I am starting to understand Voter Suppression
Last edited Sat Sep 15, 2012, 06:10 PM - Edit history (3)
Until this week I had not appreciated the degree to which many politically invested people honestly believe that fundamental human rights are provisional, based on whether they will be used "correctly" to advance an agenda.
There is no difference between disenfranchising voters who vote "wrong" and restricting the speech of people with "wrong" points of view. The two are equally wrong.
Millions of people who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 were performing an action with the intent and result of rewarding the immoral and unjustifiable murder of hundreds of thousands of people, and guaranteeing more of the same.
If we are so worried about people using their fundamental rights in ways that they can reasonably predict may sow violence and discord in the middle east... well, what better example could there possibly be than voting for Bush/Cheney?
If our rights are not fundamental then why not cut to the chase and forbid "wrong" voting? The Republicans do. They think rights are for people who agree with them.
Why do so many of us value voting rights intrinsically but expressive rights provisionally?
Note that when the Bill of Rights was ratified it was typical for only white male land-owners to have the right to vote, but the First Amendment does not say that Congress shall make no law infringing the right of white male landowners to publish and worship and assemble and petition their government.
Women were able to argue for the right to vote precisely because expressive rights are even more fundamental than the franchise!
So why is it possible for people to revere the sanctity of the franchise while considering expressive rights properly restricted to expression of agreeable sentiments? Democrats always do better with adults than registered voters, and with registered voters than actual voters. So more voting typically favors us. If that demographic reality were somehow reversed would we become the Voter Suppression Party, in pursuit of the greater good?
I do not value these rights of ours because Republicans oppose them. I oppose Republicans because I value these rights.
Of the two major parties, the Democratic Party has been, throughout my adult life, the superior custodian of what I hold (secularly) sacred.
But my vote goes, and will always go, to whoever has a chance of being elected that will better safeguard our expressive rights. I cannot imagine that not being the Democrats for at least as long as I am likely to live.
But if one of the parties was stupid on the economy and stupid on foreign policy, but a fierce guardian of expressive and reproductive and religious (including the right to be irreligious) and privacy rights they would still have my vote.
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