Preventing Legislative Voter Fraud

     Is the legislative requirement of a photograph to vote fair law just because the stated intent is to prevent voter fraud?  Such laws may be fair law if they prevent more incidents of fraud than is the number of eligible voters they disqualify.  But denying 5 million, otherwise legitimate voters, the privilege of voting in order to possibly prevent 5 instances of fraud sends a loud message about the kinds of politicians Republican leaders and conservative voters are selecting and electing to govern their states.  And it may speak even more loudly about the people who continue to send and keep these politicians in office.  

     This kind of legislative "fraud" is wide open for the public to see, forcing otherwise fair-minded Christian people to rationalize its existence by somehow attributing political motives to President Obama, rather than to elected officials who are making the laws.  These lawmakers certainly can make no claim that the laws were intended to increase the likelihood that the politicians elected will represent as many of "We the people" as possible.  These laws trouble consciences of good people.

     These laws are better examples of both voter and election "fraud" than the fraud they claim they are trying to prevent.  Their intent is not to increase but to decrease voter participation.  If the purpose of these new photo identifications were as innocent and well-intended as some people would like to believe, providing voters with photos could be easily achieved by having a photo made of everyone who votes in the November election.  That way everyone one voting would have a photo for the next elections.  It would provide an incentive for more of "We the people" to come out to vote.  But that would defeat the Republican intention to disqualify as many likely Democratic voters as possible for the presidential and congressional elections.  This should lay to rest any attempts by good Americans to attribute good intentions to these political shenanigans.

     "We the people" are a strange--and for many--disturbing mix of people.  We are of different races, colors, creeds, religions, and levels of intelligence, integrity, wealth, education, morality, political sophistication, and compassion among others.  Like it or not, that's what and who "We" are.  Unfortunately, state legislatures apparently have a constitutional right to make laws that legalize such fraud to prevent other fraud.  Many of these legislators and governors feel they are doing their Christian duties, probably even after a word of prayer.

      But that is not all.  If politicians lying about opponents can be considered free speech, money to be speech, corporations to be people and now states passing legislation that deny large segments of the pollution of their rights to vote in the name of preventing voter fraud, then the legislatures, supported by the Supreme Court, can manufacture any reasons they choose to deny segments of the population of any rights they choose or declare constitutional rights to whomever or for whatever purposes legislatures and the Supreme Count choose.  Supreme Court majorities can become the dictators of national policies through state and national legislation.  One reason the word "socialism" is thrown out so much in reference to the agenda of President Obama very likely is the attempt to turn the people's attention away from the threat of judicial-legislative rule in America.  Those who are aware feel that the attempts being made to disenfranchise others will not happen to them. 

      But totalitarianism is not a respecter of color, race or religion.  Worldwide, there have been dictators who have persecuted people like themselves.  Dictators--and people with those intentions--do not announce their presence like wolves howling at night.  Rather, they are like wolves in sheep clothing.  Everybody has wished, at some time, that they had the authority to impose their will on others and fix what they perceive to need fixing with a plan which they believe would be a fix.   But for a few individuals, that wish becomes an obsession, and eventually that obsession a compulsion.

     "We the people" are changing.  A group of citizens representing several of America's ethnic groups have marched in opposition to these laws intended to deny the voting rights of people who might vote for Democrats in November.  But this is neither the Congress, the Supreme Court nor the economic state of America of the sixties.  People who had jobs and homes in the sixties are looking for reasons why that is no longer the case in 2012.  

     It is easy--and perhaps natural--for many of "We the people" who are without jobs to blame their unemployment on people who don't look like themselves or don't share their beliefs.  Adversities which once bound "We the people" together to somehow overcome and become more than before have become fertile ground for a  "divide and conquer" strategy by the politically and economically powerful to conquer and control everything and everybody.  The problem is that many Americans who have been conquered don't realize it, yet.

     It is naive to believe that with the moral fabric of the nation breaking down in all aspects of human endeavor and thought that even racism would not now safe to "come out of the closet."  If our once judiciously constrained society is freed of the shackles of civility and released from the imprisonment of ethical restraint, then a complete unraveling of the nation's perception of right and wrong cannot be far behind.  Money becoming speech and corporations becoming people were the beginning of "might makes right."   

     The American ruling class which feeds this transition needs a lead ruler,  and the Republican presidential candidates all seem to be worthy prospects for the position.  They say what they are going to do, as if they expect to be elected absolute monarch.       

     Legislation requiring photos and limiting days to vote restrict voting privileges of otherwise qualified Americans and injects greater voter fraud than it prevents, and gives authors of the scheme to rule more reasons to cheer--and the rest of us more reasons to fear.

     This year's presidential and legislative elections likely will be the most important since America's founding.  The people will either vote for more gridlock and solve none of the nation's serious problems, or they will turn the government over to either Democrats or Republicans.  Whatever the decision, the choice can be no better than the consciences of those voters whom these states will permit to make that decision, and no wiser than their realization of the consequences of their choice. 

     

Ronald

Email:  rcspoon@earthlink.net

Blog:  ronaldcspooner.blogspot.com

Twitter.com/@ronaldspooner

On Mandates and the Constitution

      One question that has speculators concluding that the Supreme Court will strike down Obamacare is seemingly the Democrates inability to answer the question: If the Congress and president can implement a mandate about health care, what kind of mandates can't they implement?  But that seems to be a question that the Justices would have to decide at such time that other requests for mandates are litigated before the Supreme Court.

      This particular instance of having a mandate should not imply that all legislative mandates would have equal merit.  Requiring all Americans to eat broccoli or exercise because each is good for the health of the nation does not rise to the same level of importance as every American's having access to affordable health care and allowing the nation to control the fastest growing component of its debt liabilities.   

     No one can make a creditable estimate of the effects that requiring everyone to eat broccoli or exercise would have on the national debt.  What cost would be incurred in trying to assure that every American ate broccoli and excise, while necessarily determining when and how often as they should?  How would these activities be monitored?  So the answer to conservative request for other mandates that the Congress and President would not be able to implement with constitutional justification should have been: mandates such as requiring Americans to exercise or eat broccoli.

      The fact that the Solicitor General often appeared not to have adequate answers to the justices questions did not mean that the justices did not have their own individual answers to their own questions--and questions of other Justices.  They presumably will not make decisions based either on the Solicitor Generals answers or on their own constitutional interpretations.  The Solicitor General's role, therefore, is to persuade the justices who may have already formed opinions that their thinking on the matter is somehow flawed, or that their opinions are not the only reasonable interpretation of the Constitution's position on an issue--in this case, of the health-care individual mandate.

      All Supreme Court Justices have been trained in the law, including Constitutional law.  They are not like a jury which a prosecutor and defense attorney are attempting to persuade with evidence and interpretations of evidence to which juries have not been exposed.  A jury also presumably has not made up its mind about a case for the very reason that they have not heard and studied the evidence in the context of opposing arguments.  

          The Supreme Court Justices have the results of attorney arguments and lower court rulings to augment and help shape their own deliberations and conclusions considering the pros and cons of the issue.   Arguments before the Supreme Court only provides further options to consider in shaping their final decisions.  Finally, there are the final ideas that the Justices will bounce off each other.  

     This may an occasion in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy will lead the Court to a 6 to 3 decision, upholding the health-care individual mandate.  It is also possible that the Court can be deadlocked with one conservative Justice not, in good conscience, being able to make constitutional distinctions between the options.  Obamacare could remain the law by default , because a neutral Justice votes to confirm its constitutionality.  On the other hand, it is hard to believe that a Supreme Court that considers money to be speech and corporations to be people can have the frames of mind to find this health-care mandate Constitutional.  

     I don't understand, though, how this issue of a health-care mandate has anything to do with conservatism or liberalism.  What's conservative or liberal about the individual mandate?  At one time, it was supported by Republican and conservative organizations.  How did the mandate become liberal simply because Democrats decided Republicans and conservatives had the right idea?  Even Republican candidate

     Even issues like "money being speech" and "corporations being people" should have been decided by a mixture of liberal and consecrative Justices.  Because  ideas are introduced by conservative or liberals politicians does not mean that the issue is ideological.  Some ideas reside in what amounts to "common ground."  Consequently, most issues should be decided by a mixture of liberal and conservative Justices

     Some of the lines that politicians draw in the sand should be circles that bind Americans together in recognition of and commitments to common interests, rather than drawing lines of separation that either imply or impose significance to ideological differences where such distinctions are really not factors. The Constitution is America's "common ground."  It is should never be considered an ideological instrument that must always elicit left-right divisions in its interpretation.

     But I have not heard of any questions the conservative justices asked the attorneys challenging the individual mandate.  Did their questions suggest reasons why these mandates should be constitutional, as they challenged attorneys supporting these mandates that they weren't?  It appears that a politically neutral  court would have asked such questions.

     The Constitution is neither conservative nor liberal.  No parts of its original intent can be classified as conservative or liberal such that ideological distinctions can be made between the components of the document.   However, the content, instead of providing "common ground" for political collaboration, has suddenly acquired  ideological labels, depending upon whether conservatives or liberals agree with the provisions or with laws which the provisions seem to support.

     Initially, Supreme Court Justices were selected for life-time terms in order to take political or other kinds of influences from replacing the better judgment of each Supreme Court justice.  Well, "other influences" have replaced that better judgment, as divided court decisions have come to be made, without exception, along ideological lines.  

     "Supreme" not longer mean the highest level of legal prudence but the highest level of ideological authority.

Email: rcspoon@earthlink.net

Blog: ronaldcspooner.blogspot.com

Twitter: Twitter.com/@ronaldspooner