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
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