it allowed 6,500 convicted felons to vote (because the list was bad enough to cause 22 counties to ignore it).
The USCCR has a couple of pages of people they interviewed on their reports. Maybe you should read the report instead of the dissenting opinion.
Well, yeah. They interviewed a lot of people, but they still were unable to find a single person that would testify that they were wrongly prevented from voting because of the felon list. When the USCCR Commission Chairman was asked how they could still conclude that "countless" people were disenfranchised even though they couldn't find any, she dismissed it as being ok because they "knew" that bad stuff had happened anyway. They didn't let a pesky thing like evidence get in the way!
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
According to www.m-w.com:
:)
a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad
To me, this doesn't state that all beliefs are equally valid. My interpretation is that we are all ultimately responsible for our actions- we reap what we sow. However, this responsibility doesn't come in the form of the judgment of a divine being- only in whatever the natural consequences of those actions are.
Logic is essentially cause-and-effect, and thus is dependent on your starting point. If your starting point is that there is no God or divine judgment, then yes, there are absolutely no absolutes- how could there be?
If your starting point is that there *is* a God, and God determines right and wrong, then in that scenerio there *are* absolute right and wrongs. I get the impression that this is the camp you're in, and you may have noticed I'm in the other one
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
What's interesting is that the non-Republican site georgewbush.org is the one that provided the documentation to the BBC on this story. They apparently had a catch-all mailbox that they discovered accumulating a ton of GOP-internal mails that were misdirected to the wrong domain!
The site goes on to document all sorts of interesting internal correspondence, including dubious intimidation tactics and sleazy fliers the GOP is encouraging religious groups hand out at services. It's very illuminating.
Then why your inflamatory signature about "Liberalism"? The sky in my reality is gray, lately, but I hear that in some parts of the country, they only have black and white.
PS, I never realized existentialism had any real bearing on the abortion debate. Could you elaborate?
XML causes global warming.
You are either very lucky, or lead a very sheltered existence, perhaps are not very observant, or are otherwise willfully ignorant. I grew up in Texas, lived there for a few years since growing up there, and racism is not rare there. This was not in trailer parks, btw. I've also seen racism in other states I've lived in, not just Texas.
I supect willful ignorance on your part, since you somehow seem to believe that the GOP has core values (is fiscal responsibility a core value?) while the democrats don't. Your us-versus-them attitude smacks of delusion, so it's easiest to use that as an explanation for your unawareness of racial bias and discrimination.
I don't know if there is any intentional racial discrimination on the part of the Republicans. It's possible, if there are attempts to keep certain elligible voters away, that the perpetrators don't care about race but only directly or indirectly select for race in order to achieve they result they want (less votes for Kerry). I did hear a story today on NPR about a man in Georgia who went to the court house, asked for the names of all Hispanic registered voters in the county, then returned with challenges of voter elligibility for nearly every one of those voters. To be fair, this action was not likely endorsed or even known to the GOP. It would be hard to defend this man's actions as race-neutral, though.
If you don't think that there is racial bias in the government, ask yourself why a disproportionate number of blacks are incarcerated in this country, especially for drug charges. Something like 14% of black males of voting age are incarcerated in florida. Because of the felony inelligibility rule in florida, something like a total of 25% of black males in florida are not able to vote. This isn't a republican problem, of course, but it certainly has some bearing on the allegations of voter fraud in Florida.
Have a nice day, party-puppet.
XML causes global warming.
Below is one email messages regarding the caging list, mistakenly sent to georgewbush.org and reprinted here http://www.georgewbush.org/deadletteroffice/, where can can find the actual "Caging" list (search for "caging.xls"):
n et
-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio 23rd [mailto:ohio23rd@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 4:56 AM
To: shollings@ohio.gov; cday@georgewbush.org; wanda.price@sbcglobal.net
Subject: NEED DISTRICT UPDATES ASAP!!!!!!!
Carl, Sandra, and staff:
We have redlined the district (that gets us about 70% of their voters) for challenges but we need the updated voter maps ASAP! We're still working off of 2000 maps. This is the THIRD email I've sent out on this people. Let's get it together the electoin is TUESDAY!!!!
The more we challenge the more we get!
William Ohio 23rd District Supervisor
ohio23rd@yahoo.com
w.fold@sbcglobal.
How Politicians Lie: http://www.factcheck.org/
To me, this doesn't state that all beliefs are equally valid. My interpretation is that we are all ultimately responsible for our actions- we reap what we sow. However, this responsibility doesn't come in the form of the judgment of a divine being- only in whatever the natural consequences of those actions are.
:)
Thus, all ideas are equally valid. Valid doesn't necessarily mean or relate to identical or equally "desirable" consequences. Who is to say what you think are "bad" consequences are bad? (Only you could say that.) "Bad" consequences are just inconvenient for you, whatever this is that you actually are. Existentialism brings us to analysis of conveniences and inconveniences, for us as individual beings (whatever it is to "be") not to analysis of right, wrong, good, and bad.
The starting point that there is a root cause greater than all effects is in my opinion more valid than that there is no root cause. Of course, to start with the foundation that there are absolutely no absolutes, and that this itself is an absolute truth also in my opinion leaves a bit to be desired. Perhaps this is good cause for resting in the root cause, rather than rejecting it.
If you are worried about specific intents, the Constitution was written with the specific intent of preserving a right to chattel slavery.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Ther is no other purpose for Constitutional govenment of the United States, other than the promotion of the "General Welfare" of it's populace.
That is obviously false, as there are not one, but six clearly stated purposes: to form a more perfect union; establish justice; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare; and secure the blessings of liberty (to ourselves, and our posterity).
It should be noted that you are not only in error in fact, but also therefore in argument, since these six purposes sometimes come into conflict, and your supposition maintains that the one you chose to emphasize has preeminence. Nothing in the text supports this view.
As to Section 8, it occurs in the preface to the section, and is not a granting of rights, but a broad statement of what is to follow. We only need to look to James Madison and John Marshall to show how wrong your wide-open interpretation is, and I won't restate the relatively long argument here.
If you are worried about specific intents, the Constitution was written with the specific intent of preserving a right to chattel slavery.
You are confusing original intent of the Constitution as written in 1787 with the Constitution of today. The part you're referring to has been amended, and the original intent of the 13th Amendment is clear: slavery is illegal. No one seriously thinks we should follow the original intent of something that has been modified by amendment: in those cases, we follow the original intent of the amendment itself.
So if the Constitution had not been amended since 1787, then yes, we would still have a right to own slaves. Duh. Thankfully, it has been so amended. If you wish to amend the Constitution to give the federal government powers that Madison and Marshall clearly said do not exist, then by all means, attempt to do so. Until that time, we know from the people who wrote and defended and ratified and interpreted the Constitution that your interpretation is incorrect.