"Get back to the back of the bus", the Supreme Court rules in a shameful decision reminiscent of Plessey V. Ferguson, the ruling which allowed legal apartheid and legalized discrimination against blacks in America for over 50 years. In this case, the Supreme Court rules that it is lawful to force people to pay a "poll tax" in order to vote (note that they hide this by saying "legal picture ID", but since those cost a fair amount of money nowdays due to the Real ID laws, the end result is the imposition of a poll tax). In other words, only people with money are allowed to vote in the brave new world that is Soviet America. Which I suppose is getting back to the original intent of the founding fathers, who only allowed people with property to vote, but then the founding fathers also allowed slavery so "original intent" is hardly a guide to what is morally correct...
But then, as some folks are fond of pointing out, law has become completely disconnected from morality in this country and has become just another set of random arbitrary rules to excuse the imposition of State power upon the citizenry and, especially, upon the poor, who must be kept "in their place" lest they demand a seat at the table of American plenty and thereby imperil rule of the people, by the oligarchs, for the oligarchs. Not that this has ever been any different. As was observed in the 1890's, the most impressive attribute of the law is "the majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges". But at least we at once pretended to have law that was fair and equitable.
The problem is that this perversion of the law to serve a small and wealthy elite is not a sustainable model for the law in the end. The whole point of having this "law" thing is to set down a set of rules that the vast majority of people agree are reasonable and proper. Rule of law, as vs. rule of mob, can exist only insofar as a general consensus exists that rule of law is a reasonable and fair way of organizing a society. If you keep passing senseless and arbitrary laws that punish large classes of people, eventually you erode rule of law, and end up impoverishing the nation because rule of law is necessary before people are willing to invest in a nation. After all, if anything you create via a large investment can be seized arbitrarily by the local oligarch or strongman without recourse to a workable rule of law, why would you invest in a new innovation?
But then, the tighty righties have never been particularly smart, and are so focused on short-term gains to be obtained via disenfranchising voters and imposing arbitrary laws that allow them to loot the nation that they don't see that they're shooting themselves in the foot. The inevitable outcome of their policies is your typical Latin American banana republic, with a small wealthy aristocracy that can barely maintain their lifestyles because the nation has become so impoverished from their looting of the economy. That is the future of America too, if this goes on.
-- Badtux the Socio-economic Penguin
last election (fucking seems like ages ago don't it?) arizona was just rolling out their "voter eyedee" law. since then three of the architects of that law have been indicted on corruption charges. when republicans talk about fraud start the investigations with the motherfuckers whose lips are moving.
ReplyDeletei had this vision of myself in my buckskins, toting a flintlock and going to the polls. when they asked for eyedee i would just glare at them.