Biometric Data Harvesting

The point is that YOU get a vote. Lots of people in a lot of rough countries do not.

As a semi retired person, I spend a lot of time helping out at the polls, at all levels. I think it is important to be a part of the most fundamental level of bureaucracy. Often people don't want to bother to vote. The politicians breathe a sigh of relief at that, because then they can do what they want. Nothing makes an incumbant politician happier than a low turn out at the polls!

Often people spoil their ballots on purpose. The politicians sweat bullets over that because that means their message is not being accepted. Not even the ones they stole from the opposition. It can be fun (in a sick sort of way) to watch their reactions to, say, more spoiled ballots than the winning point spread. But they take EVERY SINGLE spoiled ballot a lot more seriously than even ballots in their favor.

Not that I would ever advocate spoiling a ballot intentionally but at least it keeps your local representative from thinking he can get away with his favorite thing, an apathetic votor base. I often wonder as I watch the crap going on (both here and in your great country) that the idea is to drive people away from the polls. Then suddenly load in their own guys. Hey, it got Kennedy in on the Catholic vote...so its a tried and proven strategy.

Thats what THEY want you to believe.

So, in a very real and positive sense, Sir, we ARE "they". They take the votors seriously. They have little or no use or care for apathetic votors.

I can't count the number of grumpy old soldiers I have had to shut down when they said the tired old words..."why bother voting, they'll do what they want anyway". Even when the polling station was right next door! Nursing homes, prisons, and university caffeterias often have mini polling stations...they get a higher turnout than my beloved ex soldiers. Pisses me off sometimes. But hey, they fought for the right for YOU to vote. Make sure you push them to the polls!

Anyway, no special politics, just three AM musings. So I shall just select this as off topic, and wait for the feathers to fly. Should not be too many...I just thought that a moment of clarity was needed....

Our state is being sued by the justice department for attempts to clean up voting.

The new law shortens the time for early voting, ends same day registration, and requires a photo ID to vote.

I would have gone further, and made it illegal to coerce voters with free food and cellphones.

Jim Crow is alive and thriving in your backward state.

With a veto-proof tea party controlled state government, will you be re-enacting slavery next???

Really, this is a sad "state" of affairs.

North Carolina Passes the Country's Worst Voter Suppression …

Colin Powell: North Carolina's Voter Suppression Law Hurts The ...

North Carolina Passes the Country's Worst Voter Suppression …

It only suppresses fraud.

IDs are required for just about everything, and the people that are walking around without them are very few and far between.

Besides, Obamacare will fix the problem. The government takeover of healthcare, requires a photo ID from all participants.

Wouldn't it have been nice to know that fraud existed BEFORE throwing up obvious class related voting restrictions, where none were needed.

Be careful, don't spout the party line or cherry pick the response. Show me the fraud.

This is purly motivated by Republicans to enhance their chances of electing more radical tea bangers into an already one sided majority. Why play fair when you have tall the money and lawyers on your side?

Wasn't it your state that just purged over 10,000 eligable/legal/legitimate voter's names from the rolls? Or am I thinking about some other cracker state?

How many cases do you require?

Obviously I can only find the people that were caught.

Here's one with links. I'm sure the blogger missed a lot.

https://eastaustinvoice.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/democrats-arrested-andor-convicted-of-voter-fraud-specfriggintaculars-blog/

Here's more:

http://obamavoterfraud.blogspot.com/

There are 1,350, 000 hits for 2012 voter fraud, and it doesn't include intimidation.

Why would you want to defend this?

I don't want to play your silly game, but I can:

Jack Villamaino, Former GOP Candidate, Gets 4 Months In Jail For ...

Man arrested in voter fraud - Los Angeles Times

Irony Alert: GOP Political Consultant Arrested For Voter Registration ...

Irony: Registered Republican Tries to Vote Twice, Gets Arrested

Southern Nevada woman is arrested on suspicion of trying to vote ...

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You made my point.

We need to clean up the voting, and a required ID will be a great start.

Thanks.

Nice liberal opinion. Sounds just like the crap on MSNBC spouted by Ed.

What's wrong with showing an ID, or stopping 'same day' registration?

Nothing's wrong with showing an ID.

Why would you be against allowing ANYONE, who was qualified to register to vote, doing it.

What scares you about freedom to vote.

It's no less crap than the crap "your" side makes up!

I am thinking an ID would not be a bad idea.

You need one for just about everything else in life.

He lives in a town full of racist rednecks, and he's trying to project that onto the entire country.

His little neck of the woods sounds pretty scary, but the people he's talking about would be rejected by the tea party.

Isn't it strange that coercing voters with alcohol was made illegal, but free food, free healthcare, cellphones, and upping the availability of disability payments is OK. Like I said 'this government is out of control' and the ignorant people who get these handouts will vote in those who hand them more while voting themselves raises and lining their pockets.

What an interesting way to look at the role of government. Do you think if I gave you a free cell phone as a reward for coming out to the polls, it would influence your vote? You dont even know what party I represent! Would you vote for me if I increased your disability payment...but what if the other side is doing the same thing. If both sides were doing it, do you think your vote would be changed? If the blankety blank party was to increase your disability, take care of your grandma's chemotherapy, grade the gravel on your roads, and keep the roads repaired, would you still vote for YOUR party, or would you switch to the blankety blank party?

Note the lack of leading questions. I was just wondering how you got from A to B in this logic stream... and I wish nobody any harm.

Politicians have been buying votes with the voters own money for centuries. Why is this a bad thing?

That's the problem. Both parties have been at the trough forever.

They blast through money to buy voters, then once elected, they set policy, pass bills, and spend more money to try to get reelected. Nothing they do has anything to do with the general welfare of the country.

....and they have bled the country dry with their games. $18 trillion and counting, with no end in sight.

You wrote, "Politicians have been buying votes with the voters own money for centuries. Why is this a bad thing?"

Excellent question.

The issue is not simply the fact that politicians pay for votes, but the magnitude of that has been increasing to or beyond a point where it is unsustainable.

The chart is a little old as our actual debt today is over $17 trillion and rapidly climbing.

From a personal perspective, receiving additional "entitlements" works fine, but the engine that fuels those funds is not able to keep pace with the demands placed on it.

As more and more people now depend on the government to provide some (on in some cases, all) of their needs, the private sector must pick up that bill. Right now, 49% of all citizens in the US get some form of "entitlements" from the government.

Obviously something needs to change or change will be thrust upon us in a much more painful way.

As for the impact of buying votes on the election, we have seen that trend magnify in its own way. While it is true that devotees of each party rarely switch boats, what can change is the numbers of those ideologues that actually turn out.

Also, there is that gray area of independents, which is what 75% of the political messages are courting. Unlike ideologues, independents tend to gravitate back and forth based on key issues. Ideologues tend to be platform based. That is, they tend to support a full platform, regardless of what's actually in the basket and see any discord with any single issue as an attack on the whole platform.

Politicians see two tasks here; energizing their base to vote, and demonizing the other party enough to swing the center of mass of the independents their way for a win.

Buying votes is nothing new, but what is new is the techniques and processes used are now honed to a state of perfection to the point where more people are now living off the tit of government than ever before. The graph above shows us the danger of such escalation.

Will voter ID fix that? No. Voter ID may help level some of the playing field, but we have more serious issues in the political landscape than just voter fraud. The dominant factor appears to be simply money and the political power that buys in the elections system.

That shift took place in the early 1970s when the old system run by political bosses was replaced by reformers with the replacement of the state conventions with primary systems that broke the power hold of the political bosses.

At that point money and the ability to raise large war chests became the root of the political systems we have today. While money mattered prior to 1970, money was not the only factor in the political system. Today is much different than 40-50 years ago, with money becoming much more important.

Reformers in the 1970s had hoped to disenfranchise the political boss system, but when money filled that void it had the net effect of increasing the political divide. Instead of a more democratic voting public, voters quickly split between party lines and became the ideologues of today. They do not vote on issue-oriented matters as much as for a platform or ideology.

Our system in Canada is so similar to yours, and so likely to follow it down the rabbit hole that I watch US politics closely. I loved Anonomous Hero's reply about how political power slid away from the big political bosses (remember Tamanny Hall?) and Mayor Daley of Chicago! to a more responsive government. One requiring a lot of money which would flow to the people instead of to the political bosses. Also his comment on platform voting instead of issue voting. We call it "bundling" and it can become (and has become) a great scandal up here in the Great White North.

It was in response to the hippie, youth movement no doubt..as I was a part of it myself I can only say it brought in a more caring and responsive government. Our prime minister stood up to terrorists, mob bosses, religious and political vested interests. Remember, he said "the State has no business in the bedrooms of the Nation", thereby putting the religious influence out into the back alley. A lot of medicare and welfare case workers were brought in, the size of the government doubled... and has been doubling every five to eight years on average. It is a bit of a scandal, however, we seem to be getting something for our money, so we allow it to go on.

The problem I am mulling over is how to reconcile the money thing. I am already on record as noting that welfare case workers, soldiers and politicians just cycle money through the government. The greatest leaps in GDP always occur when there is more of such cycling...pick any war as an example when the number of soldiers doubles or triples...there's the proof in the pudding. But that may be merely a symptom.

I shall re-read "Wealth of Nations". See if I can get a handle on the economics. Right now, with the greatest respect, I see a bunch of engineers here, not economists, which results in a lot of people grabbing the tar end of the brush. Not least of all me.

Thank you all for this VERY stimulating discussion. I don't get out much these days to talk about stuff like this, and all my American blogger friends just go off on what I regard as wild partisan tangents. This is like a chat around a table in a College Caffeteria! Have not had one of those since, oh...1975..

The best way, (for me), to understand economics, is to simply shrink everything into something I can grapple with.

The idea that money just goes round and round, only works with a closed loop system, with a finite number of people, a finite amount of money, a free market, and zero government.

Say there are 100 people, with every person having a set of skills that someone else is willing to pay for. Yeah, the money will just keep trading hands, and if the doctor or dentist get too greedy, someone else will go become a doctor or dentist, and undercut them, while still making a decent living. A free and open market tends to keep itself in check.

Now suppose that certain projects have to be done, that require 25 of the hundred people working in tandem to produce the desired result...well, someone has to do the organizing, the hiring, seeing the job through, etc. Enter government; everyone agrees that these jobs have to be done, and the people that do the organizing, shouldn't have to work for free, so we institute a tax. This way, everyone pays a little, the government gets paid for overseeing the jobs, and paying the people that did the work.

A little at a time, the government has to get bigger. Some people get injured and can't produce anymore, so the government raises taxes a little to take care of them. Everyone else is working just as hard, but making a little less money, because we can't just let the injured people fend for themselves.

The rest you can kind of flash through. The 100 people keep growing, government decides that illegitimate children are victims, as well as the mothers, and has to develop more departments to administer to them. Each of the original 100 people is still working just as hard, but even more money is required to take care of non-producing people, and the growing government that administers to them.

Add to that, people sneaking into your community, and government telling you that they must be educated and taken care of...all with ever growing chunks of the money you earn.

At some point, government has filled itself with such self importance, that they are spending far more than they can ever ask you to pay in taxes...so they start borrowing it. What people don't comprehend, is that those original 100 people that were working, and their offspring that go to work, are still on the hook for all of the money that has been borrowed.

The people that produce nothing, are still free and clear. Some are injured or sick, but a vast majority has been conditioned to expect it. They think you owe them an ever growing portion of your labor.

Neither those people, nor the government, produce anything of tangible value, and yet they keep taking a larger portion of your paycheck. At some point, the roads are built, and the money stops going round.

I don't know if that made any sense; but whether it's the gold standard, or the dollar bill, money has to be tied into an increment of actual productive labor...labor that some person has to perform. Even the stock market comes down to the people that are on the shop floor, producing things.

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, would be a good read, to see what happens when government attempts to become all things to all people.

Well said, sir.