Partisan Politics Guide Voter ID Decision
William Murchison comments on the recent Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's voter ID law. He's for it, naturally. He says that reason and common sense guided the decision. But his column reads more like a partisan Republican campaign pitch than informed objective analysis.
He tells of using his credit card and being asked to show his driver's license and thinking nothing of it. He says, "Big deal. So what?" He doesn't point out that demanding that a shop owner let you take merchandise out of his store on credit is not a fundamental right, whereas voting is. Throwing up barriers to exercising a fundamental American right is a big deal to me, if it isn't to William Murchison.
If the state had a compelling reason for erecting barriers, the voter ID law might be justified. But Murchison doesn't even dispute the evidence that the "fake voter" problem is non-existent. Murchison argues that the state is justified in throwing up barriers to voting in anticipation of a problem.
Murchison argues that voter ID laws are nothing more than attempts to increase the trust in elections, "especially hotly disputed outcomes." Murchison emphasizes that counting "fake" votes decreases trust while pretending that turning away legitimate voters does not. Disenfranchisement, rather than instilling trust in the results, leads to even more heated dispute.
Those hotly disputed outcomes happen in close elections. If Republicans can turn away even a handful of legal Democratic voters, they can swing elections their way. Requiring voter ID will tend to turn away more poor and elderly voters than other blocks of voters. The poor and elderly tend to vote Democratic in higher percentages than other blocks of voters. It is not coincidence that voter ID laws favor Republicans and Republicans favor voter ID laws.
Voter ID laws do increase the chances of Republicans winning, even if only by a small percent. With the electorate as evenly divided as it is today, even a tiny percent can make all the difference. Reason and common sense tell us that.
My own comments would be as hypocritical as Murchison's if I didn't point out that Democratic opposition to voter ID laws is as much partisan politics as Republican support is. Even though neither party's motives are pure, it's what the Republicans are trying to do that poses the bigger threat to the Republic. The historic effect of declining voter registration and voting because of complicated voter registration regulations, literacy tests, poll taxes, etc., was real. Voter ID laws are just the latest incarnation of a long history of disenfranchisement. And that's the dirty little secret behind William Murchison's support for voter ID laws that Murchison doesn't want readers to know.
Obliterating Iran
Tod Robberson of The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, says Hillary Clinton made a colossal mistake by saying America would "be able to totally obliterate them" if Iran attacked Israel. She said this in a television interview expanding on her answer to a question in the Democratic debate in Philadelphia.
As usual, readers are all over the board telling us what Clinton really meant and what Barack Obama really meant. Few quote the candidates themselves. So, let's go to the tape from the recent Philadelphia debate: Obama:
"I think it is very important that Iran understands that an attack on Israel is an attack on our strongest ally in the region, one that we -- one whose security we consider paramount, and that -- that would be an act of aggression that we -- that I would -- that I would consider an attack that is unacceptable, and the United States would take appropriate action."Clinton:
"I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region."In my opinion, Clinton made two mistakes. One, she limited her options by committing to a particular course of action, massive retaliation. Madmen like Osama bin Laden know how to exploit politicians whose responses are entirely predictable. Two, she burdened America with the defense of, not only Israel, but unstable dictatorships like Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, etc., as well. Obama, on the other hand, stated his support of Israel without making either mistake.
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