Voter Suppression

I’ve decided to write today about the voter suppression campaign that is underway in several states.  If you aren’t already familiar with what’s happening, here’s the skinny: several states have changed, or are in the process of changing, their voting laws so that voters have to show a particular kind of ID at their polling center; sometimes they are now requiring a photo ID.  The stated rational of this is to eliminate voter fraud.  As I will explain below, this explanation doesn’t hold up to logical scrutiny.

The first question we have to ask ourselves is this: Is voter fraud a problem?  According to a nationwide study of election fraud since 2000 conducted by News21, it is not.  (News 21 is a program of the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.)

The study found that of all of the cases of voter fraud they investigated, they only found 10 cases of in-person impersonation fraud.  (That’s the only type of fraud that these voter ID laws would be able to stop.)  That’s it – only 10 cases.  That’s nationwide, since the year 2000.  The number is infinitesimal, and clearly does not create the need for new laws.  With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.

Now that we see that these new laws are not needed, the next question we have to ask ourselves is this: Why are certain states changing their voter laws, especially now?  Their motive can’t be that they think voter fraud is a legitimate problem, so they must have another motive.

First, let’s look at the states where this is happening.  In every one of them, the Republican Party controls the state legislature.  Second, let’s look at who these new laws are most likely to affect.  That’s simple; it’s anyone who doesn’t already have a photo ID.  That’s young people, old people, low income individuals, and minorities.  It just so happens that almost all of these groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates more often than they do for Republican ones.

The answer to why this is happening is simple: Republicans are trying to ensure that the Republican candidates on the ballot in these states win the election.  This isn’t just for President, but for the U.S. House and Senate, as well as state-wide races.  The Republicans are afraid they might lose some of these elections, and to try to ensure that that doesn’t happen, they want to stop people from voting who they feel are more likely to not vote for a Democrat.

Essentially, they are afraid that they won’t win the game if they play by the rules, so they’ve decided to cheat.

They are working to deny citizens of our country their constitutional right to cast a vote.  It’s the height of irony, not to mention hypocrisy, that a political party that claims to value the Constitution so much would so brazenly and obviously ignore it.  They have essentially decided that the Constitution is irrelevant.  What matters to them is winning elections, no matter the cost.

This is wrong; terribly, terribly wrong.  One of the foundations of our country is that every citizen be allowed a voice when deciding who our elected officials will be.  Our state governments should do whatever they reasonably can do to make it as easy as possible for people to vote, not harder.  If we truly value the system of government we have, that means we value the idea of all citizens having the ability to vote.  It is repulsive that a political party has decided to try to make it more difficult for people to vote, and then lie about why they are doing it.

Regardless of your political leanings, I hope you feel as disgusted by this as I do.  If you do, please do something.  Write a blog about it.  Post something on Facebook.  Talk to your friends and family.  Call your elected officials.  Don’t sit quietly while this is happening.  It shouldn’t matter that they might not vote for the same candidate that you would.  Denying someone the right to vote is wrong, period.

A Look at Objectivism

I’ve been hearing about Ayn Rand and Objectivism lately, especially as it relates to capitalism.  Since I knew very little about the philosophy, I decided to look into it.  I watched several video interviews of Ms. Rand that I found on YouTube, as well as read about the principals of her philosophy.  Here is a breakdown of those principals, as I understand them.

• Man should rely only on his rational mind to decide how to behave; not faith or emotion.
• Man should do what is in his own best interest, and not be ashamed of that.  In fact, it is man’s primary moral obligation is to achieve his own well-being, i.e. pursue his own happiness.
• Other ethical principals in which man should base his behavior are: rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride.
• The government has no right to collect taxes from citizens.  Any money that the government has should be given to it by its citizens on a voluntary basis.  It is wrong for a government to force people to pay taxes.
• The government should do nothing at all to interfere with capitalism.  Capitalism and the government should be totally separate, and not have anything to do with each other.  Therefore the government should make no regulation restricting what corporations can do.

I could talk about all of these points as they relate to mankind and societies in general, but I’m going to limit this blog to talking about how they relate to capitalism.

Like so many philosophies, this may sound good in theory, but simply wouldn’t work in reality.  I say this because in order for this philosophy to work, everyone would first have to use logic and reason when making decisions.  We know that all human beings do not do this, and will not do this.  So already to me, this philosophy is unrealistic. 

It also assumes that everyone must behave by following the moral & ethical principles that the philosophy lays down.  However, we know that it is not realistic to think that all men will do this.  Not everyone is going to be honest and behave with integrity, and it is completely naive to believe they will.  Some men will do what is in their own best interest, even if that means being dishonest and behaving with no integrity.

The same is true for corporations, since we know that the only reason for a corporation to exist is to make a profit.  Every decision a corporation makes is based on making a profit.  It cannot take honesty or integrity into account.  It has no morality.  This is simply the way a corporation is, based on its very design.  Therefore, a corporation cannot be expected to behave in any other way other than to do whatever will result in it making a profit (and as much of a profit as possible).

If we cannot expect corporations to behave with honesty and integrity (a.k.a. “do the right thing”) then we as people must be able to create rules that will force them to.  No government interference inherently means that followers of this philosophy believe that corporations will be able to police themselves.  This is idea is just as foolish as thinking individual men would be able to police themselves.

Let’s take a sports analogy.  Imagine a football game where there were no referees.  Let’s say the players have all agreed that they can police themselves, and therefore referees are not necessary.  All players agree that they won’t break the rules, and therefore there is no need for anyone to be there to enforce the rules.  Even if rules are broken, the players promise to admit when they violate the rules, and thus there is no need for referees to be there.  Can you imagine what chaos there would be at the game?  Do you believe that a player would admit it every time they committed a penalty?  In a close call, would a player admit it if they didn’t really catch the ball before it hit the ground?  Of course not.  They don’t do these things now, even with referees there.  Every time there was a close call, a player would say what was in the best interest of his team.  So, when a questionable situation arose, how would the game proceed?  It wouldn’t.  It would be chaos in a matter of moments, and come to a halt.  The idea that the game could be played with any sense of normalcy is completely unrealistic.

Now let’s go back to corporations.  To think that corporations would police themselves and always do the right thing is also completely unrealistic.  Corporations do things that are against the best interest of people all the time, and to combat this, people need to make rules saying that corporations cannot do this.  Imagine a world where there were no corporate regulations; where they could do anything they wanted.  Do you really think corporations would always do the right thing, if it didn’t coincide with them making as much profit as possible?  Of course they wouldn’t, and it is extremely naive to think they would.

I find it ironic that the main tenant of Objectivism is that man should use his rational mind to make decisions, when it is completely irrational to believe that corporations will behave with honor and integrity if men do not force them to.

For these reasons, I reject Objectivism’s view on capitalism.  When I use my rational mind to examine it, I see it is not realistic at all.

Agree?  Disagree?  I welcome your comments.  As always, please be respectful.

Welcome to the blog

I know what you’re probably thinking.  “Oh geez, not another political blog.”

Yes, it’s true.  But I do hope this will be something different.  My main goal in writing this blog is to look at issues involving politics, and examine them in a reasonable and rational way.  I feel that critical thinking is disappearing from our society, and I don’t believe that’s in the best interest of the country.  It seems to me that when making any decision, the best way to approach it would be to examine the situation with logic, reason, and facts, and then come to an informed conclusion.  That’s what I will try to do here.

I also hope this blog will create a discussion on the issues from many different people, which will be done in a civil and respectful manner.  Too often our politicians behave in disrespectful ways to one another, and the “pundits” on television far worse.  It does a great disservice to all of us who are trying to understand the issues in a meaningful way.  I hope this can be a place where people with different ideas can come and share those ideas using logic and reason.

I know this may be a difficult proposition, as politics can sometimes elicit very emotional responses from people.  However, I think if we all do our best to look at issues with logic and reason, and remove emotions from the equation, we have a much better chance to achieve real critical thinking.  Therefore, I ask everyone who chooses to comment here to make your points with logic, reason, and facts, and above all else, be respectful.  No name calling or demagoguery.

Some of you may wonder who the heck I am.  While I could give you a bunch of background on myself, I think the most important thing I can say is simply this: I’m just a guy trying to understand the issues as best I can, and come to an informed decision using facts and critical thinking.  I’m willing to approach an issue from all sides, and consider all viewpoints.

Here are a few pieces of information about me:

- I’m an American
- I'm registered to vote as an Independent

- I’m a business owner

- I believe We the People are sovereign in our government

- I believe all people should be treated equally under the law

- I believe in being honest, sincere, and in general doing the right thing

- I believe in treating people with kindness and respect

- I believe in personal responsibility

I hope you’ll come back from time to time and weigh in on the issues I’m discussing here.