http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/09/07/voterid0907.html

A Jimmy Carter appointed judge with common sense.  Who would have guessed?

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/09/07/voterid0907.html

A Jimmy Carter appointed judge with common sense.  Who would have guessed?


It sounds good until you realize what the motivations are.

Most people who lack driver licenses or other government-issued photo-ID tend to be poor, African-American, and/or elderly.  These people don't vote Republican. 

I would appreciate the argument for curbing "voter fraud" if that kind of voter fraud was a reality, not a canard.  You don't have thousands or even hundreds of people trying to vote multiple times.  I have seen no proof.

Sure, the state has to issue you a free ID card if you don't have one, but I've got a hunch they'll subject applicants to exhaustive background checks and then be real slooooow-like when it comes to getting the card to the applicant!

Poor folks move around a lot more than wealthier folks.  Thus, a voter from a low income demographic is much more likely to have an address that does not mach the address on his ID.  If they don't match, you can't vote!

You and I both know the Republican Party benefits when fewer people vote; the GOP also takes active measures to prevent Blacks from voting.  Let's not kid ourselves. 

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594
http://www.gregpalast.com/bbc-tv-reveals-new-florida-vote-scandalrepublican-caging-list/

I would appreciate the argument for curbing "voter fraud" if that kind of voter fraud was a reality, not a canard.  You don't have thousands or even hundreds of people trying to vote multiple times.  I have seen no proof.


One of the photo ID's main purposes is to keep illegal aliens from voting.  Now what do the democrats have against that?  I can't imagine....

I have seen no proof that requiring a free state-issued photo ID card somehow keeps blacks from voting, like Jesse Jackson claims.  What exactly makes it harder on blacks, or any other legal citizen minority, to get photo IDs?  I can see people who live in rural areas in the state having a harder time, but that is where a lot of the state's white population resides, not minorities.

One of the photo ID's main purposes is to keep illegal aliens from voting.  Now what do the democrats have against that?  I can't imagine....

I have seen no proof that requiring a free state-issued photo ID card somehow keeps blacks from voting, like Jesse Jackson claims.  What exactly makes it harder on blacks, or any other legal citizen minority, to get photo IDs?  I can see people who live in rural areas in the state having a harder time, but that is where a lot of the state's white population resides, not minorities.

Where is the evidence of the rash of illegal aliens voting?  If you were here illegally, would you take the chance of going to the polls?

"Hey, Manuel, let's go over near the town hall and the police station and tell everybody where we live!"

C'mon!  Gimme a break!

What exactly makes it harder on blacks, or any other legal citizen minority, to get photo IDs?

I just told you, once the state has that additional requirement, they can tie your right to vote up in bureaucracy for months or years!

What was wrong with a "literacy test"?  Yeah, shouldn't a citizen know a little bit about civics before he can vote?  Well, down in the Jim Crow South one "literacy test" for Blacks consisted of listing all the U.S. presidents from Washington forwards in chronological order.  And if perhchance the man succeeded: "OK, now count 'em back in reverse, boy!  Heh heh!"
::)
:P

This is not about illegal aliens.  This about Republicans caging the vote once again!  It's like I was just saying,

I think we have to do the same thing now in Quebec, show photo ID at the polls where before you didn't have to. You can believe good and well though that things like that are specifically employed to add an obstacle to the voting process. Last provincial election, you wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to get on the electors list. The last separatist government put as many obstacles as they could think of to prevent non-francophones from being able to vote easily because there are virtually no non-francophone separatists, and in the event of another referendum on separation, they wanted to deride as many of these sure No votes as possible. So they raised the residency requirement to 6 months for Canadian citizens born outside of Quebec, up from three months (which is the standard requirement in every province and even every American state) to make sure that newcomers from other provinces (sure to be federalists) couldn't vote. Also, if you live in region (that is, anywhere outside of the heavily anglo-populated areas of Montreal) getting your name on the electors list and getting a government-issued ID to present on voting day becomes a near Sisyphean task if you have trouble understanding the thick, regional Quebecker accents in French.

The Republicans aren't stupid. They'll do the same thing. Can't vote if you've been convicted  of a felony? WTF is that about? I can understand if you're serving a prison sentence, but if you're out of jail and living and working... what in the hell should keep you from being eligible to vote? Oh yeah, your bank balance and/or skin colour, I forgot...

I think we have to do the same thing now in Quebec, show photo ID at the polls where before you didn't have to. You can believe good and well though that things like that are specifically employed to add an obstacle to the voting process. Last provincial election, you wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to get on the electors list. The last separatist government put as many obstacles as they could think of to prevent non-francophones from being able to vote easily because there are virtually no non-francophone separatists, and in the event of another referendum on separation, they wanted to deride as many of these sure No votes as possible. So they raised the residency requirement to 6 months for Canadian citizens born outside of Quebec, up from three months (which is the standard requirement in every province and even every American state) to make sure that newcomers from other provinces (sure to be federalists) couldn't vote. Also, if you live in region (that is, anywhere outside of the heavily anglo-populated areas of Montreal) getting your name on the electors list and getting a government-issued ID to present on voting day becomes a near Sisyphean task if you have trouble understanding the thick, regional Quebecker accents in French.

The Republicans aren't stupid. They'll do the same thing. Can't vote if you've been convicted  of a felony? WTF is that about? I can understand if you're serving a prison sentence, but if you're out of jail and living and working... what in the hell should keep you from being eligible to vote? Oh yeah, your bank balance and/or skin colour, I forgot...


If the purpose of a prison sentence is justice and penitence, then the convict should have full rights as a citizen restored when he is released from prison.  In fact, it is in the best interest of society to have ex-cons feel like they belong.  If they are made permanent pariahs, what's the motivation for being a good citizen?

I sympathize with Quebec Francophones because they were treated as second-class citizens for a hundred years.  However, secession would result in a poor country dependent on the mercy of Canada and the U.S.  Just ask Newfoundland and Labrador.  Newfoundlound was its own country until 1949.

Newfoundland was its own country until 1949.


Long post warning:

You're sort of half right there. Newfoundland was a British Territory until 1907 when it gained Dominion status. Everything was fine until the Great Depression. When it hit and the war broke out, Newfoundland was no longer able to govern itself responsibly, and so in 1934 they asked London to once again take charge. They are one of the few countries to have ever 'given back' their independence once it had been gained. So from 1937 up until confederation with Canada in 1949, they were a British Dependency with the status of 'Dominion' in name only. After confederation with Canada, they've been quite a denigrated province economically speaking, although its inhabitants live a very high standard of living assured by federal transfer payments (one of the benefits of Provincehood). Some places just cannot be successful countries. Newfoundland tried and didn't even last 30 years.

Rant starts here:

As for Quebec Francophones, the only thing I sympathise with is their desire to keep the French language alive and relevant in North America. I'm 100% on that with them, and that's one of the many reasons why I'm not a sovereigntist. If Quebec thinks it's hard to promote the growth of the French language with all of the federal dollars dedicated to it, what do they think is going to happen if one day all that money disappeared? The answer, of course, is that they would still expect some sort of federal alimony for a few years after separation. My old French tutor (a man from southern France) used to tell me that Quebec wanted to divorce Canada but keep the same chequebook. He was absolutely right.

And, just in passing, I feel it a responsibility to remind people who buy Quebeckers' 'we were treated like scum' sob-story of a couple things. First, that the history of Quebec in this respect is just another story of class struggle. During that time, everyone was treated like second-class citizens unless they were rich, English or French. A poor English-Canadian and a Poor French-Canadian (two groups which made of 90% of the country's non-aboriginal population) were 100% equal in the eyes of the law. Both groups were controlled by their own wealthy elite. Quebec, since a few years after General Montcalm's dead body hit the Plains of Abraham, has evolved in step with the rest of British North America in the theatre of democratic reform and self-governance. That is to say that every bit of autonomy given to English Canada was given as well to French Canada. Quebeckers have been a self-governing people since 1791 with the creation of the Assemblée Nationale (which still exists today as our provincial parliament). Also, the British establishment bent over backwards to avoid rebellion in Quebec by ensuring from day one that the French Canadians of the province were allowed to retain the Catholic religion and the French Language and much of their French legal traditions. Now, tell me where the British ever did that anywhere else!

Secondly, the political power in Quebec has always been staunchly French and, until the 1960's, firmly entrenched in the French-Canadian Nationalist Catholic establishment. French-Quebeckers have only their own elite to blame for the biggest part of the injustices of yesteryear. Francophones were never legally inferior to Anglophones, never second-class citizens. It's the stigma of colonialisation combined with the cruel stranglehold the Right-wing, near-fascist Catholic Nationalist FRENCH-speaking government had over the population that made it seem as though they were inferior. Economically speaking, Quebec industry was dominated by Anglophones, but there were plenty of Francophone elites as well, who had no problem selling out their compatriots and keeping them blinded by the Catholic faith. The fact that they were part of a country called Canada only because their forefathers lost an important battle only made things seem worse, when in fact they were probably better than they would have been otherwise.

The past was rife with injustice in our part of the world (so is the present, but that's another thread). Quebec's insular attitude, which is systemic here and starts at the community level, doesn't allow them to see things beyond their borders clearly. And when you can't see things beyond your own borders clearly, you can't see things within your own borders clearly either. Like an adolescent, you see only yourself and think only of yourself. The typical Franco-Québécois knows about the cultural revolution of the 1960s in Quebec (La Révolution Tranquille, in fact it's all they ever talk about) but generally has no understanding that this movement was only a small arena of the exact same changes occurring in every corner of the Occident. At the subject of the first and second world wars, they can only talk about conscription of French-Canadians into the Canadian Army to go 'fight for Britain', ignoring completely the fact that A). they were defending their cultural motherland of France, and B). they were helping to save the entire world from the forces of tyranny and fascism. In fact, before Canada entered into WW2 and even during the war, Quebec's French elite admired the fascist regimes of people like Franco and Hitler (and why wouldn't they have been, they were already more than used to subduing their population for the sake of industry).

OK, I have to stop now, otherwise I'll just keep going. I tell you, I could write a book on this if only I had the patience to sort all this out coherently.

^ Interesting post, McD!  I enjoyed it.  You are a clear and succinct writer.
:)