Posted on 10/12/2004 3:22:07 PM PDT by pabianice
That was priceless, one of those one in a million - once in a life time - things to come about. I doubt we'll see one as good as that again.
But, I will not misunderestimate Registered and my fellow FReepers.... we may well come up with another. Of course this is always a good standby...
There that's better.
You know, I really hate to say this, and I know it may be un-Christian of me. But unless they change in their lifetime, I'd love to see Peanut and the Rev.Jackson & Sharpton on their respective judgement days before the Lord.
Reminds me of the Bible passage, (I'm PARAPHRASING) not everyone who says "Lord! Lord!" will enter Heaven. They will come to Me and say that they did all of these works in My Name. But I will say get away from Me, hypocrites!
There has GOT to be something the FEC can do!
Require ultraviolet pens to mark voters hands so that they cant vote more than once!
Actually, yes.
The franchise has certainly never been universal, and I didn't mean to imply that it had been.
It isn't today. The mentally incompetent and, in some states, convicted felons are not permitted to vote. Some places even consider American citizenship to be a prerequisite for voting, political correctness notwithstanding.
A test at the polls, how interesting. Would you require this test to be taken over and over again, at every election, or would once per lifetime be enough?
Same as the naturalization process. Once.
Who would write the test? Who would administer it? Most importantly, who would grade it?
The INS gives a fairly comprehensive test to those who wish to become naturalized citizens.
So not only has the test already been written, but the mechanisms for administration (even under special circumstances such as lack of fluency in English or illiteracy) and grading are already in place. We might need to ramp up the capacity a little.
Perhaps we should institute literacy tests at the polls as well. Oh, silly me, we had those. We called it Jim Crow.
Stop strawmanning me.
I didn't propose that.
And I'm just old enough to remember some of that stuff from when I was a child.
Old times there are not forgotten but good riddance to bad ideas.
And before you start measuring me for a sheet and pillowcase with a pair of moth holes in it, my neighbors consist of: a family who fled the civil war in Sierra Leone on my left, Canadians on my right (they seem *almost* normal!), and an Iraqi across the street, all of whom are not only my neighbors, but good friends as well.
If the amount of taxes you pay is less than the total amount of money you receive from the government, then you don't vote. Period.
I went to college on an Army scholarship because I wanted to serve my country and my family couldn't afford to send me to college. I was commissioned in the Army as a second lieutenant of infantry and served five years on active duty. I got out of the Army and went to work in the private sector but found the work utterly unsatisfying. So, I chose to go back into government service (and yes, I do consider it government service).
I just finished an multi-year stint as a contractor with a federal agency.
I agree- there are many, many talented people who work for governments federal, state or local who work quite hard at what they do. AND I NEVER SAID THAT ALL GOVERNMENT WORKERS WERE LAZY.
Personally, I found the entire experience to be like trying to swim in Jello- the institutional and regulatory impediments to efficient action were, at times, almost enough to bring on an episode of banging one's head against a wall.
And there are folks who game the system. You know what I mean.
So, technically, I've been "suckling at the teat of government" for most of my adult life. Should I then be disenfranchised? Would you have our military, the very defenders of the freedoms we hold dear, not allowed to vote?
Okay, I will admit a bit of runaway rhetoric here.
And you know quite well that I was not referring to government employees or the military, or those who are physically or mentally incapable of putting in a day's work.
But heed the warning [I paraphrase] of Alexander Tyler:
If we reach the point in this country where fifty percent plus one are net recipients of taxpayer funds, then our system of government will collapse in a flurry of thinly disguised vote-buying (if it hasn't already.)
No thank you, my FRiend. I don't want to live in that America.
I await your counterproposal.
Regards.
It's going to be chaos, bet the rent. The allegations are going to fly.
Wait until 2014, when there are 45 million illegals aliens in our country. By then, our elections will be completely undermined.
From what I know of the Constitution as it applies to the Electoral College, the referendum is very legal, Constitutionally speaking as it allows for individual states to determine how the electors are distributed amongst the candidates.
Liberals and the Left have 2 rules:
Retroactively i.e. ex post facto? Such laws are prohibited to the States and Feds in Article I
Gee, I dunno, Davey.
The one thing this guarantees is that the votes the military casts will be declared invalid. Wrong version of ballot; no time to mail replacement ones.
People, at this point it Doesn't Matter It Will Happen. What matters is what we do to combat it. Whining and complaining IS NOT SUFFICIENT.
Please, volunteer.
It's like the war on terror. One side tries to play by rules, the other side has no rules.
Not sure this is true. Treason never gets prosecuted.
Today Carl Cameron (Fox) came right out and said that Kerry won the first two debates and if he wins the third it will be a first.
Leni
Of course that's the aspect of the whole thing that has everyone's ire. How can it be legally applied to this election? I was only commenting on the State's rights regarding the Electoral votes. I know I read somewhere recently that it was left a bit open ended by the framers.
Hugh Hewitt's book title: If It Isn't Close, They can't cheat. We have to be sure that the margin is so large that there is no dispute! Volunteer to help President Bush any way you can!
I wonder if we'll ever again see a concession speech on election eve . . . if Kerry loses, you know his lawyers will tell him not to concede . . . Algore set a horrible new precedent in this regard . . .
One of the points I considered making in my rather long post to Tragically Single was that there's a Gresham's Law-type of effect that's occurring.
Every vote cast illegally, not to mention every vote cast by the uninformed has the effect of diminishing the value of each vote that is cast legally by someone who is informed.
These are S.O.P. for the Dems. This has been going on for decades, probably centuries, in major urban centers.
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