Maybe you should read the Supreme Court opinion. But, essentially the State has an interest and duty to make sure that only eligible voters are voting. That getting a free ID is not that burdensome.

So if someone convinced you that older black people have a dis-proportionately harder time coming up with the proper documentation to get an ID, you'd be against voter ID laws right?

Sometimes they were just money,money that got charged to everyone regardless of race. Still racist?

What if I told you as part of this effort, republicans are also closing down DMV offices in largely black areas in an effort to make it more burdensome to get an ID? Would you not believe me? Not care? Other?

Also have you ever dealt with government agencies? It's the definition of burdensome. For some reason Social Security has my birthday wrong. 3 times to try get it changed, waited 1-2 hours each time, still no luck.

How did that compare to the respective %age of the electorate.

I am not in favor of them. I just do not think they are racist. I think the black Democrats who voted for them in Rhode Island did so for the same reasons as most republicans. Also think that pushing them has backfired against the Republicans.

Yes, although poor whites were also disenfranchised by these laws--not that anyone particularly cared about them either. These laws killed two birds with one stone, even if they were only aiming at the black one.

So weird those laws didn't address potential absentee voting fraud, where fraud would be more likely. Wonder why that is given the sanctity of vote concerns?

What would it take to convince you that they were racist?

Yup.

So anyways, as we've discussed 1000 times, given that Voting ID solves exactly no actual voter fraud issues and given that it disproportionately harms the poor, black, and elderly...like what exactly should we conclude? I guess you could go super hard to the paint and argue its not racist because it doesn't JUST seek to disnfranchise blacks but other groups, but not exactly saying much.

This kind of pleading doesn't happen with anything else. If someone says an animal is a duck because it walks and talks like one of you jump into the conversation and tell them that we can never know with compete epistemological certainty that it is a duck and so we should refrain from any conclusion about its duck-ness because that'd be guessing?

Look I get it. People should have a bit of slack or perhaps it should be said that they espouse racist views instead of saying they're racist because that essentializes them or whatever or we should refrain from labels to allow conversation, but as gets shown in this thread plenty of objective discussion happens about the actual matters of voter ID. It eventually boils down to people admitting it just for the moment that voter ID laws as they've been proposed are terrible ideas and then it revolves around if trying to pass laws that purposefully disenfranchises minorities is racist or merely a part of the political game because they're really wanting to disenfranchise Democrats, not minorities directly. (Hint: it's both)

More proof than it would take to convince Dave Chappelle that R Kelly is guilty.

There is no greater current blatant republican hypocrisy right now than the Voter ID law push. It immediately falls apart under about 15 seconds of scrutiny that an average 2nd-grader can easily follow.

I actually use it as my #1 example that humans make their opinions about emotion first, then reason. So far I haven't heard a single conservative except maybe grizy on this forum come out and admit that Voter ID laws are 100% about voter suppression and nothing else.

Why shouldn't people "magically appear" in threads about racism? Isn't that what we want, or is your idea of a good thread one where everyone sits around and agrees with each other? When posters like Duffee and Jibs, who anyone can see come from a large part of society who disagree on many funtamental aspects of your politics, arrive and volunteer their arguments, I would expect you to welcome them. Instead, at the first scent of their conservate ideals, the shyt show has already begun, and discussion is fruitless when every counterpoint is "racist."

It's almost like there are many here who have a mental block in this regard. They have been taught what is right, and anyone who questions their assumptions is racist, end of discussion and on to misrepresentation and trolling. It's why I keep chastising Wookie, because he should be better. Tim Russert was liberal, but he respected and welcomed conservatives onto his show. He did not hate them, or believe nonsense like Republicans are all racist. He understood that discussions between people with different ideals are important to how society learns and moves forward.

Which case, Crawford? First of all Crawford isn't a sweeping opinion on the idea of voter ID laws, but rather a decision on Indiana's specific law. There are a few reasons why that's important:

1. Indiana provides for free voter ID's for its residents. Many states do not. The fact that in many states you need to pay to obtain an ID treads dangerously close to a poll tax.

2. The plaintiffs put on a particularly bad case in Crawford. They were unable to procure any named plaintiffs who were harmed and, arguably, the case should have been dismissed based on standing.

This second point is particularly important when you consider that , Justice Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion, has specifically stated that he agrees with the dissenting opinion in Crawford. He was forced to vote with the majority because the facts presented didn't match up with the wider problems of voter ID. See: This quote.

The fact that Crawford is limited in scope is especially relevant given the wildly different fact patterns in many other states that have voter ID laws. Not only are the laws written differently, but their application is different as well. A constitutionally permissible law can quickly become unconstitutional when coupled with facts such as the closing of DMV's, limiting of voting hours, and limited voting locations in certain communities.

Basically, your citation to the Crawford case is the same as if I had cited to Schenck (the "clear and present danger" case) to show that the court said restrictions on free speech are completely cool. It's true, but only in very specific circumstances that don't occur all that often.

Oh good, another post destined to be moved to the BruceZ thread where it is on topic, great work Chez!

Imagine the whining from racists if the "don't complain about moderation" rule was actually enforced as written.

The fact that you either ignore or aren't able to understand the arguments posited by us non-racists is further proof that you're either disingenuous or simply dumb.

Your choice.

Lololol. "What would Tim Russert do?"

Actually I doubt there would be any whining because that would imply that the trolling rule were actually being enforced and therefore there would be no need to complain. Nice try though.

FoldN, Tim Russert would have drop-kicked you and your wandering circus of racist misanthropes all the way back to Macon county. I do wish the modding was a little less obtuse, but let's not pretend your thinly-veiled, disingenuous garbage is representative of the discourse among grown-ups.

If I popped into the sporting events forum to only post in threads about the Yankees and to disagree with those that think they're good, I think it would be a fair assumption to think I don't like the Yankees. I think a similar assumption is fair for people who only post in Politics to yell about how unfairly people are treated for being called racists.

I know you've already been told this by multiple people, but I'll add my name to the list. People in this forum don't get called racists for being conservative, they get called racists for saying racist things. If someone wants to disagree with my fundamental politics, please do. If that person uses language that's been carefully structured over the past 40 years to invoke racial fears and anxiety, and refuse to acknowledge that their language can be interpreted racially.... yeah, I'm going to assume that person is a racist.

Bolded is not entirely true. I have been called a racist in this forum more than once and I defy anyone to show me a quote that I have made that is racist.

Maybe I missed something.

Can he really be complaining about people discussing racism and related issues in this specially provided racism thread?

Next up on Meet The Press, we sit down with Cliven Bundy and John Lewis to discuss race in America.