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USA Today (3/9/21)
This week on CounterSpin: A March 3 New York Times story, while informative, suggests a problem: “How Georgia’s GOP Voting Laws Could Impact Black Voters” carried a subheadline that explained, “Two bills moving through the Republican-controlled Legislature would place new restrictions on voting access, in ways Democrats say would have an outsize impact on Black voters.” Except that that impact is not a partisan claim, but a demonstrable fact.
The Washington Post had a piece by Greg Sargent using the word “alarming” to describe the GOP’s voter suppression campaign, and USA Today had one saying the country risks regression to the Jim Crow era—both were labeled “opinion.”
Do elite media think that whether or not the US, in 2021, under pressure from racists, goes back on the whole “one person one vote” thing is a legitimate topic for debate? We need more and better—and fast—in order to push back on Republicans’ current anti-democratic campaign.
Ari Berman has covered voting rights for many years, now as a senior reporter at Mother Jones. He’s the author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. We’ll talk with him about the overt, multi-level, deeply dangerous attack on the right and the ability to vote.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at coverage of climate justice, Venezuelan sanctions and healthcare debt.
“Do elite media think that whether or not the US, in 2021, under pressure from racists, goes back on the whole “one person one vote” thing is a legitimate topic for debate?”
One person one vote means all citizens should have the right to vote, from birth, never to be taken away or tested.
But I assume you’re fine with the continued arbitrary age restrictions? So yeah, since you’re lying and have already compromised your supposed “one person, one vote” position [you obviously are against such an idea], every other arbitrary reason to deny a vote is fair game. To argue. With people of your ilk–hypocritical liars.
Race-based, age-based, income-based, sex-based, ideology-based…I’ll leave such nitpicking, exclusionary bigotry to people like you.
Hey “Free Hat”,
I’m not sure what you were trying to say, but the voter age restriction is not “arbitrary.” Up until the 26th Amendment, voters had to be 21 years of age. Then in 1970, people protested and organized because the age of the U.S. draft was 18 years of age, and the average age of a dead U.S. Infantryman in Vietnam was 19. So the law was changed to allow anyone 18 years of age to vote.
The fundamental reason for any society to have a voting age restriction is to allow children to be children; the idea here, is so kids don’t have to occupy their young lives obsessing about politics (today a lot of children are engaging in politics early, primarily because of the internet.)
The rest of what you wrote, calling the author a liar and hypocrite, seemed ad-hoc or ad hominem to me, because you gave no evidence of where a lie was told, or where they were being hypocritical.
“One person one vote”
Someone believing this believes every citizen should have the right to vote.
Anyone who believes some citizens shouldn’t have the right to vote doesn’t believe this, and if they say they do, they’re a liar and/or hypocrite.
This is very simple.
Someone like you for example, doesn’t believe in “universal suffrage”, and if you instead say you do you’re a liar and/or hypocrite.
And yes, age is an arbitrary metric. Humans don’t magically change at midnight when they turn from 17 to 18. Do you think they do?
Okay There Ass-Hat,
By your ridiculous logic, anyone who opposes a driver’s license age is a “liar and a hypocrite” too eh? Shut the fuck up.
Free Hat,
I found an article over on Vox. The title is “Young people have a stake in our future. Let them vote.”
It argues that we should allow every American who can successfully fill out a ballot, the right to vote.
I tend to agree with the spirit of this idea. However, what if a parent, (or legal guardian) doesn’t participate in electoral processes for religious, political, or philosophical reasons?
What happens then? Will the parent be violating the law, if they wish to prohibit their kid from voting? Will that parent then be violating the child’s fundamental rights?
This is where I see some legal problems – by granting such liberties to kids, this has the potential of becoming a libertarian nightmare. It could also become another one of these, “corporate personhood” slippery slopes, a legal tsunami, that seemed harmless enough at first, which turns into a dystopian literal nightmare (the world we are in, because you know, corporations are people too….and now money is speech.)
Will letting kids vote open the door to more State sanctioned family interventions, and even more usurpations of parental sovereignty over their children?
Ultimately, a child’s parents, or guardian, should be at liberty to raise their children as the parents see fit, correct? Maybe I’m too much of an Idealist?
I liked what Gabor Mate said (paraphrasing):
‘The two most common ways in which children are abused; the first, is by giving something to the child they don’t need, the second is by depriving the child of something they do need.’
Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe we DO need to get young people engaged in politics as early as humanly possible? I don’t know the answer to all of these questions.
Oh well. Se La Vie “Free Hat”
To Free Hat,
Another thing you seem to fail to understand, these are laws. The fact they are on the books and mandate a voter be a minimum age, does not make the people who colloquially comment on the general franchise to vote “liars and hypocrites.”
These are not arbitrary limits either as you say, they were agreed upon by parliamentarians, who then voted the agreed upon minimum age into law. This was a legal age, signed into law by a majority, and usually, this kind of rule by majority is called democracy. Sounds like you don’t like the way Democracy works (I hear you.)
In the U.S., the idea that only registered voters of age get to vote, is the law. If you don’t like the threshold of age that must be met in order for a citizen to legally register to vote, start a movement to change it. Here is the thing though, how young is too young? Should babies vote? If so how? They don’t even know how to read yet. I mean damn, you’d better have a methodological plan for this, otherwise your challenge of current law is dead in the water.
Maybe try to lobby your representative in congress. However, if you are a minor under the age of 18, don’t expect them to listen to your inexperienced ad-hoc reasoning for too long though, lawmakers are busy enough dealing with all the adult children as is.
Good luck.
Is Free Hat out of touch with reality?
The point of “one person one vote” means every person who is legally allowed to vote, which includes all voters who are of the legal age to vote, and who actually do vote; all of these people should have their vote counted.
No matter what you say, nothing changes. Call us liars and hypocrites all you want, your point is trivial, since the law is the law. Ignore the a priori empirical facts of the law at your disposal.
“Someone believing this believes every citizen should have the right to vote.”
Again, this is false. By not examining your omission of the proviso of a “legal voting age”, your conclusion is irrational, illogical and meaningless.
Who knows though, maybe you are onto something? Maybe the system should be changed to give young people more opportunity to participate in elections? I don’t necessarily agree with the law. You are incorrect to call me a liar and hypocrite because I follow the law to it’s logical end.
If there were rational reasons why we should change the legal age to vote, I would probably support it. As is, I see more problems arising from changing the age, than any benefits.
This is a very weak argument you are making. I don’t even see why you are taking such an extreme point of view out of context? These legal age limit laws have all been devised by the input of Professors, Clinicians, Researchers, Doctors, Pediatricians, Psychiatrists, Lawyers and such.
At least that’s what I’ve read about it. There are legitimate reasons, physiologically, philosophically, and sociologically, why a child or human being in the developmental stages of their life, should not be allowed to directly participate in processes reserved for adulthood.
Children can still protest (and do.) Children can also lean on their parents, and should, when their parents keep voting for the two deadbeat parties we have.
Been listening for many years & have supported albeit spotty. Janine Jackson, Peter, Steve- heroes in the trenches. A lot of other folks, other shows ain’t around no mo. Many fell off, or were targeted & sunk, bribed, taken over, etc. FAIR & Counterspin & Extra stayed true over decades when highly touted flagships like DN betrayed Pacifica in the aughts (00′ to 10′). Nothing but respect & salute for the REAL.