Being Raked over Coals

     It might seem strange to enjoy being raked over the coals for my political writings, but I always count it an honor of sorts. Here's a link to a libertarian-leaning lawyer's blog post that zeroed in on my most recent piece in The FW Weekly. http://right-winggenius.blogspot.com/2014/12/contrarian-view-low-voter-turnout-isnt.html
     Interesting stuff. Of course, nothing will ever compare (knock on wood) with the shellacking I got on the Free Republic site after my piece in the FW Star-Telegram about how undemocratic our Constitution is. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921320/posts?page=55 Good times!
 
    Below is my reply to Adam Arrington:

Mr. Arrington,

Thank you for reading my piece in the FW Weekly. I appreciate any and all feedback. And I suppose it's sort of an honor to be raked over the coals, whether those coals are red-hot or day-old cold.  We obviously disagree, but I commend you, for the most part, for your tone, which is less personal invective than substantive disagreements. So let's get to that . . .

  

I'm always more than a little surprised how any one who looks at the facts objectively can defend voter suppression, regardless of their political persuasion. The voter ID laws that have proliferated across the country in the past few years originally came from ALEC, a right-wing group. The bills ostensibly address an issue -- in-person voter impersonation --  that is extremely rare. The true purpose is obvious: to suppress voters who would vote for Democrats, and it's worked remarkably well.

The GAO released a report in September of this year that the voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee  suppressed the vote by about 2%, correlating pretty closely to earlier estimates from statistician Nate Silver. I think conservative Judge Richard A. Posner has put it best: "There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens." As he points out, the laws are "highly correlated with a state's having a Republican governor and Republican control of the legislature and appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks." And  your link about the noncitizens voting is unconvincing, as well. To say that something is possible, a high percentage of noncitizens voting, is not to prove anything, really.

Politics ain't beanbag, and Republicans play for keeps. I, for one, admire them for that.That said, I don't think voting should be a partisan issue.

I also can not abide your idea, as attractive as I'm sure it is to you, that Republicans are smarter, more attractive, and have straighter teeth than the dim-witted Democrats. I don't think either party can honestly claim a monopoly or near-monopoly on misinformed voters. Most people are busy with their lives, which, for most people, includes kids, work, long commutes, money-problems of one sort or another, and hanging on to what sanity they were born with. In as depoliticized a society as ours it's little wonder that most people don't follow what passes for political discourse in this country. One side thinking the other side are idiots is normal, I suppose, but both sides have their share of ill-informed voters pulling the lever for them.

In 2016, I think it somewhat likely that the country will elect a Republican President. If history is our guide, then Republicans will lose in the midterms of 2018. I predict that you will not think those voters are la creme de la creme, as you purport to believe now.

Mr. Arrington, I count it an honor that you took the time to attack my work. I always tell everyone that the writing I've done for the Weekly has kept me out of the bars -- well, at least for the most part. Here's hoping it did the same for you. And I'm glad it provided you some raw material to stake out and defend your own political positions.

Take care.

Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue