The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Jonah Goldberg On Voter ID

Posted on | March 19, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Jonah Goldberg explores among the more egregious examples of Lefty doublethink:

Republicans across the country are pushing for voter I.D. laws. They want to limit the frequency and opportunities for voter fraud. Democrats claim, reasonably perhaps, that Republicans are making a bigger deal out of voter fraud than the evidence supports. Attorney General Eric Holder, who recently blocked Texas’ voter I.D. reforms, calls the movement a “solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Right or wrong, that’s a claim worth investigating and debating. But unfortunately, for whatever reason, that argument isn’t working as a political tool. So he and others ascribe racism to those who want to add voting to the long list of things that require a photo I.D. Everywhere you look or listen, you hear about the return of Jim Crow these days. Left-wing activist groups have started using the twitter hashtag #waronvoting. Al Sharpton has gotten all riled up. The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee has said that Republicans “want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.” Neo-segregation, it seems, is bursting out all over the place.
Never mind that there’s little evidence that photo I.D. requirements suppress turnout. Indeed, turnout in states has increased after requirements have been implemented (though I’m not one of those people who thinks turnout in and of itself is a good thing). In Indiana and Georgia, as the Wall Street Journal recently noted, lawsuits from the usual liberal legal chop shops were thrown out when they couldn’t produce a single person who’d actually been denied the right to vote by the I.D. rules. The upshot being that this bears no resemblance whatsoever to Jim Crow, which was about far more than just voting anyway. Oh, and don’t forget that the accusation of racism is a disgusting, gutter-level, smear designed to bully people where persuasion hasn’t even been tried.

Read the whole thing. There really isn’t much to add, except to wonder just how much of the Progressive decay of our society is already attributable to the Left tampering with elections. That’s sort of a cost-free speculation on my part, but the fundamental point is this: our elections have got to be strengthened. More people have to educate themselves and participate in politics. We cannot permit the Left to complete its demolition of our electoral system.

Update: much more at The Rio Norte Line and KatyPundit.

Category: Democrats

Comments

13 Responses to “Jonah Goldberg On Voter ID”

  1. A Rotting Fish | The Rio Norte Line
    March 19th, 2012 @ 11:20 am

    […] I keep linking to him but Smitty at The Other McCain but I do because he shares my somewhat rabid h…. 55.957870 -3.199357 Share this:FacebookEmailPrintRedditTwitterStumbleUponDiggLinkedInLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]

  2. Michael Smith
    March 19th, 2012 @ 11:23 am

    These “progressives/post-modernists are maddening to me because they never address the legitimacy of creating this Utopian virtual world where being right doesn’t matter. They never successfully address how the universal truths and natural laws of the world are wrong, they simply argue that we must ignore them. As I have written in the past, this is akin to an intellectual Ponzi scheme, building a tower upon a crumbling foundation of illegitimate ideas and relativist “truths”.
    Therein lies the problem with contemporary society in a nutshell.
    Modern man has convinced himself of his self-righteousness and superiority to God’s Nature, yet in every civilization there comes a time of collapse where mankind is taught once again that natural law is real and we must painfully re-learn that lesson. The greatest civilization known to man, the Roman Empire, learned that in 476 BC. I hope that through examination of the foolishness of the whole post-modernist/”progressive” movement, America can avoid that fate.

  3. William_Teach
    March 19th, 2012 @ 11:33 am

    It’s obvious that you hate dogs, cats, foreigners, and dead people, all of whom demand their right to vote, and by requiring ID, you’re interfering with those rights to vote for The One.

  4. Michael Smith
    March 19th, 2012 @ 12:19 pm

    I wouldn’t go that far. I kinda like the dead – at least the second half of season 2 of the Walking Dead didn’t suck…cats, however, are a different story.

  5. Charles
    March 19th, 2012 @ 12:57 pm

    Can we start using Jim Crow’s full name, please. It’s Jim Crow Democrat.

  6. Adjoran
    March 19th, 2012 @ 1:33 pm

    Obviously, voter ID eliminates some fraud  of the sort rumored every election day – like UW-Madison students being bused around to various polls, voting at each, or people voting for others who don’t intend to.  But I don’t think that’s the main reason Democrats get so virulent about opposing it.

    They are desperate to find “racism” somewhere – anywhere – so they can keep blacks in their party and motivated to vote for them, and nothing works like a good racism scare.  Without it, some blacks might begin to question their need to vote, and especially to vote for Democrats. 

    Professional Racism Hunter Mary Frances Berry (a/k/a Ultimate Beach Hoe) held Civil Rights Commission hearings in Florida after the 2000 election to investigate the alleged “widespread intimidation of minority voters” there.  Weeks of investigation and dozens of witnesses later, they were unable not only to prove anything, they couldn’t even get a single witness to give first-hand testimony of any intimidation.  Not one.

    They did have several who had “heard of” intimidation, including a drivers’ license check point set up “a few blocks” from a minority polling place.  Except that there were no such check points.

    But they have to keep banging the drum.

  7. Bob Belvedere
    March 19th, 2012 @ 1:51 pm

    Let’s see…I want a pet…mmm…do I (a) want one that is so stupid it will do whatever I tell it to do so I can (1) feel like a dictator in at least one part of my sorry life and (2) exercise my deep-seated totalitarianism, or do I (b) want one that is in possession of enough individuality that it will tell me to piss-off sometimes so that I’m reminded I ain’t all that… mmmm……

  8. K-Bob
    March 19th, 2012 @ 2:46 pm

     You are falling for the obvious ploy, then, which is designed to hide the real tactics involved.  Everyone who’s “in the know” is really working toward the deviously clever plan of requiring full cavity searches for those who wish to vote.

    We’re running into problems with it, though.  Some overenthusiastic leftist groups (you know who they are), after hearing of this requirement, have decided they prefer “the before-AND-after-voting cavity searches, to prove we aren’t being racial or anything.”

    Allowing for these sorts of setbacks, what this long-term strategy is designed to do is get them to fall for the ol’ “cavity search” thing, and then plead lack-of-funding, and walk them back to “only requiring IDs.”

    True, some of you might be made uncomfortable at the polls for a while, but it’s all in aid of “perfecting democracy.”

    (And my investment in “exam” glove manufacturing.)

  9. Monday Roundup 3/19/12 Back from Vacation and the TSA Needs to be Dismantled Edition
    March 19th, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

    […] Jonah Goldberg On Voter ID […]

  10. Quartermaster
    March 19th, 2012 @ 7:58 pm

    No. You want a Dog. Only idiots buy Cats.

  11. Bob Belvedere
    March 19th, 2012 @ 11:13 pm

    Chill.

  12. Bob Belvedere
    March 20th, 2012 @ 7:58 am

    And my investment in talcum powder.

  13. Bob Belvedere
    March 20th, 2012 @ 7:59 am

    [mutters under his breath as he fakes clearing his throat] There are five a’s in raaaaacism.