This principle is true in every society, even though we only think of it applying to democratically elected governments. But in fact, it is true in every dictatorship, every puppet regime, and in every theocracy as well. Sometimes, exerting the power of the citizenry to choose a government costs lives (the American Revolution, South Africa, India, the Arab Spring) but the government people have is the government they choose, either by active choice (revolution, voting) or by acquiescence. The free will of the citizenry in some countries have been suppressed by force (the Taliban, China), by religious ideology (Iran and the long-abandoned idea of the divine right of kings), and in our country, by operation of law.
Government power is granted and exercised by the consent of the people. Look at what the people of Florida have chosen. Despite the absence of a voter fraud problem, the GOP state officials are trying to remove people from voter rolls with the stated purpose of removing "non-citizens." But when 20% of the first purge resulted in the removal of registered, legal citizens from voter roles, forcing them to petition and fight (again) for the right to vote, the Department of Justice stepped in.
Again, there is no voter fraud problem in Florida. I defy anyone reading this to find proof of voter fraud in Florida or in any state that amounts to anything close to being significant enough to affect outcomes. It just doesn't exist. This entire campaign is an effort to remove minorities (in Florida, primarily Hispanics) from the voter roles because the GOP knows they vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.
In discussing this with a colleague, he agreed that we need to know how much voter fraud is occurring and then decide whether these actions are necessary. He suggested that if the voter fraud exceeded 100,000 bad votes, and the "remedy" only prevented 10,000 legitimate voters from voting, then the numbers say we should enact the remedy to prevent fraud. What?!
I was aghast! Would gun advocates (which my colleague is, BTW) agree to remove all guns from private ownership because to do so would reduce deaths in the US by HUGE numbers? Do we lock up innocent people in this country to prevent the guilty from going free? Did I fall into bizarro America when I fell asleep last night?
In this country, we do NOT take away people's fundamental rights to prevent abuse of rights by others. WE DO NOT! We let guilty people go free to protect against innocent people wrongfully losing their freedom. We protect private gun ownership even though the result is many unnecessary deaths. The very idea that we can just casually take away someone's right to vote in order to protect against voter fraud by someone else is about as unAmerican an idea as I've ever heard.
The DOJ has filed a lawsuit to stop what is happening in Florida, but the Governor and the Secretary of State insist they are not going to stop. The people of Florida elected these yahoos, and they are getting what they deserve.
If you vote for a party that advocates voter suppression, you are voting for tyranny, not democracy. I don't think this is an exaggeration. It isn't. Everything our free society is built on depends on the equal and free right to vote in elections. An attack on people's ability to vote is an offense far worse than lying, than fiscal irresponsibility, even than blowing up a building, because it is not an attck on Americans, but an attack on the American experiment that Lincoln talked about in his Gettysburg Address.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Lincoln's fear for America was even more profound than the unholy scurge of slavery. It was the fear that America, as it was envisioned, would cease to exist. This was the burden he carried.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us— that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.From 1775 until now, people have given their lives so that we can vote and choose who governs us. In every century since then more have died to protect that right. Constitutional amendments were passed to extend the right to people of all races and to women. Voting is the most important thing we do as citizens. And there are people in elected office trying to take that right away from us.
If you live in Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, or Pennsylvania, your citizenry's right to vote is under attack. Get Above Your Raisin' and put a stop to it.
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