Republicans Rounding Up Democrats in Texas

[Pre-Christian Persecuted People]

lol i fucking wish i lived in your world

Na bro, I would not wish that on anyone. There is a saying, truth is hell, heaven is lies. Although there is another saying, everyone lives in their own truth. You decide what suits you the most, not here to burst anyone's bubble or ego. The most intelligent would already know what I am talking about and that is all that matters. I don't even need a reaction from them

I will only say this bro, since you believe so much in the official versions, even if one goes back in time to confirm that whatever they said not happened indeed happened, you will never accept it and if you are forced to accept anything not believed by you, as you lack mental and spiritual strength due to years of experiments, a few of which they admitted, I think you or most of the population can harm themselves and I would not want that on anyone.

So bro, enjoy living the happy life and call the "others" conspiracy nut or whatever funny words you have for them.

[The Reformed American Republic]

USA has committed suicide as a nation. Every single person not corrupted knows what happened in the election 2020 and these guys, in their complete hatred for Trump, got help from China and Iran and are yet to realize the irreversible damage they did to this country just to dislodge him. I mean, cant you lot have waited for 4 more years? Media, even the army and many institutions belongs to you. Republicans do not really control anything.

Within a few years, we will see the tyranny of China in full scale and USA would be weak to stop any of it. Even now Democrats are playing idiotic games. Ah well, when the barbarians invaded the land of Zoroastrians, the first to be beheaded were the priestly class who betrayed the Zoroastrian king.

We will all witness the outcome of USA within the few years. Such a tragedy.

Trump did himself in for mismanaging a pandemic.

[San Lumen]

USA has committed suicide as a nation. Every single person not corrupted knows what happened in the election 2020 and these guys, in their complete hatred for Trump, got help from China and Iran and are yet to realize the irreversible damage they did to this country just to dislodge him. I mean, cant you lot have waited for 4 more years? Media, even the army and many institutions belongs to you. Republicans do not really control anything.

Within a few years, we will see the tyranny of China in full scale and USA would be weak to stop any of it. Even now Democrats are playing idiotic games. Ah well, when the barbarians invaded the land of Zoroastrians, the first to be beheaded were the priestly class who betrayed the Zoroastrian king.

We will all witness the outcome of USA within the few years. Such a tragedy.

Amazing. Everything you said it that statement is wrong.

[Pre-Christian Persecuted People]

USA has committed suicide as a nation. Every single person not corrupted knows what happened in the election 2020 and these guys, in their complete hatred for Trump, got help from China and Iran and are yet to realize the irreversible damage they did to this country just to dislodge him. I mean, cant you lot have waited for 4 more years? Media, even the army and many institutions belongs to you. Republicans do not really control anything.

Within a few years, we will see the tyranny of China in full scale and USA would be weak to stop any of it. Even now Democrats are playing idiotic games. Ah well, when the barbarians invaded the land of Zoroastrians, the first to be beheaded were the priestly class who betrayed the Zoroastrian king.

We will all witness the outcome of USA within the few years. Such a tragedy.

Trump did himself in for mismanaging a pandemic.

Most of the guys working under Trump are working under current regime as well. What has changed except for "free media" gushing out excessive love towards the current regime while abusing a person removed from power? Another wave will be coming soon, even the vaccines for which the credit was stolen doesnt seem to work. Deaths are still happening. 15k = 20k cases everyday continuously and that too would probably be under reporting. Has anything changed except for media management? See this is why sometimes I get frustrated with a few people. Is common sense really that rare?

[Pre-Christian Persecuted People]

USA has committed suicide as a nation. Every single person not corrupted knows what happened in the election 2020 and these guys, in their complete hatred for Trump, got help from China and Iran and are yet to realize the irreversible damage they did to this country just to dislodge him. I mean, cant you lot have waited for 4 more years? Media, even the army and many institutions belongs to you. Republicans do not really control anything.

Within a few years, we will see the tyranny of China in full scale and USA would be weak to stop any of it. Even now Democrats are playing idiotic games. Ah well, when the barbarians invaded the land of Zoroastrians, the first to be beheaded were the priestly class who betrayed the Zoroastrian king.

We will all witness the outcome of USA within the few years. Such a tragedy.

Amazing. Everything you said it that statement is wrong.

Okay bro, you live in your reality so ofcourse it is wrong, no matter what one can do, you will never be convinced so be happy.

[Proctopeo]

Much like when Republicans did something similar in Oregon a while back, I can't help but approve.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Trump did himself in for mismanaging a pandemic.

Most of the guys working under Trump are working under current regime as well. What has changed except for "free media" gushing out excessive love towards the current regime while abusing a person removed from power? Another wave will be coming soon, even the vaccines for which the credit was stolen doesnt seem to work. Deaths are still happening. 15k = 20k cases everyday continuously and that too would probably be under reporting. Has anything changed except for media management? See this is why sometimes I get frustrated with a few people. Is common sense really that rare?

No, it's that people see through Trump and what he is. A conman, and while he did get the vaccine ball rolling that was after acting slowly in response to the pandemic and his attempts to divide the population during it, as well as his witless medical "advice." I don't get why or what you guys love about this man, but to those who do not embrace the personality cult, it is pretty obvious that he is bad.

[Pre-Christian Persecuted People]

Most of the guys working under Trump are working under current regime as well. What has changed except for "free media" gushing out excessive love towards the current regime while abusing a person removed from power? Another wave will be coming soon, even the vaccines for which the credit was stolen doesnt seem to work. Deaths are still happening. 15k = 20k cases everyday continuously and that too would probably be under reporting. Has anything changed except for media management? See this is why sometimes I get frustrated with a few people. Is common sense really that rare?

No, it's that people see through Trump and what he is. A conman, and while he did get the vaccine ball rolling that was after acting slowly in response to the pandemic and his attempts to divide the population during it, as well as his witless medical "advice." I don't get why or what you guys love about this man, but to those who do not embrace the personality cult, it is pretty obvious that he is bad.

You sound very familiar. Anyways, it is not like I or even others can do anything or change what happens, so I am not a threat to you or the regime you support or maybe a part of? But those currently in power do not realize what they have done. Supporting China and Iran at the cost of dislodging Trump like the way it was done and not in a fair manner will have catastrophic consequences. I think the billionares / trillionares have not realized it yet, which will become a tragedy to your country as a whole. Even now, while trying to destabilize other right wing governments, they are oblivious of what is happening in their own country. Hope they take notice of their country as soon as possible. At least misery might reduce some bit.

[Farnhamia]

No, it's that people see through Trump and what he is. A conman, and while he did get the vaccine ball rolling that was after acting slowly in response to the pandemic and his attempts to divide the population during it, as well as his witless medical "advice." I don't get why or what you guys love about this man, but to those who do not embrace the personality cult, it is pretty obvious that he is bad.

You sound very familiar. Anyways, it is not like I or even others can do anything or change what happens, so I am not a threat to you or the regime you support or maybe a part of? But those currently in power do not realize what they have done. Supporting China and Iran at the cost of dislodging Trump like the way it was done and not in a fair manner will have catastrophic consequences. I think the billionares / trillionares have not realized it yet, which will become a tragedy to your country as a whole. Even now, while trying to destabilize other right wing governments, they are oblivious of what is happening in their own country. Hope they take notice of their country as soon as possible. At least misery might reduce some bit.

How about taking this to the American Politics thread? This one is about a specific situation unfolding in Texas.

[The Reformed American Republic]

You sound very familiar. Anyways, it is not like I or even others can do anything or change what happens, so I am not a threat to you or the regime you support or maybe a part of? But those currently in power do not realize what they have done. Supporting China and Iran at the cost of dislodging Trump like the way it was done and not in a fair manner will have catastrophic consequences. I think the billionares / trillionares have not realized it yet, which will become a tragedy to your country as a whole. Even now, while trying to destabilize other right wing governments, they are oblivious of what is happening in their own country. Hope they take notice of their country as soon as possible. At least misery might reduce some bit.

How about taking this to the American Politics thread? This one is about a specific situation unfolding in Texas.

To be honest, I thought this was the APT.

[Thermodolia]

...No it won't, lol. That's the point of breaking quorum.

It will when they're arrested, dragged into the chamber and forced to do their job.

They are doing their jobs. Which is representing the people who elected them

[Thermodolia]

That study is 20 years old and gave a range of 20,000-30,000, which puts Walmart on the low end of drug dealing.

Drug dealers also don't get annual raises or promotions. And walamart comes with a much less risk of being shot, or having every penny you've earned seized through civil asset forfeiture. But hey, if somebody values that extra 230 a month on the high end of average that they're willing to risk being killed by random gangbanger x that's on them.

Or maybe we should pay people more so they don’t go thinking that literal crime would be better to lift them out of poverty than a job

[Thermodolia]

You cannot do that. One cannot be declared missing or legally dead if their whereabouts are known.

Are their whereabouts known? They're not where they're legally required to be and can't be found by the authorities. Clearly they've gone missing. Probably eaten by sharks or something.

If I move out into the middle of nowhere and stop talking to people I haven’t gone missing.

[New Rogernomics]

Are their whereabouts known? They're not where they're legally required to be and can't be found by the authorities. Clearly they've gone missing. Probably eaten by sharks or something.

If I move out into the middle of nowhere and stop talking to people I haven’t gone missing.

Pretty sure the Democrats have gone, and the Republicans are bad at where's Wally/Waldo and Guess Who. When they return to Texas is anyone's guess.

[Page]

You cannot do that. One cannot be declared missing or legally dead if their whereabouts are known.

Are their whereabouts known? They're not where they're legally required to be and can't be found by the authorities. Clearly they've gone missing. Probably eaten by sharks or something.

If they were going to have legislators declared legally missing or dead, it wouldn't be very difficult for the legislators to upload a "nope, still alive" video. They wouldn't even have to hide their location because the Texas Republicans' round-up can't cross state lines. They could camp one meter from the state border if they wanted. Actually, that would be really funny.

[Forsher]

Are their whereabouts known? They're not where they're legally required to be and can't be found by the authorities. Clearly they've gone missing. Probably eaten by sharks or something.

If they were going to have legislators declared legally missing or dead, it wouldn't be very difficult for the legislators to upload a "nope, still alive" video. They wouldn't even have to hide their location because the Texas Republicans' round-up can't cross state lines. They could camp one meter from the state border if they wanted. Actually, that would be really funny.

"Welcome to the Republic of Democratic Texas, location 1m from normal Texas."

[Myrensis]

That study is 20 years old and gave a range of 20,000-30,000, which puts Walmart on the low end of drug dealing.

Drug dealers also don't get annual raises or promotions. And walamart comes with a much less risk of being shot, or having every penny you've earned seized through civil asset forfeiture. But hey, if somebody values that extra 230 a month on the high end of average that they're willing to risk being killed by random gangbanger x that's on them.

If you're going to use a 20 year old study, you should be using Wal-Marts wages from the same period, which were about $8.23 for a sales clerk, or less than 14k a year.

So yeah, people might decide that, whatever the risks, pulling in an extra 6-16 thousand dollars a year was better than working a menial job with minimal benefits that doesn't pay you enough to live anyway.

[Thermodolia]

Are their whereabouts known? They're not where they're legally required to be and can't be found by the authorities. Clearly they've gone missing. Probably eaten by sharks or something.

If they were going to have legislators declared legally missing or dead, it wouldn't be very difficult for the legislators to upload a "nope, still alive" video. They wouldn't even have to hide their location because the Texas Republicans' round-up can't cross state lines. They could camp one meter from the state border if they wanted. Actually, that would be really funny.

They’d have to do that in New Mexico though as the other states that border Texas would gladly extradite the democrats

[Ifreann]

If they were going to have legislators declared legally missing or dead, it wouldn't be very difficult for the legislators to upload a "nope, still alive" video. They wouldn't even have to hide their location because the Texas Republicans' round-up can't cross state lines. They could camp one meter from the state border if they wanted. Actually, that would be really funny.

They’d have to do that in New Mexico though as the other states that border Texas would gladly extradite the democrats

Do it off the coast.

[Thermodolia]

They’d have to do that in New Mexico though as the other states that border Texas would gladly extradite the democrats

Do it off the coast.

Oh good idea. You could call it the Texas Freedom Barge too

[Ifreann]

Do it off the coast.

Oh good idea. You could call it the Texas Freedom Barge too

Getting drunk on the ol' Freedom Barge.

[Fahran]

Which is not what I was getting at, as the issue I was getting at involves people not even getting to prison, and escaping it entirely through community service and fines, while an African American or poor white person would be punished to the full extent of the law and get no special treatment, spending their lives in prison.

The most disgusting example was where a judge who agreed with the logic of a rich father connected to the education institution, who said his son "just wanted a piece of action", after his son raped an unconscious female student. The judge was biased due to his ties to that same education institution, and was recalled, but the fact that a judge like that was allowed to exist at all, and rule in the case according to his personal bias, brings the integrity of the justice system into question. The rapist walked free, while the victim suffers from the rape and the knowledge that the justice system fails women when they need it the most.

More recently DNA evidence prevents many of the most incompetent career advancing prosecutiors from wrongful identifications and thus wrongful convictions, though they still exist.

Again, the fact that many guilty persons do not receive justice does not preclude us from visiting justice upon others we know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, to be guilty. It's exceedingly difficult to convict someone of rape or murder - even in spite of plea bargains and various other mechanisms employed by the criminal justice system to make the job of prosecutors easier. The standard, if it goes to trial, is beyond a reasonable doubt. And people get off all the time. Additionally, while some people have been wrongly convicted, largely due to poverty and systemic problems, we should not operate under the assumption that people convicted of serious felonies are all wrongly convicted. In point of fact, most of them aren't. When the exception pops up, we should be ready to make amends to persons, but, no, we shouldn't go around assuming convicted rapists and murderers are just as virtuous as other citizens. That dramatically overstates the degree to which our criminal justice system is embroiled in problems and likely would prevent us from engaging in conventional justice on any level whatsoever as a society.

That wasn't what I was getting at there. I was instead getting at that around 90-97% of criminal convictions are plea bargains, and that if you are talking about murder or rape at the extreme, depending on the state they won't ever be released if the full sentence was reached. This is why those released on such an extreme crime would be those where a plea agreement could be applied. It would be also incorrect to infer that criminals convicted of murder or rape cannot be found innocent and then released, or that a conviction cannot be obtained for the wrong person, while the actual criminal stays free, but evidence obtained at the time made them the most likely suspect.

That's not really relevant to the operating assumption that we have to rely on to function as a society, namely that most people who get convicted of serious crimes were in fact guilty of those crimes. If we throw that assumption out the window, we become functionally incapable of engaging in justice. We should treat issues of wrongful convictions as exceptions rather than as the rule, and, in point of fact, we pretty much already do that.

The problem is that many states characterize all criminals as equally deserving of a revocation of voting rights, in ignorance of the circumstances of that conviction, as is true of the blanket ban in Florida, which targets poor criminals, mostly African Americans who cannot hope to pay back the state to get their voting rights back. That's where the racial targeting comes in, as those voters at least in the eyes of the Republicans who control the state, would be mostly Democrats, and that since Republicans have been so opposed to them regaining the right to vote, they wouldn't be entirely wrong there. Effectively the Republican legislature and Governor refused to carry out the referendum passed by voters, as they'd risk more being out of a job. So it is a very dishonest debate with dishonest reasons IMO, which border on a political power grab and greed at best, and racism at worst.

You usually get voting rights stripped for committing felonies. Felonies can include murder, aggravated assault or aggravated battery, abuse of a child, burglary, battery on a law enforcement officer or firefighter, possession of a controlled substance (other than marijuana), kidnapping, grand theft, stalking, incest, carjacking, resisting an officer with violence, sex crimes, drug trafficking, robbery, and carrying a concealed weapon. Some of those absolutely shouldn't be crimes and some shouldn't be felonies. That said, the majority of these absolutely warrant you losing your freedom and your right to vote. It's not simply a matter of people living in poverty. Lots of people manage to live in poverty and not murder someone or abuse a child. These aren't super high moral bars that black people are intrinsically incapable of reaching. They're the bare minimum for living in a functional society.

Again, while there's a conversation to be had about how the criminal justice system is structured against the impoverished, black and Latino people, and men, we can have that conversation without insinuating that banning serious felons from voting is somehow predicated on banning black people from voting. In point of fact, Florida is actually one of the more moderate states on the issue. And, even in Florida, we're talking about a number of voters in the tens of thousands who become eligible when we reinstitute the right to vote for felons. I'm not especially keen on that right being contingent on fines or fees, as it is in Florida, though since that resembles a poll tax and rather betrays my entire point in arguing that, maybe, serious felons shouldn't be trusted 100% to uphold the public welfare.

That's why I'd be hesitant to trust even the assumption that criminals are inherently undeserving of the vote, as if it isn't a case by case decision and is about being rich enough to regain the right to vote. It is a class-based and indirectly or directly race based policy on release, and not one based on risk to the public for bad criminal influences on politics.

Ideally, we would confine restrictions to the vote to violent felonies and serious drug infractions - namely intent to distribute narcotics, opioids, etc. Criminality is largely class-based in ALL societies. I don't think that itself presents a good argument for not removing bad citizens from voter rolls, at least temporarily. As I mentioned, it's not a bad faith assumption to operate with the belief that the Ted Bundys of the world have nothing worthwhile to say about public policy. And we should keep in mind that a lot of the criminals we're discussing have tended to victimize people who in most respects resemble themselves. White criminals tend to prey on white people. Black criminals tend to prey on black people. Latino criminals tend to prey on Latino people.

[Shofercia]

Ad Hominem: directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

Example: My opponent uses fancy words he doesn't understand. That's an attack on the opponent, not the argument.

Let's start with what I assume is your source.

(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

You can't ignore the brackets... it's defining the condition under which you can use the term. Now Wikipedia.

Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments, some but not all of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue. The most common form of this fallacy is "A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong".

Now, look, that is broader than I thought (see: second bold statement, or this pyramid), thus invalidating my point. So... on reflection, ad hominem has a broader use than I thought.

Interesting how you posted that, not only after you reported me, in an incident that happened solely due your very own provocative bait, that you conveniently omitted in the actual report, but also after I called you out for claiming that single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US and when I asked you to name a single city to back it up, (as cities have names,) your response was to post a bunch of YouTube links, while failing to name a single city...

They got caught because they were idiots, and pointing out that it's very easy to run an illegal ballot harvesting operation, so easy that even idiots can do it, was the point. If you want it to actually work, you'd need to get smart people involved,

you wouldn't need "smart people" what you'd need are gods of silence and discretion (and probably actual divine intervention)

Biden openly admitted to forcing Ukraine to fire its anti-corruption prosecutor for looking into a company on whose board his son set. The response? Crickets. Manchin completely ignored a union strike that sent thousands of jobs abroad in a scheme where his daughter benefited financially. The response? Crickets. Epstein "killing" himself in jail? Crickets. Jussie Smollet not being jailed after orchestrating a hate crime? Crickets. All you need are those who are unwilling to investigate the victors to be in power, and considering that sometimes the victors appoint their buddies to these positions...

but to claim that just because idiots got caught no one will ever try to break the law again and not get caught sounds... counterproductive.

yeah that's not the claim

Did you not state that the crime was easy to commit? If the crime's easy to commit, then the punishment for getting caught, and the probability of getting caught, are the real deterrents.

The incentive to successfully commit voter fraud is greater than you think, as even influencing 0.64% of the votes can shift the election from Biden to Trump.

just to be clear here the flipping in particular requires fabricating a total of 42,918 votes spread across 3 separate states (Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin-and this is the absolute bare minimum)

Which would require a change of slightly less than 0.64% in each state. Also, you wouldn't have to target those three if you simply target every swing state, and even the slightly safe states.

And 0.64% is not very hard to influence, especially with mail in ballots. You can get voter rolls, figure out who doesn't really vote, and mail in their ballots.

what a dumb fucking scheme lmao
so this would fail almost instantly at the preparation stage (and continue to collapse at every step beyond that)
so the states that require you to request a mail-in ballot (which you need personal information for) are...alabama, alaska, arkansas, arizona, delaware, florida, georgia, idaho, indiana, kansas, kentucky, louisiana, maine, minnesota, mississippi, missouri, montana, nebraska, new mexico (some counties only), new york, north carolina, north dakota, oklahoma, pennsylvania, south carolina, south dakota, tennessee, texas, virginia, west virginia, and wyoming
so this plan would fail from the outset because you can't get a mail-in ballot for most of these people
then it fails again because because most states don't make voter history available
the ones that do are arizona, colorado, delaware, DC, florida, georgia, iowa, maine, maryland, minnesota, missouri, new hampshire, north carolina, north dakota, ohio, pennsylvania, south dakota, tennessee, vermont, and wisconsin

so let's find the states where you could presumably get someone else's ballotand where you could find the information to not get an active voter
iowa, maryland (and that one was an emergency pandemic measure that doesn't seem to have been extended), ohio, wisconsin
but there's a catch! ohio doesn't let you take a copy home or view it electronically-voter registration files are only available to public inspection at times when the office of the board of elections is open for business. (8:00-17:00, monday through friday)
maryland, meanwhile, requires you to be a registered voter there
so the only states where the research isn't impossible on its own are iowa and wisconsin (which, to be clear, are not enough to flip the 2020 election), which only start sending-out mail-in ballots 28 and 47 days before the election respectively
of course, you gotta actually get the ballots in the first place and that is a fuckton of driving and hoping the person whose identity you are stealing does not get to the mailbox before you do (and unlike them, you gotta do that shit every day, because you don't know when that ballot's getting there)
and good luck with the signatures on ballots by the way lmao i'm not sure how you'd get past that one
like it's hard to establish just how much of a catastrophic failure this would turn out to be
it collapses in on itself at practically level and that's before you start thinking of things like leaks, human error, one of those "inactive voters" deciding that this is the year, anyone getting cold feet, getting caught when the signatures inevitably don't match or the budget
this is election rigging for dumbasses and that's not including the fact that it wouldn't work anyway even if everything went perfectly

Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin are on your "only" list and those are the three states that would've mattered, so thank you for buttressing my point. As far as requesting mail in ballots, not sure if you're aware of this, but ballots can be forged. You don't need to wait to pick up ballots, as those who don't vote usually throw out their ballots. Not sure why you'd try to hunt down ballots when forging's easier, but looks like neither you nor I will be criminal masterminds, which is a good thing.

Anyone who's a registered voter can request a ballot and figure out which items change and which ones stay the same... again, the reason I'm not going into detail is because I don't want to enable it. As far as requesting ballots, names, addresses, emails, birthdays, etc, are ridiculously easy to find online. As for the signature match, not sure if you're aware of this, but you sign your DL, (at least in CA,) hackers exist, and: https://www.govtech.com/security/califo ... -info.html

That's a 38 million record breach. Didn't have signatures, but that's certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

I'm not encouraging this, and I am, in fact, very much against this, and it's one of the reasons why voter rolls should be purged regularly, as this is the exact type of bullshit that needs anti-fraud laws.

i mean voter-roll maintenance is good policy in a vacuum but the republicans certainly can't do it and your reason was atrociously bad

So let's implement it, in a vacuum, and let's figure out a neutral way to purge the rolls.

[Forsher]

Let's start with what I assume is your source.



You can't ignore the brackets... it's defining the condition under which you can use the term. Now Wikipedia.



Now, look, that is broader than I thought (see: second bold statement, or this pyramid), thus invalidating my point. So... on reflection, ad hominem has a broader use than I thought.

Interesting how you posted that, not only after you reported me, in an incident that happened solely due your very own provocative bait, that you conveniently omitted in the actual report, but also after I called you out for claiming that single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US and when I asked you to name a single city to back it up, (as cities have names,) your response was to post a bunch of YouTube links, while failing to name a single city...

Presenting "very provocative bait":

Also, you didn't make an ad hominem.

Just sayin'

It's not interesting at all. You took a statement you took offence to and then decided to use it on someone else in an attempt to prove personal attacks were all ad hominems. A very strange argument that proved not at all convincing and required you to personally attack someone, so you then decided to misrepresent a dictionary definition. But, hey, that got me to go get you a better definition less inclined to misrepresentation but, lo, while Wikipedia included a graphic that agreed with me, it ultimately just used my understanding as the most common form of the fallacious variant of the ad hominem.

If you haven't watched videos that name drop multiple cities, that is still on you and I suggest you keep it in the relevant thread instead of trying to threadjack this one.

Which is not what I was getting at, as the issue I was getting at involves people not even getting to prison, and escaping it entirely through community service and fines, while an African American or poor white person would be punished to the full extent of the law and get no special treatment, spending their lives in prison.

The most disgusting example was where a judge who agreed with the logic of a rich father connected to the education institution, who said his son "just wanted a piece of action", after his son raped an unconscious female student. The judge was biased due to his ties to that same education institution, and was recalled, but the fact that a judge like that was allowed to exist at all, and rule in the case according to his personal bias, brings the integrity of the justice system into question. The rapist walked free, while the victim suffers from the rape and the knowledge that the justice system fails women when they need it the most.

More recently DNA evidence prevents many of the most incompetent career advancing prosecutiors from wrongful identifications and thus wrongful convictions, though they still exist.

Again, the fact that many guilty persons do not receive justice does not preclude us from visiting justice upon others we know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, to be guilty. It's exceedingly difficult to convict someone of rape or murder - even in spite of plea bargains and various other mechanisms employed by the criminal justice system to make the job of prosecutors easier. The standard, if it goes to trial, is beyond a reasonable doubt. And people get off all the time. Additionally, while some people have been wrongly convicted, largely due to poverty and systemic problems, we should not operate under the assumption that people convicted of serious felonies are all wrongly convicted. In point of fact, most of them aren't. When the exception pops up, we should be ready to make amends to persons, but, no, we shouldn't go around assuming convicted rapists and murderers are just as virtuous as other citizens. That dramatically overstates the degree to which our criminal justice system is embroiled in problems and likely would prevent us from engaging in conventional justice on any level whatsoever as a society.

That wasn't what I was getting at there. I was instead getting at that around 90-97% of criminal convictions are plea bargains, and that if you are talking about murder or rape at the extreme, depending on the state they won't ever be released if the full sentence was reached. This is why those released on such an extreme crime would be those where a plea agreement could be applied. It would be also incorrect to infer that criminals convicted of murder or rape cannot be found innocent and then released, or that a conviction cannot be obtained for the wrong person, while the actual criminal stays free, but evidence obtained at the time made them the most likely suspect.

That's not really relevant to the operating assumption that we have to rely on to function as a society, namely that most people who get convicted of serious crimes were in fact guilty of those crimes. If we throw that assumption out the window, we become functionally incapable of engaging in justice. We should treat issues of wrongful convictions as exceptions rather than as the rule, and, in point of fact, we pretty much already do that.

The problem is that many states characterize all criminals as equally deserving of a revocation of voting rights, in ignorance of the circumstances of that conviction, as is true of the blanket ban in Florida, which targets poor criminals, mostly African Americans who cannot hope to pay back the state to get their voting rights back. That's where the racial targeting comes in, as those voters at least in the eyes of the Republicans who control the state, would be mostly Democrats, and that since Republicans have been so opposed to them regaining the right to vote, they wouldn't be entirely wrong there. Effectively the Republican legislature and Governor refused to carry out the referendum passed by voters, as they'd risk more being out of a job. So it is a very dishonest debate with dishonest reasons IMO, which border on a political power grab and greed at best, and racism at worst.

You usually get voting rights stripped for committing felonies. Felonies can include murder, aggravated assault or aggravated battery, abuse of a child, burglary, battery on a law enforcement officer or firefighter, possession of a controlled substance (other than marijuana), kidnapping, grand theft, stalking, incest, carjacking, resisting an officer with violence, sex crimes, drug trafficking, robbery, and carrying a concealed weapon. Some of those absolutely shouldn't be crimes and some shouldn't be felonies. That said, the majority of these absolutely warrant you losing your freedom and your right to vote. It's not simply a matter of people living in poverty. Lots of people manage to live in poverty and not murder someone or abuse a child. These aren't super high moral bars that black people are intrinsically incapable of reaching. They're the bare minimum for living in a functional society.

Again, while there's a conversation to be had about how the criminal justice system is structured against the impoverished, black and Latino people, and men, we can have that conversation without insinuating that banning serious felons from voting is somehow predicated on banning black people from voting. In point of fact, Florida is actually one of the more moderate states on the issue. And, even in Florida, we're talking about a number of voters in the tens of thousands who become eligible when we reinstitute the right to vote for felons. I'm not especially keen on that right being contingent on fines or fees, as it is in Florida, though since that resembles a poll tax and rather betrays my entire point in arguing that, maybe, serious felons shouldn't be trusted 100% to uphold the public welfare.

That's why I'd be hesitant to trust even the assumption that criminals are inherently undeserving of the vote, as if it isn't a case by case decision and is about being rich enough to regain the right to vote. It is a class-based and indirectly or directly race based policy on release, and not one based on risk to the public for bad criminal influences on politics.

Ideally, we would confine restrictions to the vote to violent felonies and serious drug infractions - namely intent to distribute narcotics, opioids, etc. Criminality is largely class-based in ALL societies. I don't think that itself presents a good argument for not removing bad citizens from voter rolls, at least temporarily. As I mentioned, it's not a bad faith assumption to operate with the belief that the Ted Bundys of the world have nothing worthwhile to say about public policy. And we should keep in mind that a lot of the criminals we're discussing have tended to victimize people who in most respects resemble themselves. White criminals tend to prey on white people. Black criminals tend to prey on black people. Latino criminals tend to prey on Latino people.

Don't you see a biasing of any criminal justice reform if the people the current system is failing aren't allowed to vote on the reform proposals?

And there's a world of difference between "we have to do something about this probable murderer, but we can't be sure, so they're not out in society to murder again" which is a coherent justification, even if New Rogernomics doesn't agree, for jailing someone, and "we have to stop this probable murderer, but we can't be sure, from voting so they [can't vote for legalised murder????]". The consequences of a probable murderer's not being appropriately detained is measured in lives, but even if they did have the opportunity to vote for legalised murder, the value of a single vote to such a proposal is tiny. A risk assessment argument isn't going to have a coherent relationship between the scale of the denied right and the risk of being wrong for voting, as it is with freedom of movement.

Look, I've only seized on this post to have something germane to the voting access conversation this thread is about so maybe you've succinctly stated your case, but with the exception of people imprisoned for electoral crimes (if there are any) there is no relationship whatsoever between the crime and the punishment. Even if we're interested in punitive justice, and not everyone is, that seems unsound... cruel, even.

[Shofercia]

-- taken to moderation --