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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, July 02, 2012
My favorite play in baseball is the second base steal. In the play, the base runner watches the pitch, and at just the right moment, he sprints toward second. The catcher snatches the pitch, springs up and rockets the ball to the second baseman who snags it and tries to tag the runner as he slides into the base. As the dust clears, all eyes are on the second base umpire who, in a split second, calls the runner safe or out. When the play is over, the players dust themselves off, and the game goes on.
Some on the field may disagree with the umpire’s call. However, the umpire’s decision is final, and arguing can get you ejected. To stay in the game, great teams simply adjust their strategy based on the umpire’s call.
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In short -- we're back to facilitating voter fraud... and in turn, back to the core idea that resistance to these laws is solely about a certain party and people of a certain ideological stripe wishing to enable people who predominantly vote in their direction to commit voter fraud.
See how helpful statements such as yours are? Not very.
I don't want to keep people from voting. But people have the right to one vote if they are eligible, not more than one.
It's easy to support things that affect other people, such as raising taxes on "the rich," but these voter ID laws affect every single voter. I doubt it was the wording that caused large percentages of minority groups to support laws that allegedly target them.
Except you do want to keep people from voting. Joe K and HW are honest about it, it is too bad you can't just own it. Oh well.
I said extra long lunch breaks in the part you didn't quote before you accused me of being disingenuous.
And, yes, I have indeed ridden city buses long distances.
You're right - I missed that. My bad. Not that "extra long" lunch breaks are much of an option for many people (even relatively well-off people), though.
I have asked you many questions - reasonable ones - and you never responded. But hey if you don't have an answer, not responding works.
And in the post you are accusing me of "Being a troll" I am purposefully copying your language* (I can get cites if you want). I will let your strong claims of not being a troll argue with your claim of my being a troll.
And hey, seriously, what is Libertarian thought on voting laws? State issue, Federal, what? I really am interested in what Libertarians think about it, because it is different than the normal three things Libertarians whine about and I want to hear what they say on something different.
* Which may make that statement a bit Trollish I admit. Doesn't make me a Troll though. Unless one post destroys all my prior work (and thus I share something with Joe Pos).
Pot. Kettle.
Except there is no appreciable voter fraud at the national level. And there's absolutely zero evidence that it has an electoral bias.
So besides that ...
Am I the pot or the kettle? I think I get to be the kettle, which frankly is way cooler than being just a pot.
And hey I admit I was a bit ... I'll say snarky. I bought Ray's argument long ago he wasn't a Troll, so I guess I have to disagree though (as much as I wanted to be the kettle).
And Dershowitz is right.
The special prosecutor first stated that her job was to "seek justice for Trayvon." No. Her job is to seek justice. Period. That does not happen when she commits perjury in an affidavit by leaving out crucial facts relating to Zimmerman's self defense claim (i.e., that Zimmerman's head was bloodied).
The prosecutor's job is not to prevent riots and it is not to railroad criminal defendants, no matter how contemptible the criminal defendant may be (and as I've said I think Zimmerman is contemptible for appointing himself mall cop and pursuing a kid with a freaking loaded weapon). The prosecutor shouldn't be overcharging (here, second degree murder is absurd), though of course they do this all the time.
You never answered my questions in this thread, but it didn't stop you from making non-responsive posts.
So... which one is you?
Yes, those are real issues and I care about them. Health care I've opined about. The voting is not really a fun issue, just some disgusting tactics that I hope doesn't influence a major election. Campaigning is one thing; depriving people of the right to vote is societal degradation.
I'm a little more concerned with the great sweep of history. We are not at the end of history. But we might be at the end of an epoch, the end of the Enlightenment or something like that. I don't really want to be Rome II, but we well could be. In that case the next move is a chaotic one. There are signs to me that we are headed that way.
Perhaps of more immediate import is the income distribution issues and the effect of mass computerization on the ecomony. I don't see those going all that well any time soon. Here is a case where all the signs point to increased concentration, increased power for a few. I regret the loss of some of our physical world - even 50 years ago people were far less dependent on devices. No one's prepared to go back to the farm any more. The economy just seems increasingly detached from reality. I guess it's like the fable of the bees, if you put up with the corruption you wind up with more materially in a large complex society than in the pure natural state. But at some point the hive gets too big, or too corrupt. Government and or business, it's all intertwined anyway.
That's one where the best solutions really have no voice. It would probably help if Americans worked fewer hours, but labor has no power so there is no bargaining towards that. Of course, if a generation or two grows up with 20 hour temp jobs the only option for many, people may adopt that lifestyle by default. If no one you know works a 40 hour week, maybe it feels like a lot more work. There's a market adjustment for you.
Which ones? Seriously I think I have and if not I apologize (and then answer them).
Jay Z - Ambitious post. I am not sure I can tackle the whole thing, but I will pick out a part if I may.
Yeah. Between computerization and globalization it seems to me that - absent governmental intervention - wealth will continue to concentrate in fewer (relatively) people's hands. Walmart makes very little on each transaction, but there are so many world wide that huge amounts of money and data flow to them.
It is not whether or not they "deserve it" - imo Deserve has nothing to do with it - but what is the impact of that kind of global wealth. Then you combine that with huge amounts of data and the ability to do something with that data and it is a bit worrisome.
But what to do about it? India (among many other nations) protects its retail industry. This limits Walmart in India, and protects the "mom-and-pop" stores, but at the cost of huge inefficiency. Is it better to have a more efficient economy that is Walmartized or a less efficient one? Even if it is better to have the more efficient one, what about the disruptive cost of moving from one state to the other?
Historically (in the long run) it is better to be more efficient, because pretty much everyone benefits (better to be poor in modern America than a King in 1800s Europe). But just because it was before does not mean it is better going forward. The road from there to here was pretty bumpy and just because we ended up here does not mean we were "destined to be here" and certainly not that it will always work that way.
The economic trends of the last few decades have been worrisome. The upper incomes have been "harvesting" a huge majority of the benefits of the increased efficiency and increased productivity, and if that continues then maybe less efficiency and more egalitarianism is a "better" way to go.
It is a really good topic to discuss, because there are a bunch of ways to go and things to discuss. Maybe too many, but still.
This point brought up an interesting wrinkle, I think. For instance, La Dernière is not a US citizen. But she has a valid driver's license and owns a home with a proper mailing address. She can register to vote if she likes; she'd be violating the law and in a good deal of trouble (deportation, ultimately?) if she did, but I bet it would be a while before they caught her, if ever. How does the photo ID law prevent her from committing fraud? Auditing the rolls, and cross-comparing them to things like jury-pool lists (where she's properly on record as refusing jury service because she's ineligible) prevents this hypothetical fraud, but the ID doesn't do a dang thing, on its own.
Interesting and you point out an important bit. The risk/reward of vote fraud (as opposed to election fraud) is very out of whack. In exchange for getting to vote extra times (which for any single person engaged in it) is of very limited utility (what do you gain?), but the punishment (risk) is pretty severe.
One could argue the rewards are increased through collective action and payments, but then the risks of getting caught go way up and charges of conspiracy enter into it.
Basically that is why there is no non-negligible vote fraud in the nation. And you are right the Voter ID is a solution, where it doesn't actually solve the problem and the problem isn't really there in the first place.
Sigh.
No one is "wishing to enable... voter fraud". The evidence says that to the extent it does happen at all, it's statistically insignificant.... and I still come back to the basic idea that individual voter fraud doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things - it's election fraud that matters. Given how enormously inefficient, difficult, and prone to detection even without photo IDs using ineligible voters/multiple-times-voting would be to accomplish election fraud, we're right back to the pointlessness of this endeavor unless your primary concern is less about fraud than it is erecting barriers to unfavorable demographics voting.
Says the man who calls Posnanski a liar.
with respect to Baseball- and only Baseball.
Of course from a political standpoint I am also OK with fighting against these measures (It does hurt my side after all) and also OK with the public branding of these measures (sauce for the goose and all that).
From a political science standpoint I think it is much more interesting. Many nations have compulsory voting, and it is a mixed bag which do and do not (and many that do, do not enforce it). How easy or even mandatory should voting be? I think there are credible arguments on all sides of the issue. I don't think there is one right way.
As I think about it I am becoming more in favor of more federal control over elections. We should have a national discussion about what kind of elections and rules around them we want and then implement them that way. I can see an argument for state control of many things, but what advantage is there for state control of election laws?
EDIT: BTW - That is the reason I asked for Libertarian views on this subject, I am looking for alternate view points because they help me clarify my thinking and often cause me to re-evaluate, especially on something like this that I have not spent a huge amount of time thinking through.
The trouble is that some of our resident libertarians have chosen to be dishonest on this subject for some reason.
I think some form of voter ID law is certainly appropriate, but I also think that what we have here is not a process whereby someone said, "gee, we have all sorts of problems, dead people voting, people with more than one residence voting more than once, non-citizens voting, we need to do something"
Instead you had a bunch of political operatives brainstorming on how to help their side, old tried and true tactics include targeted election mailings with the wrong date listed, targeted mailings with the wrong polling address listed, etc etc...
You have these operatives pouring over polls trying to discern how to separate "our" voters from "their" voters.
Our voters live in areas A, B and C? Maximise the get out the vote, hell arrange free car pools if that is what it takes
Their voters live in areas D, E and F? Hmmm, is it possible to close/move a polling or station or 2 (for budget reasons of course)... Lets' put up fliers (oops sorry about that typo)
But that stuff is chicken feed.
If poor people vote disproportionately for the other party- poll taxes are a great idea- oops they got banned.
Voter ID, the US is the only advanced industrial nation that has a significant chunk of the voting age populace without government photo ID- why? various reasons, distrust of government, the linkage between car ownership and government issued ID...
the poor vote D more than R, D voters are therefore more likely to vote D, disenfranchising non-drivers starts looking like a good idea...
And the best part, is that on the surface, requiring voter ID certainly seems reasonable does it not?
I do call him a liar, but as to the point at hand, presuming you're interested in discussing it as opposed to attempting to level irrelevant cheap shots (*), if you read my #2701 and what I was responding to, you'll see that my statement you quote above was tongue in cheek. It was the flip of the "oh my god this is all about voter suppression."
(*) So much for Dan's romantic notion that Johhny Sycophant is only interested in high level discussion.
I don't think there is a clear "libertarian view" on the subject. For me, it's an obligation, so it's inherently suspect, but on the other hand, it's a process that is itself part of government. You can't "get the government out of the election business."
I oppose voter ID laws because I strongly believe that:
1) they are a solution looking for a problem,
2) they don't really have a significant effect even for the purpose of solving that supposed problem,
3) it will be an obstacle to voting for a number of legitimate voters.
I see an ID requirement as a fairly trivial one because I already use a photo id regularly. That said, I've been in situations where I had to make several trips in order to renew my driver's license and it took a healthy chunk out of two days.
When I moved back to NY from MA, I waited about two hours to find out that there was an outstanding ticket (which I had paid, but had not been properly recorded in the computer). I then had to go to the courthouse in a different town, where I waited another hour or so to get a printed receipt confirming my payment. At this point, the DMV was closed, so I had to go back the next day, once again waiting about two hours to finish the job. That's not what happens every time, but it's far from a remote possibility.
Yes, that does happen frequently. I got a warning in 2007 driving through New Mexico (71 in a freaking 65) but it got recorded in the system as me owing... wait for it... $0... which I of course never paid, because you don't pay fines of $0 and I didn't even know about it anyway, but it created a whole issue where I had to spend hours on multiple days in the NY DMV clearing the New Mexico "fine" so I could renew my NY license. (I blame racism against Italians.)
So yes, there are always silly issues to deal with. But so what? That is no different from anything else. Poor people can deal with them just like non-poor people do. What the hell.
The Land of Entrapment. One of the most renowned speed trap states in the country. They still have posted speed limit fine ranges on signs on the state highways.
Every year friends and I take a road trip and every year we have our cop friend drive. Only been pulled over once and wow did the officer's attitude change when he realized another cop was driving. We got off (of course).
Sometimes it really makes me wonder if some of these folks actually vote or have registered --
Here in Illinois - the DMV will ask whenever I renew my license, my plates, change an address, etc if I want to register.... well and good.
The county board of elections sends out regular canvas cards to verify - if the cards get returned, the registration is stricken.
We don't have a photo ID -- but I can't just walk in and request a ballot... I have to provide my name and address; the poll worker looks it up in the precinct book, I sign for receipt of the ballot, they compare my signature to the original from my registration and give me my ballot.
Now - remember... I'm a Democrat in a blue state, living in a Democratic Chicago (and in a very blue district). I volunteer with my local ward. I've phone banked, door knocked, even driven people to the polls. I know my ward boss. In short - while I'm no big player or insider, I'm certainly known to be a reliable, solid Democrat.
However, in 2008 - I actually had to cast a provisional ballot. While I hadn't changed addresses - I had moved from a first floor to second floor apartment at the exact same address (it was a 3 flat, so I never bothered recording the apt #). Apparently, I missed a canvass card/a canvass card got returned and I forgot to verify my registration prior to the election. The poll worker actually knew me -- but she wasn't able to find me in the book...
Again - this is in a hardcore Democratic precinct that probably goes 95% Democratic. I'm a known Democrat.
If there was even "light" fraud happening -- wouldn't it have happened here? Wouldn't I have been just given a ballot?
It's just such a dishonest canard that it boggles my mind -- and especially coming from people who constantly bemoan unnecessary government and bureaucratic red tape.
I am interested in high level discussion... sometimes
But as I once posted, I'm really here to have fun.
masochist.
Ditto me, well and to be challenged/educated (but that IS fun).
It is, even in the political realm in which a lot of bullsh!t is treated as though it's caviar, the sheer transparent dishonesty at the foundation of this issue stands out. Give us a break.
I grew up on Long Island, there really are no speed "traps" on Long Island. I drove on the Island, I'd drive into NYC, no speed traps there (generally speaking it s physically impossible to "speed" on most roads at most times- though I once got a speeding ticket on the Grand Central- there a section where the limit goes from 55 to 45 for no apparent reason- and while reaching 55+ generally never happens on that road, it is possible on days where there are no accidents/pothole repairs going on for traffic flow to hit 50-55mph, so I was nailed for doing "53" in a 45 zone- and I was, but so was everyone else- the cop who got me wasn't so much lying in wait as simply matching speeds with random cars, pulling them over, ticketing them, and circling back around on the GC and nailing someone else...) But upstate New York, lordy, some of those small towns... but they are "nice" about it- the town justice's are more than willing t let a speeder plea "down"- speeding would carry a fine of X, but illegal "parking," would carry a fine of 2X
I'm sure quite a few people here can say why it might be a good idea to plea "down" to a higher fine...
People are entitled to one vote, if eligible, not more than one.
As well as the idea that you keep trotting this lame strawman out again and again.
From your place to Scores isn't that long. - ba-ZING -
Seriously, though, has anyone other than me ridden a Greyhound from Seattle to Miami?
Poor people can deal with them just like non-poor people do. What the hell.
Voter IDs is really not one of my issues, but your ignorance of reality is.
Tell me with a straight face that: 1.) It is just as easy for a 35/40-hour-a-week worker at the mall in Herald Square to take two hours to go to the DMV as it is for you. Go ahead, equate your lives and what you have to deal with that are just exactly the same. As long as we're at it, why don't you also 2.) tell me that the percentage of income lost by that trip is equal for the two of you.
Who is arguing this?
People already have to show ID to vote. The point of the legislation is to limit the kinds of ID so as to disenfranchise certain demographics. A gas bill with your address on it and your name, with your signature, is an ID. It's just the sort of ID that poor people might have, and the GOP wants to limit the number of poor people who vote.
With that said, if voter registration was federalized and whatever federal agency was in charge of that mailed out voter ID (with pictures!) and mail-in ballots to every citizen when they turned 18, I'd be much better with that than this obvious ploy by the GOP to suppress voter turnout that they don't like.
No one, of course. But staying in this robotic do-loop is Ray's way of avoiding acknowledgement of the obvious partisan political basis of the issue.
Can only speak for a few flyover states, but point systems are generally what the drivers care about, as that impacts insurance, keeping/losing your DL, and of all of the traffic matters I handled 99% of the drivers were aiming to get the points reduced and were indifferent as to the fines. If we would amend a citation 'downwards' to a nonmoving violation, or something with fewer 'points', it was taken. The fines in our jurisdiction didn't 'increase', but we never dropped the fines.
Acceptable compromise?
Works for me. And this avoids the whole "people can't take 2 hours off during the working day!" fiction.
It's inherent in your argument. What if I said that people should be allowed to pay income taxes on the honor system without showing copies of their W2 forms and such? Wouldn't you find that unacceptable? So why should people be able to vote on the honor system, without showing an ID?
You're not this stupid Ray.
People don't want to pay taxes.
People (generally) want to vote.
A lot of people cannot. It is not fiction.
Which neighborhood?
Who is arguing this? Specifics. Who? Is anyone arguing the side of more than one vote per person? Answer the specifics.
That's what's so aggravating.
Who said anything was exactly the same? I've worked plenty of low paying jobs - including summers in college where I worked sanding floors for near minimum wage. The regular full-time workers there absolutely could take off a couple hours during the work day if need be. It happened all the time. ALL THE TIME. As could the regular workers at any retail store I've ever worked at. Ever. Ever. Ev-ah. This argument is as absurd as absurd could be. It is utterly detached from reality.
I lose no income, as a salaried employee. But I also don't gain any income when I work nights and weekends while your preferred class of worker (a) either gets paid if he is working (sometimes overtime, depending) or (b) is home sitting in his underwear watching the ballgame.
How do you know who they are to give them an ID? Do you just believe what they say? Do they bring in a birth certificate....then why not just accept the birth certificate? Who pays for the tens of millions of dollars per state in ID machinery to outfit thousands of polling places that is used once every two years? In the abstract it's fine, but in reality, it's a big deal to solve a non-existant problem. For taht matter, what's the cost of giving people ID's? Setting Driver license scanning equipment, which some have as part of the Photo ID laws?
How about this? Show photo ID if you've got it. If you don't, have someone with ID vouch for you. If you don't have that, put a thumbprint on the register book, which can be scanned and examined for duplicates and other issues (felons voting). Having that as a record of your act should be enough to dissuade anyone sane from trying to vote twice or vote when they aren't allowed to, and the ink on your finger would discourage people from trying to vote illegally repeatedly. Cost of this proposal...99 cents per polling place for a stamp pad, if they don't already have one. Even that is excessive, I think, but it provides a way to track people who are breaking the law. If I was someone without ID, I'd rather not have my thumb inked, but I'd much rather do that than not vote or spend hours and money getting an ID I don't need.
I maintain that it is you who have no idea what you are talking about here, so I guess it's an impasse.
But I also don't gain any income when I work nights and weekends while your preferred class of worker (a) either gets paid if he is working (sometimes overtime, depending) or (b) is home sitting in his underwear watching the ballgame.
If this is some kind of plea for sympathy, I'd suggest trying something else.
Where was this work (your summer job) done, Ray?
And not zero. The goal from a statistical (and I think utilitarian and democratic -- not Democratic) perspective is to maximize the "1"s and the expense of the 0s and 2-20s. It practically a given that any restriction on voting (i.e. IDs) can only reduce turnout: i.e., increase the number of zeros (although I guess technically there could be a secondary effect where the LAW ITSELF inspires someone to vote that otherwise would not).
It is also practically a given that such restrictions can only reduce certain kinds of multiple votes (although again secondarily having some "security" in place for fraud strategy "A" might inspire or facility through laxity fraud strategy "B" - for example, forging IDs to vote)
The bottom line is that fraudulent votes are no worse than denied votes when the number of votes cast is large in proportion to both. So, in order to justify this law or any other fraud law you would have to make a good argument that Fraudulent votes stopped > True votes suppressed AND that this number was at least 0.1% or whatever the random statistical error is in a given election.
It's not really much different that over-enforcing welfare fraud or tax fraud. Since, from the government's (and hence tax payers') perspective there no utility difference between a dollar stolen by fraud and a dollar spent to stop fraud, you have to be damn sure your security dollars are spent efficiently. And in fact the ideal might be to simply ADVERTISE that you have some awesome security to discourage fraud. Let's say - those fancy backscatter xrays machines in Airports - maybe they are just placebos.
EDIT - I see Ray posed this in a similar way with his honor system W2s. The answer is, "Yes" of course there's nothing wrong with honor system W2s as long as the revenues stay the same (modulo the budget of the IRS). The IRS has a budget of $13B (proposed) for 2012. I would say as long as only $13B was underpaid (what's that ... 0.5% of tax receipts?) it would be fine.
I maintain that you should get your head out of a Daily Kos book and go watch the real world. Your position that a minimum wage worker can't take a couple hours off every several years is utterly bizarre.
The floor sanding work was here. The retail work was Filene's Basement in Framingham, MA. And the other odd jobs were in MA (e.g., Herman's Sporting Goods in Natick). These places were simply not run like chain gangs. What the F.
I've never even opened up Daily Kos, you simple blowhard. (Now that I think about it, what exactly is a "Daily Kos book"?)
And of course there's no such thing as CAN'T, it was my fault for falling into that trap by using that word.
But as you equated the process for you and the po'folk, it costs the poor people more money, more problems, and more political capital in the workplace. It is NOT THE SAME for you and they as you state so blithely in #2728, that was my whole point.
Oh, there is, however, a mechanical difference in voting vs. paying taxes (unless we are in the Democratic Republic of GoodFacia) - (legal) voting is binary and paying taxes is quantitative. So it's quite easy to steal 10% of your taxes due to the government by under reporting -- even with the $13B IRS Jackbooted Thug Patrol --, but quite hard to steal 100%. You cannot fradulently vote 1.1 times (and of course, why would you want to).
First off - I'm not in favor of a photo ID law.
With that said, who cares about cost? Those pushing for the registration laws don't care, and I think it can probably be done for less than you are claiming. As for who am I giving an ID? I personally would just make it an ID that was ONLY valid for voting. So whatever is needed to register in a district is good enough for a voting ID. But I assume that isn't good enough for those pushing for voter ID in the first place, so I'd make it a system set up to help folks get the necessary information required to get a photo ID. Cast a provisional ballot and produce the 'proper' identification later. Or, don't even worry about the 'provisional' part of it, and just help those who want to vote get a valid picture ID in time for the next election.
I'm sure they'll get over it, as they're busy reaping the benefits of the tax dollars people like me provide, as they get from the "social contract" more than they put in. Nothing is THE SAME, as (shocker!) everyone is different. The point is that a couple hours off of work every several years is utterly trivial and non-serious as an actual argument. But that won't stop people from making it.
1) Why should we create more silly issues for people to deal with? If we're going to add another layer of complication, with all of its attendant nuisances, there should be a compelling problem that such a layer will solve. I have yet to see a serious argument that voter fraud as it actually occurs (or even a realistic theoretical voter fraud) is such a problem that creates such a demand. (I'm open to such an argument, and willing to change my mind on the issue if presented with a compelling reason.)
2) Poor people don't deal with issues like this "just like" non-poor people. They pay a higher price. Is it such an obstacle that a person can't possibly get an ID? Of course not. Is it the sort of obstacle that takes someone who already has a more difficult life and makes it more difficult? Absolutely. Will some people who would otherwise vote decide not to because of the nuisance of obtaining a photo ID? Almost certainly.
Unlike you, apparently.
I have more respect for poor people than you do, apparently. According to you, getting a photo ID is a huge endeavor for them. This entire thread is a sad commentary of how progressives view poor people, of how condescending progressives are to them.
More evidence, albeit duplicative, that the United States has just completely lost its way. The society whose primary economic and social girders are finance, entertaiment, and gadgetry has proven, not surprisingly, to be an abject, degenerative failure.
Here's the "what the F."
Have you ever worked, or worked closely with anyone that you know of, in a "right to work" state?
I ask, not as some sort of gotcha or indictment of your work history, but because in my experience the habits and abilities of wage per hour workers to take off blocks of time in the middle of the day is significantly different in, say, Alabama or Georgia, than in MA or NY.
Or at a time when there was 9% unemployment?
And here I was thinking "good on the Longthreaders for not delving into rash politicization of that Aurora horror show until some vaguely useful details emerge, at least."
What other details you looking for?
Actually, you get more. Your ability to have a disproportionately high amount of resources is protected by the system.
I am also skeptical of what you really "give" to society in your chosen profession. Most of us do little more than facilitate some form of wealth transfer. Do you make the lives of your fellow citizens better? What do you build?
I've worked retail, I've practiced law, I've been in IT, and now I teach. On occasion, I've really felt like what I did actually represented a legitimate social good, but most of the time, I've been nothing more than a consumption drone like practically everyone else. Even now, I certainly help individuals, but I'm unsure whether my efforts are actually to the benefit of society as a whole. I'm fairly confident that I get more in services than I pay in taxes.
Wealth, unlike pee, trickles up. I'm not sure why you spend all your time hating on poor people for leeching off you, when your tax dollars, like mine, are in fact subsidizing the existence of people like Mitt Romney far more than they are the average CVS worker.
Heh. Try again. Read back - I never said huge, not once. I said "harder for them than for you" after you said it was no more difficult for poor people than non-poor people.
Any. #### happened last friggin' night. I think a week's moratorium on using it as a lever to catapult whatever personal flaming balls of poo we wish to launch into the air isn't unreasonable. Just because the internet exists and Reddit's providing a running timeline doesn't mean it's wise to comment on it outside of \"####'s ###### up and ####."
A'yup.
That was the gist of my remarks.
Well, "harder for them than for Ray," even if true, is not a constitutional standard, unfortunately for your argument. This is pettiness of the highest order. But I'm glad you agree that asking them to get an ID is not a huge endeavor. Discussion resolved.
My university's also giving us election day off this year.
And FWIW, a huge second to #2774.
Guess there must be something political going on with this on the blogosphere ... what is it? Is the guy political or something?
In the suburbs in a northeastern state.
Yeah, something like that could never happen in a healthy society like Norway or Finland.
Works for me.
Which Islamist sect* he belongs too, obviously. And which anti-depressants he was taking. And Mike Crudale.
Again, nice try. No. That was never your argument, nor was it mine. Your argument - see #2728 - was that it's the same hardship, the same endeavor for poor people as non-poor people, which is false. Until you admit that reality, you can stop patting yourself on the back.
I'v seen folks on the left talking about the racial makeup of the theater. I've seen people on the right attributing it to the decline of "faith" and the rise of atheism. I've seen Drudge link to stories outraged that a six year old was a the midnight showing of Batman. I've seen ABC suggest, unvetted, then walk back a notion that it was a "Tea Party" organizer or something.
*Nothing* good comes of any of that. No one knows a goddamned thing about it, and wise men would avoid talking about it as if they do. (This is not an indictment of you, though I seem to have misread your initial post up there as a sort of "the world is going to hell due to bad morality" talking point. In that regard, I apologize for the misreading.)
It's this sort of thinking that I absolutely cannot fathom... I know Ray has supposedly spent time on the other side of the median income line -- so have I.
Living poor sucks. It sucks that when I was either hopping turnstyles or begging quarters for a train ride to work, it was still costing me money every month just to have a banking account so I could cash my check without paying for access to my wages. I find it ironic and tragic that now that a balance fee would be nothing but a nuisance - I no longer face them. It sucks eating crappy fast food or similarly crappy ramen/etc that isn't good for you, but is the only thing that fits in your budget. And yes - it's not an insurmountable endeavor to get a photo ID, but it DOES come at a price.
It boggles my mind that people are so intent on punishing further, on making things more difficult for people that have plenty of difficulties without new ones being created. There was a solid 5 year period of my life where life alone felt like a punishment. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Screw the strawman about condescension or 'giving things away' to the poor -- I've been there. I worked hard while I was poor and I work hard now (in fact, I probably worked harder back in those days). There's nothing wrong with hard work - I encourage it... but this constant rijiggering of the maze, as if to see how much harder we can make life for the poor drives me friggin' crazy.
I don't condescend to the poor - I just object to making ordinary, everyday parts of life and normal participation in society more difficult than it has to be. I would prefer to remove difficulties that can be reasonably removed.
Going through such nonsense didn't make me more responsible, it didn't teach me the value of hard work, it didn't make me a better person -- it was just years of misery that in retrospect, I wish had been less miserable... Those years are in the past for me - but if a situation comes up where some small element of those obstacles can be reasonably eliminated from others who ARE still in that place, then WTF not?
That's not meant to trap anybody or give myself prestige or anything--it's purely informational. I'm not a believer in the idea that a person has to have experienced something to have any insight into it, and I don't equate my experiences as an adolescent and young adult who has since been fortunate enough to be able to graduate from college and subsequently sloth my way through 90% to date of a Ph.D. program with the experiences of someone who is a real, honest-to-goodness poor adult, working one or more thankless jobs with no end in sight (though it might be only a slight jest to suggest that I'll be one as soon as I graduate--there will be more and more of them who come to the position by less-traditional paths, shall we call them). But for what it's worth, as a person who actually has experienced significant physical, material hardship during my life, I find myself agreeing just as often with the conservatives on this site as with the liberals--about different things, certainly--and I just felt moved to say that in case it adds anything to the discussion (which I don't necessarily think it does; I just like the sound of my own voice). Edit: For example, I find myself agreeing with both Ray's point that some liberals seem to be talking down to poor people by generalizing about what they are able to do, would be willing to do, etc., and also with zonk's post immediately above. Of course, as he points out, he's not talking down to poor people. I don't mean, either, to imply that I think anyone's doing that intentionally.
What's especially ironic about all it -- and I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that we ought to just STFU -- these things almost always seem to boil down to anger... doesn't matter if it's a Beck listener on a mission to shoot up an environmental NfP or an OWS type planning a series of bombings for a NATO summit -- anger, anger, anger... so what do far too many people give us?
More reasons to get angry.
You had a car, didn't you?
Never quite reached that point --
During my lean years - on two separate occasions, I had eviction notices delivered to my roach-ridden studio in a bad neighborhood but in both cases, was able to scrape together just enough scratch through a combination of generosity, usurious lending, and pleading to stave it off.
I did go one winter without heat and also spent some months without electricity.
I completely recognize that you can find people that have been poor and come out of it believing in a conservative ideology, believing in a liberal ideology, or somewhere in between...
As I said above, for me personally, it's a situation I just wouldn't wish on anyone -- and while I don't expect to fix the world or make life peaches and cream for all the poor, and while I likewise think hard work is important, of paramount importance -- I just cannot fathom any attitude that doesn't look upon such situations with an eye towards "what silly little obstacles can I remove from your menu hardships so you can focus on getting over the major hurdles?"
For me at that time -- free public transit would have helped. Food stamps did help. Subsidized housing would have helped (I applied, but got nowhere).
From reading this sub-thread on voter ID, it seems more like a sad commentary on how some are either unable or unwilling to engage with reality, and also their abject hypocrisy when it comes to invoking the "big bad Government."
Others have said this already (Crosbybird among them, very succinctly), but it seems to need more repetition.
Generally, before we ask our government to spend tax dollars on a particular initiative, we should at least (a) identify the issue we're addressing; (b) confirm that it is a problem worthy of our attention; and, (c) confirm that the proposed initiative addresses the issue.
For example, the genesis of this thread was ACA/Healthcare.
ISSUE: There are people without health insurance.
PROBLEM: We might disagree that this is a problem, but the majority seemed to think so.
ADDRESSES ISSUE: Require people to get health insurance.
In the Voter ID context:
[PURPORTED] ISSUE: Voter Fraud is occurring on a noticeable/identifiable scale.
But the analysis short-circuits right there. Before we even get to whether "Voter ID" would address this "issue," we need to recognize there is no "there" there. There is no issue. As others have said *there is no voter fraud occurring on a noticeable/identifiable scale.* Does someone disagree with this?
Ray's rejoinder seems to be:
ISSUE: Each person is entitled to only one vote.
But again, the analysis short-circuits right there. Where is the evidence that a noticeable/identifiable group of people are getting more than the one vote to which they're entitled? The burden is on the proponent of the problem to demonstrate that it exists before the rest of us have to waste our tax money solving said problem, right?
And I find it laughable that the same individuals who cried bloody murder about the big bad Government forcing them to do this or do that seemingly have no problem with inventing another layer of government bureaucracy to alleviate a non-existent problem.
Is there someone with evidence that voter fraud on an individual scale is occurring? Please step forward if so. Then, and only then, can a discussion be had concerning whether Voter ID is the right solution.
It's a silly, righty distraction -- a cheapjack way to take potshots at the poor and hourly workers. Complete waste of time and mental energy.
I have spent the majority of my adult life purposefully avoiding a return to that state.
Fully agreed.
Abject hypocrisy indeed, that progressives are suddenly concerned about these things. If progressives truly cared about a, b, and c, we could slash tax revenue by 50% or more.
States presumably have an interest to count everyone (arguably cheat and over-count) because it means more representatives and federal dollars. You want to surpress vote, keep them off the census too and have it cost your state. Now for members of the Republican Syndicate, their fealty to that syndicate probably outweighs the interests of the state they purportedly represent, and they will still opt to repress. It's then the duty of the voters to move such people out of elected offices to prevent your state from losing representation and dollars to states who are allowing everyone to vote.
Just keep repeating the same things over and over, without actually engaging what was written.
The only way you can justify your team's policy is by making it about something other than it is.
No, Ray. Just, no. You're confusing "confirming that we should have a process by which we confirm the value of tax based projects" with "agreeing with Ray about what projects would be worthwhile."
I did go one winter without heat and also spent some months without electricity.
I've never been on that level. Once, I had to go to court to buy enough time to avoid an eviction but at the time I still had a car, health insurance (through COBRA, part of why I couldn't make my rent), internet access, etc.
The closest I've been to truly poor is living without health insurance and not being able to afford eating anything more expensive than ramen noodles or a bowl of pasta with sauce from a jar for a few meals each week. I slept on an air mattress in my living room (no bed, no couch) for about a month. It wasn't for very long, and I always knew that my family simply wouldn't let me be homeless, but it was enough to get a taste of some of the ways poor people get screwed invisibly. (I was charged monthly fees for failing to maintain a minimum balance. I couldn't afford to buy things in bulk because I couldn't scrape together enough money at one time.)
I don't pretend to REALLY understand what it's like to be poor, but I did get a sense of the worst part of all: the anxiety.
But you don't understand. The poor don't spend their days in anxiety driven depression trying to figure out how to keep a roof over their heads and the heat/AC running. They spend it dancing around because they're going to get tax credits in 9 months! Lucky duckies, the lot of them.
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