5 ms·

The left have been opposing voting requiring identification (on the grounds that it discriminates against those without it) for years. Even if they brought in n

by jpxw 6y ago

The left have been opposing voting requiring identification (on the grounds that it discriminates against those without it) for years. Even if they brought in national identification, they wouldn’t make it necessary for voting.

mschuster91 6y ago
Then make it free of charge and offer a version for illegalized people to carry.
- motogpjimbo 6y ago
  I'm not American, so this comment confuses me. Why would illegal immigrants be allowed to vote or carry an official government-issued ID?
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    It comes up when there’s services illegal immigrants will use anyway and you want it to be done properly. For example, you want illegal immigrants to still have a valid driver’s license and insurance as the alternative isn’t “no illegal immigrants” but instead just a generally a society that functions less well (and in the case of driving more costly and less safe).
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      Yep. This is also why e.g. Portugal has decided to give all persons in the country, no matter immigration or other status, the right to free-of-charge coronavirus tests and treatments without threats of deportation or whatever - simply because the risk and follow-up costs of illegalized persons spreading around coronavirus are higher than any potential benefit.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    They wouldn't, it's just deliberate confusion. If an arm of the government knows someone is there illegally they're meant to report them for deportation or other handling, not offer them infrastructure and rights, but in the USA the problem of illegal immigration has reached such scales that a large part of the left basically advocates for giving up on border enforcement of any kind. They don't really campaign directly to abolish borders because it would raise obvious and difficult questions, instead they campaign against enforcement: arguing for a world in which immigration rules exist but anyone who follows them is effectively playing a mug's game.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > but in the USA the problem of illegal immigration has reached such scales that a large part of the left basically advocates for giving up on border enforcement of any kind I'm not even an American, I only have a massive dislike against borders that let money and goods flow unimpeded, but not people. The economy, the government, the system should serve the people - not the other way around. Besides: the official immigration rules of the US are screwed up beyond any reasonable hope for repair (and remember, the original idea behind US immigration policy as to take in everyone as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty!). If one cannot repair or replace a broken system, it is wise to work around it instead of keeping up bullshit - and yes, giving up on enforcement is one such strategy.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        That's actually not that wise a strategy. Think of it like tech debt. Working around a bug can be useful if there's genuine time pressure. If you're doing it because you don't think you can fix it, or worse, haven't convinced other people there's any bug at all, then it is inadvisable to keep doing that in the long run. There are good reasons why the rules for people are different to those for goods and capital. However, you may note that Trump specifically is also in favour of tariffs i.e. impeding the flow of goods. Via FATCA the USA also practices an obscure form of capital controls. I don't know if getting into a debate about the merits of borders is a great idea for this thread, but, consider at least the following things: 1. Historically people have fought and died for the rights to create borders (or a nation, as they saw it). The world in 1800 was a world of sprawling empires. Passports didn't really exist in their modern form. Borders were weak or non-existent. In the past 200 years the number of countries has gone up drastically, often because people fought against those empires for the rights to create a smaller, more localised nation that would be better attuned to their local needs and cultures. Are you sure all those people were that wrong that they sacrificed so much, for something they shouldn't have wanted? 2. The world at the time of the Statue of Liberty was rather different to the world of today. For one, relatively few people could actually reach the US to do that sort of immigration. The arrival of cheap air travel fundamentally changes the equation for borders and immigration rules, as the flows of people involved are so much larger. 3. Culture is a real thing, a describable thing. The left exhalts it and upholds the benefits of a diversity of cultures. But in practice, cultures don't always co-exist peacefully. In Europe countries are resurrecting internal borders (e.g. Sweden did this just a few days ago) in the wake of yet more Islamist terror attacks, including the beheading of a school teacher that was trying to teach French values of tolerance and freedom of expression. Presumably you're aware of this story. As a consequence even Macron, who is as global-elite-anti-borders as they come, has had a sudden 'conversion'. The left has no coherent answer to how to sustain the values of 'enlightenment liberalism' that they hold dear in the face of large-scale immigration from cultures that doesn't share those values, nor tolerate them. The left is losing this argument despite that borders seem retrograde, are inconvenient, and so on, because it hasn't yet found any coherent tradeoffs or solutions for the problems that prompted them in the first place. Indeed nobody has: the right doesn't even try. But the left is simply ignoring them and campaigning against the infrastructure of enforcement, which is a childish approach. A similar problem can be seen in the USA with respect to the police: campaigning against the existence of a thing that creates problems, without any answer to how to address the problems lack of that thing would create. It's this kind of anti-tradeoff thinking that eventually led me to abandon the left. It's OK to recognise that a situation is unsatisfactory, yet also recognise that you don't know of an alternative tradeoff that's clearly better.
belorn 6y ago
Shouldn't that be an issue they could meet half way on in order to get national identification implemented? Here we have an hook for which the right could get behind, and the benefit of national identification is very clear for all that time between elections. It would indeed discriminate against those without it, but then a national identification is given to everyone who has a right to vote. One is directly linked to the other. In countries with national id you have to have the card if you want to buy alcohol, buy tobacco, drive, go to the doctor, get social security, banking, and many other regular stuff which people need to do multiple times between elections. If it something people need daily, they will have gotten it before the election.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
matwood 6y ago
> The left have been opposing voting requiring identification (on the grounds that it discriminates against those without it) for years. The left is worried that any ID scheme would be used to disenfranchise voters. Studies have shown that requiring an ID does not impact voter turnout for the most part, but we only need to look towards voter registration rules to see how the system can be gamed to prevent people to vote. Some states allow same day registration while others require 30 days, etc... I could think of similar rules around voter ID to add another hurdle to voting.

by jpxw 6y ago

mschuster91 6y ago

Then make it free of charge and offer a version for illegalized people to carry.

motogpjimbo 6y ago
I'm not American, so this comment confuses me. Why would illegal immigrants be allowed to vote or carry an official government-issued ID?
- vlovich123 6y ago
  It comes up when there’s services illegal immigrants will use anyway and you want it to be done properly. For example, you want illegal immigrants to still have a valid driver’s license and insurance as the alternative isn’t “no illegal immigrants” but instead just a generally a society that functions less well (and in the case of driving more costly and less safe).
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    Yep. This is also why e.g. Portugal has decided to give all persons in the country, no matter immigration or other status, the right to free-of-charge coronavirus tests and treatments without threats of deportation or whatever - simply because the risk and follow-up costs of illegalized persons spreading around coronavirus are higher than any potential benefit.
- thu2111 6y ago
  They wouldn't, it's just deliberate confusion. If an arm of the government knows someone is there illegally they're meant to report them for deportation or other handling, not offer them infrastructure and rights, but in the USA the problem of illegal immigration has reached such scales that a large part of the left basically advocates for giving up on border enforcement of any kind. They don't really campaign directly to abolish borders because it would raise obvious and difficult questions, instead they campaign against enforcement: arguing for a world in which immigration rules exist but anyone who follows them is effectively playing a mug's game.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > but in the USA the problem of illegal immigration has reached such scales that a large part of the left basically advocates for giving up on border enforcement of any kind I'm not even an American, I only have a massive dislike against borders that let money and goods flow unimpeded, but not people. The economy, the government, the system should serve the people - not the other way around. Besides: the official immigration rules of the US are screwed up beyond any reasonable hope for repair (and remember, the original idea behind US immigration policy as to take in everyone as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty!). If one cannot repair or replace a broken system, it is wise to work around it instead of keeping up bullshit - and yes, giving up on enforcement is one such strategy.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      That's actually not that wise a strategy. Think of it like tech debt. Working around a bug can be useful if there's genuine time pressure. If you're doing it because you don't think you can fix it, or worse, haven't convinced other people there's any bug at all, then it is inadvisable to keep doing that in the long run. There are good reasons why the rules for people are different to those for goods and capital. However, you may note that Trump specifically is also in favour of tariffs i.e. impeding the flow of goods. Via FATCA the USA also practices an obscure form of capital controls. I don't know if getting into a debate about the merits of borders is a great idea for this thread, but, consider at least the following things: 1. Historically people have fought and died for the rights to create borders (or a nation, as they saw it). The world in 1800 was a world of sprawling empires. Passports didn't really exist in their modern form. Borders were weak or non-existent. In the past 200 years the number of countries has gone up drastically, often because people fought against those empires for the rights to create a smaller, more localised nation that would be better attuned to their local needs and cultures. Are you sure all those people were that wrong that they sacrificed so much, for something they shouldn't have wanted? 2. The world at the time of the Statue of Liberty was rather different to the world of today. For one, relatively few people could actually reach the US to do that sort of immigration. The arrival of cheap air travel fundamentally changes the equation for borders and immigration rules, as the flows of people involved are so much larger. 3. Culture is a real thing, a describable thing. The left exhalts it and upholds the benefits of a diversity of cultures. But in practice, cultures don't always co-exist peacefully. In Europe countries are resurrecting internal borders (e.g. Sweden did this just a few days ago) in the wake of yet more Islamist terror attacks, including the beheading of a school teacher that was trying to teach French values of tolerance and freedom of expression. Presumably you're aware of this story. As a consequence even Macron, who is as global-elite-anti-borders as they come, has had a sudden 'conversion'. The left has no coherent answer to how to sustain the values of 'enlightenment liberalism' that they hold dear in the face of large-scale immigration from cultures that doesn't share those values, nor tolerate them. The left is losing this argument despite that borders seem retrograde, are inconvenient, and so on, because it hasn't yet found any coherent tradeoffs or solutions for the problems that prompted them in the first place. Indeed nobody has: the right doesn't even try. But the left is simply ignoring them and campaigning against the infrastructure of enforcement, which is a childish approach. A similar problem can be seen in the USA with respect to the police: campaigning against the existence of a thing that creates problems, without any answer to how to address the problems lack of that thing would create. It's this kind of anti-tradeoff thinking that eventually led me to abandon the left. It's OK to recognise that a situation is unsatisfactory, yet also recognise that you don't know of an alternative tradeoff that's clearly better.

belorn 6y ago

Shouldn't that be an issue they could meet half way on in order to get national identification implemented? Here we have an hook for which the right could get behind, and the benefit of national identification is very clear for all that time between elections. It would indeed discriminate against those without it, but then a national identification is given to everyone who has a right to vote. One is directly linked to the other. In countries with national id you have to have the card if you want to buy alcohol, buy tobacco, drive, go to the doctor, get social security, banking, and many other regular stuff which people need to do multiple times between elections. If it something people need daily, they will have gotten it before the election.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

matwood 6y ago

> The left have been opposing voting requiring identification (on the grounds that it discriminates against those without it) for years. The left is worried that any ID scheme would be used to disenfranchise voters. Studies have shown that requiring an ID does not impact voter turnout for the most part, but we only need to look towards voter registration rules to see how the system can be gamed to prevent people to vote. Some states allow same day registration while others require 30 days, etc... I could think of similar rules around voter ID to add another hurdle to voting.