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09/09/2004 01:57:43 PM · #1151 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
I didn’t ask about Kerry. 9/11 isn’t the key focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign.
Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
No, but I did. You say that 9/11 isn't the key focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign. So, please tell me - what IS the key focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign? |
Ron I wont let you hijack what I said and twist it around like your so good at doing.
My original question still stands.
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
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09/09/2004 02:06:44 PM · #1152 |
Maybe because they didn't think it was all that relevant to their re-election, maybe because there is no news on him? They didn't mention a lot of people at the RNC. Who cares? What point are you trying to make?
And personaly, when someone uses language like that, I tend to think a lot less of them.
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09/09/2004 03:01:05 PM · #1153 |
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
I didn’t ask about Kerry. 9/11 isn’t the key focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign.
Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
No, but I did. You say that 9/11 isn't the key focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign. So, please tell me - what IS the key focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign? |
Ron I wont let you hijack what I said and twist it around like your so good at doing.
My original question still stands.
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
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And my original answer still stands, too.
Originally posted by RonB:
He wasn't mentioned because HE is not the focus of the war on terror. Like I said, HE is not the one packing explosives into trucks. |
So, now that I've answered YOUR question AGAIN, how about answering MINE:
What IS the focus and excuse for everything in Kerry's campaign? |
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09/14/2004 10:04:21 PM · #1154 |
Someone wanna answer Ron's question?
I know, I know, sh#@$ disturber, but I couldn't resist with the record at stake.
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09/14/2004 10:06:51 PM · #1155 |
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
Someone wanna answer Ron's question?
I know, I know, sh#@$ disturber, but I couldn't resist with the record at stake. |
Oh nooooooo! :-0 |
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09/14/2004 10:17:03 PM · #1156 |
Where's a good heated agreement when you need one?
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09/15/2004 06:31:03 AM · #1157 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
Originally posted by RonB:
He wasn't mentioned because HE is not the focus of the war on terror. Like I said, HE is not the one packing explosives into trucks. |
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I say the Republicans aren't metioning Osama's name because they are embarrassed the Bush administration haven't yet captured the biggest terrorist threat yet in the islamic world. They have completely diverted all their attention from al Qaeda onto the Iraqi scene, for the reason that OIL exists there.
Bin Laden is the mastermind and biggest funnel of finances into terrorism and will most likely try to attack us at home again, but we're not going after him?!!!!!! What a joke for the republicans to say that the Bush administration is fighting terrorism. Can you imagine the blow to islamic terrorism for their leader to be captured, but the Bush administration has decided to divert their attention elsewhere!
Makes you wonder about those Bush/Bin Laden connections/friendships and what really is going on here and how the American public is being duped. |
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09/15/2004 08:17:47 AM · #1158 |
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
[quote=RonB]
[quote=MadMordegon]Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
Perhaps because we are supposed to forget that Osama and Saddam are not one and the same? Even Rumsfeld seems to have them confused. He used Saddams name twice in a recent press event when he meant to refer to bin Laden |
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09/18/2004 03:15:06 PM · #1159 |
Originally posted by emorgan49:
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
[quote=RonB]
[quote=MadMordegon]Why didn’t ANY of the RNC speakers mention Osama? Not even ONCE. |
Perhaps because we are supposed to forget that Osama and Saddam are not one and the same? Even Rumsfeld seems to have them confused. He used Saddams name twice in a recent press event when he meant to refer to bin Laden |
I'm waiting for him to say "martial law" when he means election ...
Here's an interesting article/editorial from the N.Y. Times which probably goes a long way towards explaining how Mr. Bush ascended to the Presidency in the first place ...
========
September 17, 2004
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy
By BRENT STAPLES
Pundits blame apathy for the decline in voter turnout that has become a fact of life in the United States in the last several decades. But not everyone who skips the polls on Election Day does so by choice. This November, for example, an estimated five million people - roughly 2.3 percent of the number of people eligible to vote - will be barred from voting by state laws that strip convicted felons of the franchise, often temporarily but sometimes for life.
These laws cast a permanent shadow over the poor minority communities where disenfranchised people typically live. Children grow up with the unfortunate example of neighbors, parents and grandparents who never vote and never engage in the political process, even superficially.
As a consequence, the struggling communities that need political leadership most of all are trapped within a posture of disengagement that deepens from one generation to the next.
While many things will need to change before the country can reinvigorate the electorate, doing away with postprison sanctions - the most punitive in the democratic world - has to be near the top of the list.
The case for doing so has recently been laid out in a deluge of lawsuits, reports and studies that document the corrosive effects of disenfranchisement on the civic life of this country.
The most startling of these studies, published by Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Jeff Manza at Northwestern University, shows that the number of people touched by these laws far exceeds the five or so million who have officially and directly lost the right to vote.
For starters, hundreds of thousands of people who are still eligible to vote will not do so this year because they will be locked up in local jails, awaiting processing or trials for minor offenses.
An even larger group of eligible voters, numbering perhaps in the millions, may stay away from the polls because they are confused by the law and mistakenly believe that they have lost the right to vote.
Republican operatives have deliberated used scare tactics with this group of voters - most of them Democrats - in the hope of keeping them home on Election Day. Taken together, the truly disenfranchised, who are actually barred from voting under the law, and the de facto disenfranchised, who don't vote because they are confused about the law, could account for 5 percent of the voting-age population.
A vast majority of the disenfranchised in this country would meet the qualifications for voting if they were citizens of Britain, France, Germany or Australia. Indeed, many nations value the franchise so much that they arrange for people to vote even from prison.
Why does America treat convicted felons so much worse than other democracies? Legal scholars attribute the problem to this country's difficulties with race.
In particular, they cite the racist backlash in the South during Reconstruction, when former slaveowners were forced to endure the sight of former slaves' lining up to vote at polling places and actually holding seats in state legislatures.
Led by Mississippi, the Southern states eventually adopted a series of measures that wrote black citizens right out of the state constitutions. New statutes barred black Americans from the ballot box with poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and laws that took the vote away from people who committed certain crimes.
The crimes were carefully selected so they would affect the maximum number of black Americans while exempting as many whites as possible. For example, new state laws sometimes disenfranchised people for petty theft, minor swindling and wife-beating - crimes that were more likely to be prosecuted among blacks - while omitting murder and robbery. The legislative intent relied heavily on the unequal enforcement of the law.
The disenfranchisement campaign swept black Americans from elected office and knocked them off the voting rolls. There were suddenly counties in the South where black people outnumbered their white neighbors by four to one but where not a single black name could be found on the voting rolls.
Black people who fled the South found that the states in the North had also begun to adopt disenfranchisement laws as their black populations grew.
This shameful legacy is plainly visible today in statistics showing that black people represent 40 percent of the disenfranchisement cases but only about 12 percent of the national population. The broader community, which was once indifferent to this problem, has begun to take notice since the states have embraced new sentencing policies that transform drug misdemeanors into felonies, driving up the prison population sevenfold, to an eye-popping 1.4 million today from a mere 200,000 in the 1970's.
With the population of convicted felons at more than 13 million and growing, the country has no choice but to revisit laws that strip people of the right to vote while permanently consigning them to the margins of society.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are rushing to associate themselves with a campaign to restore the vote to former felons. The general public, however, understands clearly that the right to vote is a basic human right. Restoring voting rights to former felons would move the United States closer to its peers in the democratic world - and closer to its founding ideals. It would also drive a stake through one of the last relics of an ugly racist past.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
=================
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |
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09/19/2004 12:02:11 AM · #1160 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Here's an interesting article/editorial from the N.Y. Times which probably goes a long way towards explaining how Mr. Bush ascended to the Presidency in the first place ... |
An interesting article indeed. But the author has obviously not done his homework, or has let his liberal bent color his thinking.
Here are my thoughts, interspersed with the articles points:
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
September 17, 2004
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy
By BRENT STAPLES
Pundits blame apathy for the decline in voter turnout that has become a fact of life in the United States in the last several decades. But not everyone who skips the polls on Election Day does so by choice. This November, for example, an estimated five million people... |
a more accurate estimate is 4.7 million, but when you're goal is to bash conservatives, hey, always round UP for greater impact
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
... - roughly 2.3 percent of the number of people eligible to vote... |
This number is incorrect. If one really wants the percentage to be that of "the number of people ELIGIBLE to vote", then one must divide the 4.7 million INELIGIBLE voters by the number of ELIGIBLE voters ( 197.4 million ), not the number of ADULTS ( 202.1 million ), which is what Brent Staples obviously did ( he must have flunked basic mathematics ). If you divide 4.7 million by 197.4 million you get closer to 2.4 percent not 2.3 percent ( and we already know that you should round UP whenever possible ).
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
- will be barred from voting by state laws that strip convicted felons of the franchise, often temporarily but sometimes for life. |
Surprisingly, this last part of his statement is actually true.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
These laws cast a permanent shadow over the poor minority communities where disenfranchised people typically live. Children grow up with the unfortunate example of neighbors, parents and grandparents who never vote and never engage in the political process, even superficially. |
Sure, blame it on the LAW, not those who BROKE the LAW. Typical VICTIM mentality supported by the left - it's not THEIR fault that they can't vote - it's the LAWs fault. When will liberals ever accept the concept of personal accountability?
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
As a consequence, the struggling communities that need political leadership most of all are trapped within a posture of disengagement that deepens from one generation to the next. |
Does this mean to imply that LAWLESSNESS is HEREDITARY? That the children are TRAPPED because their GENES force them to commit crimes? If not, why don't they work to stay out of trouble in order to keep their right to vote, and exercise that right?
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
While many things will need to change before the country can reinvigorate the electorate, doing away with postprison sanctions - the most punitive in the democratic world - has to be near the top of the list. |
This is an issue that is too complex to broad-brush in this way. There are Three different types of disenfranchisment for felons observed by the states ( and it IS a state regulated issue ):
1) Incarcerated Felons; 2) Paroled Felons; and 3) Ex-Felons.
There is a very good reason why incarcerated felons and felons on parole are NOT permitted to vote. If they were permitted to vote, then a candidate could "buy" every one of their votes by promising to push legislation to grant amnesty to everyone convicted of crime-x, for example. And in SOME communities with large penitentiaries, the prison population is actually larger than the general population outside the prison. Giving prisoners the right ot vote would have disasterous results in those communities - criminals electing criminals for the purpose of passing laws benefiting criminals.
As for those who have served their time and completed their parole - I agree that they should be re-enfranchised.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
The case for doing so has recently been laid out in a deluge of lawsuits, reports and studies that document the corrosive effects of disenfranchisement on the civic life of this country. |
I really don't care how "corrosive" the effects are, or how many lawsuits are filed. There are inherent dangers, as I've pointed out, with granting voting rights to prisoners and parolees.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
The most startling of these studies, published by Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Jeff Manza at Northwestern University, shows that the number of people touched by these laws far exceeds the five or so million who have officially and directly lost the right to vote.
For starters, hundreds of thousands of people who are still eligible to vote will not do so this year because they will be locked up in local jails, awaiting processing or trials for minor offenses. |
I believe that I have already articulated valid reasoning why prisoners should NOT be granted voting rights.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
An even larger group of eligible voters, numbering perhaps in the millions, may stay away from the polls because they are confused by the law and mistakenly believe that they have lost the right to vote. |
Hmmm. My take on it is that if they are so confused by the law, then they really shouldn't be voting, anyway - they'd only be confused by "butterfly ballots" or "punch card chads" - and we don't need to go through that debacle again.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Republican operatives have deliberated used scare tactics with this group of voters - most of them Democrats - in the hope of keeping them home on Election Day. |
1) Did Mr. Staples perhaps mean "deliberately" rather than "deliberated"?
2) I'd be interested in seeing proof of the "scare tactics" that "Republican opertives" have used with this group of voters, especially since they are really NOT "voters" - not having taken the steps necessary to become re-enfranchised. Until they have taken those steps, they can only be referred to as "potential" voters, but not "voters". It is NOT surprising, to me, that most are Democrats.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Taken together, the truly disenfranchised, who are actually barred from voting under the law, and the de facto disenfranchised, who don't vote because they are confused about the law, could account for 5 percent of the voting-age population. |
Yeah. So what? Is it the LAWS fault that those who are "confused about the law" haven't taken the steps to re-establish their voter registration status? I don't think so.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
A vast majority of the disenfranchised in this country would meet the qualifications for voting if they were citizens of Britain, France, Germany or Australia. Indeed, many nations value the franchise so much that they arrange for people to vote even from prison. |
We, however, are NOT Britain, France, Germany or Australia. So what's the point?
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Why does America treat convicted felons so much worse than other democracies? |
By whose definition of "worse"? The NY TIMES? Certainly not by MY definition - sorry, but I don't think we treat them WORSE - I think we treat them in accordance with the LAWs which were designed to prevent Criminals from taking over the legislature.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Legal scholars attribute the problem to this country's difficulties with race. |
You can always count on liberals to play the race card sooner or later.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
In particular, they cite the racist backlash in the South during Reconstruction, when former slaveowners were forced to endure the sight of former slaves' lining up to vote at polling places and actually holding seats in state legislatures.
Led by Mississippi, the Southern states eventually adopted a series of measures that wrote black citizens right out of the state constitutions. New statutes barred black Americans from the ballot box with poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and laws that took the vote away from people who committed certain crimes.
The crimes were carefully selected so they would affect the maximum number of black Americans while exempting as many whites as possible. For example, new state laws sometimes disenfranchised people for petty theft, minor swindling and wife-beating - crimes that were more likely to be prosecuted among blacks - while omitting murder and robbery. The legislative intent relied heavily on the unequal enforcement of the law. |
What is the relevance of recounting the discriminatory rulings of the past? Are any of those laws still on the books? I don't think so. Even so, there was an obvious, easy solution to whatever disparities existed, if one had been so inclined - namely, stop stealing, stop swindling, and stop beating wives.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
The disenfranchisement campaign swept black Americans from elected office and knocked them off the voting rolls. |
So, by implication, a disproportionate number of black office-holders stole, swindled, and/or beat their wives than white office-holders did? Sounds to me like they SHOULD have been removed from office.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
There were suddenly counties in the South where black people outnumbered their white neighbors by four to one but where not a single black name could be found on the voting rolls. |
Again, why was that the LAWS fault? The solution was easy - STOP BREAKING THE LAW. Why was that so difficult?
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Black people who fled the South found that the states in the North had also begun to adopt disenfranchisement laws as their black populations grew. |
Probably because the northern states saw their crime rates rise in direct proportion to the size of the black population, and saw the potential problems that would be possible if convicted felons had voting rights.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
This shameful legacy is plainly visible today in statistics showing that black people represent 40 percent of the disenfranchisement cases but only about 12 percent of the national population. |
The "shameful legacy" is not that blacks are disenfranchised disproportianately, but that blacks commit felonies disproportianately. While many "studies" maintain that the reason is that the laws are set up to punish "black" crimes more severly than "white" crimes, the fact is that blacks DO commit more crimes in proportion to their population than whites, hispanics, asians, or any other racial/ethnic group. The solution, therefore, is for blacks to STOP committing those so-called "black" crimes.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
The broader community, which was once indifferent to this problem, has begun to take notice since the states have embraced new sentencing policies that transform drug misdemeanors into felonies, driving up the prison population sevenfold, to an eye-popping 1.4 million today from a mere 200,000 in the 1970's. |
Again, one must ask, Why do blacks so disproportionately commit felonies?
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
With the population of convicted felons at more than 13 million and growing, the country has no choice but to revisit laws that strip people of the right to vote while permanently consigning them to the margins of society. |
Actually, yes, they do have a choice - they do NOT have to revist laws that stip people of the right to vote.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are rushing to associate themselves with a campaign to restore the vote to former felons. |
Gee, I wonder why that is? Especially if this group of voters are "most of them Democrat". One would think that the Democrats would be championing this effort if that were so. But they don't because they know that such an effort would not result in a benefit to them. The most they could hope for is the re-enfranchisement of those who have satisfied their sentences - namely no longer in prison, and no longer on parole. In the meantime, they would lose more votes in the "general public" because of their push to re-enfranchise felons, than they would gain through that effort, if it were successful.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
The general public, however, understands clearly that the right to vote is a basic human right. |
No, they don't. They understand that it is a right that is only granted to those willing to uphold the rulings enacted by the same legislatures that also enact the laws that make the right to vote possible - and felons have already proven that they do NOT uphold those laws - hence they forfeit the right to vote.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Restoring voting rights to former felons would move the United States closer to its peers in the democratic world |
This is probably true, but so what? I don't think that we WANT to be closer to our "peers" in every respect - this being one of them
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
... - and closer to its founding ideals. |
Actually, it would bring us FARTHER from our founding ideals. You must remember that the U.S. is NOT a democracy ( governance by majority ) - it is a democratic REPUBLIC ( governance by representives elected by the majorities ). Re-enfranchising felons jeopardizes the rights of law abiding citizens, as I have already pointed out.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
It would also drive a stake through one of the last relics of an ugly racist past. |
And it would also drive a stake through our way of governance, and our current way of life.
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
=================
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |
Ron
Message edited by author 2004-09-19 00:10:01. |
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09/22/2004 07:03:31 PM · #1161 |
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
Where's a good heated agreement when you need one? |
There hasn't been any discussion in here for a couple of days so I thought I would bump it to the top again.
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09/22/2004 07:07:26 PM · #1162 |
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09/22/2004 09:04:01 PM · #1163 |
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09/22/2004 09:04:27 PM · #1164 |
edit, ill hold off for now. Nice timing Ellen ;)
Message edited by author 2004-09-22 21:05:53. |
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09/22/2004 09:22:29 PM · #1165 |
A few parts I thought I would highlight from that article:
"Asked whether any other government Web sites had been blocked, a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment."
"Annalee Newitz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit San Francisco group for protecting people's digital rights, said: “It's extremely ironic that the government is doing nothing to address the security of electronic voting machines" in the United States, "which have been proven to be vulnerable to hacking, yet they block Web sites for expatriate Americans.”"
Possibly because Americans overseas have a broader view of things, including US politics? That being the case, they probably won’t be voting for Bush.. |
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09/22/2004 10:01:19 PM · #1166 |
Sometimes you just have to use "forms available from other sources".
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
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09/23/2004 12:29:25 AM · #1167 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
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I assume that this photo is comment on our (USA) current leadership, who don't seem to have grown out of their boyhood war/spy games, and live in some "Neverland" where they can revel in perpetual frivolity without care or responsibility for those who must labor in obscurity and squalor to provide the repast.
RonB -- that's too thorough a response for me to take on all at once right now, but I must say a couple of your points are supreme mis-statements of what the article says, while others are right-on.
You seem to place a great deal of emphasis on this all being a consequence of people having broken the law. What about where the law itself was wrong or unjust? And what about the estimated 25,000 persons currently incarcerated who are INNOCENT of the crime for which they were convicted? Should they also receive lifetime ostracism from civic life?
It seems to me you have two choices with a convicted crimial, either rehabilitate them so thay can rejoin society, or lock them up for life (or for those who believe that the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" came with a list of exceptions, execution). If you want them to be a part of society, then I think that the principle of "not taxation without representation" might sum up their situation nicely, if tritely. |
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09/23/2004 08:01:54 AM · #1168 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
RonB -- that's too thorough a response for me to take on all at once right now, but I must say a couple of your points are supreme mis-statements of what the article says, while others are right-on.
You seem to place a great deal of emphasis on this all being a consequence of people having broken the law. What about where the law itself was wrong or unjust? And what about the estimated 25,000 persons currently incarcerated who are INNOCENT of the crime for which they were convicted? Should they also receive lifetime ostracism from civic life?
It seems to me you have two choices with a convicted crimial, either rehabilitate them so thay can rejoin society, or lock them up for life (or for those who believe that the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" came with a list of exceptions, execution). If you want them to be a part of society, then I think that the principle of "not taxation without representation" might sum up their situation nicely, if tritely. |
1) I'd be interested in knowing which points you believe are supreme mis-statements of what the article says ( seriously, I would ).
2) Where the law is wrong or unjust, it is the unfortunate duty of some brave citizen(s) to "break" that law, and to appeal their conviction under that law as far as necessary to get it overturned ( but they had better be well prepared for the battle, and they had better be well prepared to lose ).
3) As for the estimated 25,000 innocents currently incarcerated - I wish our legal system had a 100% foolproof way to judge guilt vs. innocence. Unfortunately we do not. 25,000 wrongly convicted out of 2+ million is a very small percentage, relatively speaking ( though I do recognize that it represents 100% from the perspective of the innocents ). For all that, I don't believe that granting voting rights to 2+ million convicts for the sake of 25,000 innocents is justifiable. As I have already stated, once the conditions of their conviction have been fulfilled, every ex-criminal should be re-enfranchised as soon as they meet the registeration requirements in their state. As for those states that maintain a life-time ban, those laws should be changed. |
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09/23/2004 01:43:26 PM · #1169 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by ericlimon:
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I assume that this photo is comment on our (USA) current leadership, who don't seem to have grown out of their boyhood war/spy games, and live in some "Neverland" where they can revel in perpetual frivolity without care or responsibility for those who must labor in obscurity and squalor to provide the repast. |
hahaha right on. |
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09/23/2004 05:55:00 PM · #1170 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by ericlimon:
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I assume that this photo is comment on our (USA) current leadership, who don't seem to have grown out of their boyhood war/spy games, and live in some "Neverland" where they can revel in perpetual frivolity without care or responsibility for those who must labor in obscurity and squalor to provide the repast. |
Actually, it's just Eric's boyish protest against the posting of political content on a photography web site. See here... |
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09/23/2004 06:23:31 PM · #1171 |
Cat Stevens a terrorist. That's it man. That's how utterly idiotic this whole thing has become. It's time for some change. This can't go on.
U.S. Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle would only say that the intelligence community has recently obtained information that "further heightens concern" about Yusuf Islam. "Yusuf Islam has been placed on the watch lists because of activities that could potentially be related to terrorism," Doyle said. "It's a serious matter."
Entire article here.
Message edited by author 2004-09-23 18:24:14. |
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09/23/2004 06:26:40 PM · #1172 |
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09/23/2004 07:50:49 PM · #1173 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
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:P |
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09/23/2004 07:53:16 PM · #1174 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
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This sums it up perfectly.
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09/27/2004 01:11:57 AM · #1175 |
Originally posted by RonB:
1) I'd be interested in knowing which points you believe are supreme mis-statements of what the article says ( seriously, I would ). |
These two sections bothered me the most:
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
In particular, they cite the racist backlash in the South during Reconstruction, when former slaveowners were forced to endure the sight of former slaves' lining up to vote at polling places and actually holding seats in state legislatures.
Led by Mississippi, the Southern states eventually adopted a series of measures that wrote black citizens right out of the state constitutions. New statutes barred black Americans from the ballot box with poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and laws that took the vote away from people who committed certain crimes.
The crimes were carefully selected so they would affect the maximum number of black Americans while exempting as many whites as possible. For example, new state laws sometimes disenfranchised people for petty theft, minor swindling and wife-beating - crimes that were more likely to be prosecuted among blacks - while omitting murder and robbery. The legislative intent relied heavily on the unequal enforcement of the law. |
What is the relevance of recounting the discriminatory rulings of the past? Are any of those laws still on the books? I don't think so. Even so, there was an obvious, easy solution to whatever disparities existed, if one had been so inclined - namely, stop stealing, stop swindling, and stop beating wives.
Ron |
The relevance is that it helps to establish a pattern of continuing unequal treatment under the law and in society in general. For example, why is the punishment for possession of crack-cocaine significantly greater than for possession of a similar quality of powder cocaine? A look at the demographics of who uses which type will provide a clue.
The solutions you offer might suffice in an economy where there was truly equal opportunity, but not in the USA as currently constituted. When people get desperate enough they will beg, borrow or steal. We pass laws against begging for alms, you can't get credit without a lot of stuff (like an address), which option would you suggest? It's probably illegal to starve to death on the steps of City Hall, something about loitering or vagrancy ...
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by NYTIMES:
The disenfranchisement campaign swept black Americans from elected office and knocked them off the voting rolls. |
So, by implication, a disproportionate number of black office-holders stole, swindled, and/or beat their wives than white office-holders did? Sounds to me like they SHOULD have been removed from office. |
Here you baselessly attribute to black office-holders the crimes purportedly perpetrated by people who would vote for them -- there's a specific name for this kind of logical error or false reasoning, but I can't remember what it is right now.
All this says is that by creating more black criminals (by defining more things as criminal activities), there were fewer people to vote for black politicians. There is not one word (other than your's) stating or implying that the office-holders themselves had committed any crimes whatsoever, except for having chosen non-caucasian parents.
Message edited by author 2004-09-27 01:12:53. |
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