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Manchu wrote: I rule these boards with an iron fist. Go back to BandC from whence thou came!

Done and done. I'd have to say though if I were a mod I'd use violet to come across as gentle ans understanding, so people think I'm soft and then lay down the velvet ban hammer.

@Monster Rain: No, I get that. As I said, for your analysis to apply I would have had to claim that the law was specifically engineered to disenfranchise black people. Which I didn't.


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AustonT wrote:I'd have to say though if I were a mod I'd use violet to come across as gentle ans understanding

FWIW, that's why I used "friendly orange" instead of "you have awoken the dragon red."

Okay, then, it seems to me that you said what you said (to wit: supporting the law makes one racist) in a way that allows you to not have to take responsibility for it.

See what I did there?

Just to reiterate, the law looks really bad. It doesn't seem to address a problem that actually exists. And if that problem actually does exist, these laws don't even hypothetically address it. Voter ID Laws do seem to disproportionately affect poor people and, for that reason, black people.

Racist intent on the part of legislators is not required for a law to have racist implications. It's not even required for those implications to be utterly obvious.

The reason that I avoided saying that the lawmakers in these cases are racists is because I don't want to say that. I don't think that's the point. I don't think the point is that the laws' supporters are racists either and so I also didn't say that.

The point, to me, is that these laws are embarrassing. They undermine American credibility abroad and, apparently, also at home. I am embarrassed by them. I did say that. And I will also say that it embarrasses me that other Americans support them.

That is not the same thing as calling anyone a racist. If you fear that you might be called a racist for supporting this law, I think you should consider why that may be. Because that is very relevant to my point: if this is the sort of thing that looks bad then we really need to weigh it against what it actually does that is good.

As things stand, this just looks bad. The game of twisting my points into a personal insult doesn't address that.

Manchu wrote:

dogma wrote:Fine by me, but not most people, I imagine.

No more big government, thank you very much.

Yeah I know one federal ID agency run by the government would be more corrupt, less effective and somehow much much more expensive than the 50 Id agencies run by the different states. I'm not sure how.....but it would.

@Andrew1975: I'll go on being ironic by screaming something about the tenth amendment ... ah, who has the energy?

Manchu wrote:Just to reiterate, the law looks really bad. It doesn't seem to address a problem that actually exists. And if that problem actually does exist, these laws don't even hypothetically address it. Voter ID Laws do seem to disproportionately affect poor people and, for that reason, black people.

There's more poor white people than black people.

That's not relevant to anything that I've said.

Manchu wrote:That's not relevant to anything that I've said.

Isn't it?

If it disenfranchises the poor, and there's more poor whites than any other ethnic group, how does it hurt the black community specifically?

Because the issue isn't absolute numbers but rather proportions?

Can someone explain how a law requiring some form of Federal ID to vote is racist or biased against any given group?

The problem is that it looks racist because it disproportionately affects poor black people.

Also, I don't think we're talking about a law that requires federal ID.

How and why does it affect poor/blacks greater than any other group?

According to the census bureau, there's more poor white people than any other group.

Hell, I'm one of them.

Because a large percentage of poor blacks don't have state ID as a result of grave and complicated social inequalities.

Andrew1975 wrote:
Yeah I know one federal ID agency run by the government would be more corrupt, less effective and somehow much much more expensive than the 50 Id agencies run by the different states. I'm not sure how.....but it would.

I travel a lot, so I'm more sensitive to this than most, but I have had numerous problems dealing with clients due to certain places in certain states being unwilling to take out of state IDs, or even passports.

Monster Rain wrote:According to the census bureau, there's more poor white people than any other group.

And yet that still isn't what proportionate means in this case.

I'd really like to know why it's so bloody hard to get a damn ID. Texas apparently gives out FREE voter ID cards. Texas accepts several forms of ID other than driver's licenses.

I'm still struggling to understand why poor blacks are unable to get some form of ID.

In many (most?) states getting photo ID does actually cost money and take time. Poor people (and black people are disproportionately poor), college students, and the elderly are the folks most likely to lack the ID required by these laws. These laws make it harder for those people to vote, and impact them disproportionately.

As Manchu said (and as I said back on page 1) these laws are dumb. They don't actually give real protection against voter fraud, and voter fraud has not been shown to be a real issue or happening in any significant numbers.

So these are ineffective laws, addressing a virtually nonexistant problem, which have the effects of hurting the poor, black, elderly and college students, and make us look like jackasses in front of other countries, to whom we should serve as a model of how to do things right.

I am still trying to understand why it is so hard to go and get the ID if you want to vote.

Well, they might not actually harm black folks and the others you mentioned, Mannahnin. But the point is that they hypothetically could. Meanwhile, the could not even hypothetically address the problem they're aimed at, which is itself hypothetical.


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Amaya wrote:I am still trying to understand why it is so hard to go and get the ID if you want to vote.

The better question is why should you have to have an ID to vote?

Amaya wrote:Can someone explain how a law requiring some form of Federal ID to vote is racist or biased against any given group?

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/03/12/3804285/hasen-texas-voter-id-law-may-be.html

Why should you have an ID to drive, enter certain areas, or purchase alcohol or tobacco products?

Sounds to me like a great deal of crying about non issue. At the very least, requiring IDs can limit the number of illegal immigrants that vote, but illegals have a tendency to be minorities and minorities tend to vote for Democrats and Liberals...so I can see how they would be opposed to such laws.

Manchu wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:According to the census bureau, there's more poor white people than any other group.

And yet that still isn't what proportionate means in this case.

The number of poor whites is larger in proportion to poor blacks.


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Manchu wrote:The better question is why should you have to have an ID to vote?

To prove that you're eligible. Which is to say that, if voter fraud was a huge problem (is it, really?) that mitigating it in some way would probably be a good thing to do.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Amaya wrote:Can someone explain how a law requiring some form of Federal ID to vote is racist or biased against any given group?

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/03/12/3804285/hasen-texas-voter-id-law-may-be.html

Kilkrazy wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Amaya wrote:Can someone explain how a law requiring some form of Federal ID to vote is racist or biased against any given group?

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/03/12/3804285/hasen-texas-voter-id-law-may-be.html

It doesn't prove anything. Is there evidence that many Hispanics do not have IDs? If so, why do they not have IDs and why is it so difficult to go and get one?

Monster Rain wrote:The number of poor whites is larger in proportion to poor blacks.

That is not the proportion that matters. I'll save you some trouble. If you are white, you are less likely to be affected by this law than if you were black. If you are black, you are more likely to be affected by it than if you were white.

Monster Rain wrote:

Manchu wrote:The better question is why should you have to have an ID to vote?

To prove that you're eligible.

There is no issue with non-eligible people voting. Therefore there is no need to have an ID.

Manchu wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:The number of poor whites is larger in proportion to poor blacks.

That is not the proportion that matters. I'll save you some trouble. If you are white, you are less likely to be affected by this law than if you were black. If you are black, you are more likely to be affected by it than if you are white.

Are there any actual numbers on the percentage, by race, of who has an ID?

Manchu wrote:There is no issue with non-eligible people voting. Therefore there is no need to have an ID.

Right, but if it did become a problem I don't consider requiring ID to vote would be the end of democracy.

So even if it affects 4x as many whites it is racist because it affects a higher percentage of blacks?

Amaya wrote:So even if it affects 4x as many whites it is racist because it affects a higher percentage of blacks?

Rephrase that in terms of likelihood to be affected and you will have answered your own question.


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Monster Rain wrote:Are there any actual numbers on the percentage, by race, of who has an ID?

Well, we've actually been talking about who is poor. As to who has an ID, someone said earlier in the thread that 25% of all black people do not have ID. Ahtman looked into it and reported that while he could find that figure, he could not find any support for the figure.