The Democrat Thread

[southsider2k5]

There's a bunch of similar ones. Basically anything involving that quote-mined statement has the exact opposite message than intended.

 

Kinda like the right wing version of "I don't care about the poor"?

[lostfan]

The amount of early voting we have in IN is ridiculous. The sad part is that participation still hasn't picked up at all. In fact it is still falling. We have literally hundreds of hours of early voting that runs for weeks before the election. That isn't counting the options for absentee balloting, or getting a ballot mailed to you, or you can even request a ballot be brought to you in special circumstances. On top of that both political parties locally hire vans and buses, as do many candidates, on the day of election, and at special intervals during early voting. Indiana is as Republican of a state that exists today.

This is something that bothers me. This is the country that for all intents and purposes founded modern democracy, but the majority of us don't even bother voting (let alone actually notice what's going on to even know how to vote). Oh, sure, every 4 years, we might vote for president because, well, that's important, and we'll vote for Congressmen and Senators too because I guess that's important. Hell, even the governor. Why not! But in off year elections or midterms (which are every bit as important as the general election for president)? What's that?

[StrangeSox]

Kinda like the right wing version of "I don't care about the poor"?

No, not like that at all. People didn't make cartoons about Romney's statement that were completely contradictory to their intended message.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

No, not like that at all. People didn't make cartoons about Romney's statement that were completely contradictory to their intended message.

 

In your opinion they didn't.

[southsider2k5]

This is something that bothers me. This is the country that for all intents and purposes founded modern democracy, but the majority of us don't even bother voting (let alone actually notice what's going on to even know how to vote). Oh, sure, every 4 years, we might vote for president because, well, that's important, and we'll vote for Congressmen and Senators too because I guess that's important. Hell, even the governor. Why not! But in off year elections or midterms (which are every bit as important as the general election for president)? What's that?

 

But you can sure as hell bet they vote for American Idol! :pukes.

[StrangeSox]

In your opinion they didn't.

Feel free to post some examples

 

edit: I'm genuinely interested in dumb cartoons. They're usually all terrible regardless of persuasion.

Edited July 24, 2012 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Somewhat related, but the star of Romney's "My Hands Didn't Build This" ad's business has relied not only on a functional society and infrastructure but on government loans and contracts throughout the years.

[StrangeSox]

In-person voter fraud continues to remain a fictional thing. This is an agreement between the state of Pennsylvania and those suing them over their new voter ID law which states that there has not been in-person voter fraud and they don't expect it in the future. Same as what the judges found when they upheld Indiana's law: this is not a real issue.

 

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Kinda hard to prove fraud when you have no way to prove who someone was when they voted. Which is the whole idea.

[kapkomet]

Kinda hard to prove fraud when you have no way to prove who someone was when they voted. Which is the whole idea.

 

Hmmm.

[StrangeSox]

Kinda hard to prove fraud when you have no way to prove who someone was when they voted. Which is the whole idea.

 

It must be true because we believe it to be true! No matter how difficult it would actually be, no matter how many other forms of voter fraud are more likely and much easier, we must pass these laws that just happen to impact our political opponents' voters the most.

 

There's no detectable pattern of in-person voter fraud. There's no realistic way to organize this type of fraud at an impactful level. There's no evidence that this happens more than a handful of times across the country over the course of a decade. Sometimes, the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.

[southsider2k5]

It must be true because we believe it to be true! No matter how difficult it would actually be, no matter how many other forms of voter fraud are more likely and much easier, we must pass these laws that just happen to impact our political opponents' voters the most.

 

There's no detectable pattern of in-person voter fraud. There's no realistic way to organize this type of fraud at an impactful level. There's no evidence that this happens more than a handful of times across the country over the course of a decade. Sometimes, the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.

 

Key statement, right there.

[StrangeSox]

Yes, that is the key statement. We have no evidence of individuals actually doing it, and, on top of it, we have no aggregate data to detect a pattern of voter fraud.

 

This is not the case in corrupt democracies around the world where poll monitors can and do detect patterns of vote fraud even if they do not catch individuals committing it. In the US, it isn't a real thing. It's an imagined problem to justify solutions that harm political opponents and disenfranchise voters.

[southsider2k5]

Yes, that is the key statement. We have no evidence of individuals actually doing it, and, on top of it, we have no aggregate data to detect a pattern of voter fraud.

 

This is not the case in corrupt democracies around the world where poll monitors can and do detect patterns of vote fraud even if they do not catch individuals committing it. In the US, it isn't a real thing. It's an imagined problem to justify solutions that harm political opponents and disenfranchise voters.

 

I get to hear about systems set up to ensure a weak and defenseless system all of the time. I think we witness this right here in our voting system, which has pretty much zero way to actually prove fraud since we literally have no idea who is voting.

[StrangeSox]

Except that there's no evidence at the aggregate level of voter fraud actually happening, especially in-person voter fraud. You can demonstrate a high likelihood of fraud having occurred without being able to specifically identify examples of fraud. This is done by comparing voter roles, precinct vote totals, exit polls and I'm sure other data to ensure that they match up. This is how real vote fraud is detected and, when it is detected, is investigated. It never turns out to have been in-person fraud because of the incredible difficulty and risk of systematically exploiting that. It's a hell of a lot easier to stuff the box afterwards, commit fraud via absentee voting or simply buy votes than it is to organize enough people to register and then go vote as someone else. At least in Illinois, you don't just grab a ballot off the stack, fill it out and shove it in the box. You have to be registered in advance, which requires identifying material. You have to go to the correct precinct. You have to sign and your signatures are compared. The logistics of in-person fraud simply don't work out.

 

It's really not a plausible scenario and we really have no reason to believe it's something that happens more than incredibly rare isolated events. Which is why voter ID laws that place burdens on hundreds of thousands in various states make absolutely no sense from anything but the "disenfranchise the people who will vote against you" angle while ignoring every other source of possible election fraud and setting the ID rules in favor of your voting groups (no college id's but gun registrations are ok!).

[southsider2k5]

And yet if I were to flip that over and say the financial system only has a very minimal amount of fraud convictions, and investigations and that we should dismantle the costly regulatory system we have in place, as disenfranchising people who legitimately want to invest, everyone would have a conniption fit.

[StrangeSox]

Right, because there is evidence of systemic problems even if industrial actors cannot always be blamed. But we also can name a lot of individual actors, too, so the comparison doesn't work.

 

On the other hand there's still no evidence that in-person voter fraud is a real problem..

 

Also the "right to invest" isn't a fundamental, constitutional right.

Edited July 25, 2012 by StrangeSox

[southsider2k5]

Right, because there is evidence of systemic problems even if industrial actors cannot always be blamed. But we also can name a lot of individual actors, too, so the comparison doesn't work.

 

On the other hand there's still no evidence that in-person voter fraud is a real problem..

 

Also the "right to invest" isn't a fundamental, constitutional right.

 

Economic freedom, while given lip service these days, was protected.

[Jenksismyhero]

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virgini...rms-ar-2081517/

 

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign is asking Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to launch an investigation into voter-registration forms that are being sent to Virginia residents and addressed to deceased relatives, children, family pets and others ineligible to vote.

 

The errant mailings from the Washington-based nonprofit group Voter Participation Center have befuddled many Virginia residents, leading to hundreds of complaints.

 

[StrangeSox]

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resou...ut_voter_fraud/

 

Fraud by individual voters is both irrational and extremely rare. Most citizens who take the time to vote offer their legitimate signatures and sworn oaths with the gravitas that this hard-won civic right deserves. Even for the few who view voting merely as a means to an end, however, voter fraud is a singularly foolish way to attempt to win an election. Each act of voter fraud risks five years in prison and a $10,000 fine - but yields at most one incremental vote. The single vote is simply not worth the price.

 

Because voter fraud is essentially irrational, it is not surprising that no credible evidence suggests a voter fraud epidemic. There is no documented wave or trend of individuals voting multiple times, voting as someone else, or voting despite knowing that they are ineligible. Indeed, evidence from the microscopically scrutinized 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington State actually reveals just the opposite: though voter fraud does happen, it happens approximately 0.0009% of the time. The similarly closely-analyzed 2004 election in Ohio revealed a voter fraud rate of 0.00004%. National Weather Service data shows that Americans are struck and killed by lightning about as often.

 

Voter fraud remains not a real thing while voter suppression from laws ostensibly designed to combat a non-existent thing remains real.

[StrangeSox]

Scalia has an interesting take on the 2nd amendment. While recognizing some limits imposed by the phrase "keep and bear arms," such as restricting the right to hand-carried weapons only (somehow?), and also noting that the founders clearly believed in other restrictions such as on head axes, he believes that things like surface-to-air missiles may be protected by the 2nd amendment.

 

This represents an obvious deficiency in his jurisprudence to me. If your Originalism leads you to the conclusion that restrictions on certain types of axes are ok but restrictions on rocket launchers might not be, you should probably re-evaluate your philosophy.

[Y2HH]

Scalia has an interesting take on the 2nd amendment. While recognizing some limits imposed by the phrase "keep and bear arms," such as restricting the right to hand-carried weapons only (somehow?), and also noting that the founders clearly believed in other restrictions such as on head axes, he believes that things like surface-to-air missiles may be protected by the 2nd amendment.

 

This represents an obvious deficiency in his jurisprudence to me. If your Originalism leads you to the conclusion that restrictions on certain types of axes are ok but restrictions on rocket launchers might not be, you should probably re-evaluate your philosophy.

 

The interpretation of this law has to coincide with the times...often it does not. In modern times, air-superiority is a reality...and those civilians on the ground "should" be afforded the right to some sort of self defense mechanism against this.

 

The idea behind this amendment is the people could conceivably defend themselves from a government run astray. In current times, that would necessitate the need to keep and bare arms that include SAM's...otherwise how would you defend yourself against a military that would clearly have air superiority?

[CrimsonWeltall]

The idea behind this amendment is the people could conceivably defend themselves from a government run astray. In current times, that would necessitate the need to keep and bare arms that include SAM's...otherwise how would you defend yourself against a military that would clearly have air superiority?

 

The 2nd Amendment pretty much has to allow everything then.

[Soxbadger]

Yep, how can I protect myself against a govt with nukes, unless I have a nuke?

[Y2HH]

Yep, how can I protect myself against a govt with nukes, unless I have a nuke?

 

You can't even if you have a nuke.