2 ms·

"because there is not one certain way to establish if someone is a citizen or not" Only about half the states require citizenship to vote, this can be triviall

by VLM 12y ago

"because there is not one certain way to establish if someone is a citizen or not" Only about half the states require citizenship to vote, this can be trivially verified on wikipedia. Its technically illegal at the federal level to vote in a federal election if you're not a citizen but that's only enforced politically "making examples of" and voter intimidation purposes and so forth. It seems among the young HN participants, or maybe foreign participants, there is culturally almost no understanding of whats federal and whats state level in the USA. I would assume this is an intentional goal of the educational system, to make control of the population simpler. There is also an undercurrent of those who actually understand this simple fact not saying much, because "everyone knows" that you get 50 states into a big pile, anything you say about them can and will be wrong in some minor detail in one state and your entire argument will be viciously attacked because being only 98% right is the same as 0% right. There is also at least a three step game being played where the first step is "demand ID to vote" rather than the existing "we trust you" system. The second step is state ID is technically free if you have the documentation required. The third step is making the documentation required change annually and sometimes be very expensive, almost impossible to obtain and you can always blame the victim for not having all the right paperwork. My wife doesn't have a "real id" because it would just cost too much and be too much of a PITA to fix, so when a "real id" level license is required to vote, she'll be disenfranchised from voting. Eventually it will be enough of a PITA for her to obtain the docs she needs and we can certainly afford it, its only $100 or so, but that's a weeks labor for other social classes... very much intentionally.

gambiting 12y ago
Like I have said in my own comment - I am not from US. For me, the very concept of non-citizens voting is.....bizarre. Also, the problem with US citizens not being just given IDs is also bizarre - when people in my country turn 18, they just collect their ID for free at the nearest government office, and that ID can also be used as a passport for travelling inside the EU, negating the need to ever pay for a passport for most people. It certainly does not seem to be difficult, because everyone is registered as a citizen from birth, unless someone becomes a naturalized citizen, so they are also added to the national database. In the States I understand the difficulty is that there is no such database - people can be Americans without having paperwork to necessarily prove it, and so demanding such paperwork is seen as discriminatory. Am I correct? And no, as a European I very frequently do not understand what is governed on your federal or state level. In fact, this separation has never ever been mentioned in my own education,and I only know of it because I frequent places like HN.
- VLM 12y ago
  "For me, the very concept of non-citizens voting is.....bizarre" Its that taxation without representation thing, still an issue two centuries later, if you pay taxes, even just road taxes via gasoline for your car, you get to vote on who spends the tax money ... More practically we use voting as a propaganda technique to calm the voters... "we don't have an oligarchy or dictatorship, you get to choose between two carefully chosen (by us, not you) candidates, and they do have different PR firms... see? thats real freedom so stop complaining!" "Also, the problem with US citizens not being just given IDs is also bizarre" We've historically had problems with J Random Criminal walking up to the counter and asking for someone else's ID and then doing very bad things with it. My own mother supposedly bought a truck in Texas last seen at the border crossing to Mexico, that's only 1000 miles away. Culturally we have a lot of people who work on commission and don't really care about much other than collecting that commission check. We could have .gov bankroll the substantial costs of identity paperwork, but 1) technically you're not supposed to throw away your birth certificate, so the guy who "lost" it should have some skin in the game, so bill them $100 and 2) Obvious voter suppression. At least poor voter suppression. Also aside from cost its a confuseopoly type of situation.. profiting off people being confused. Another thing we're really into culturally. "demanding such paperwork is seen as discriminatory" By a subset of the population with a political axe to grind, yes. Everyone else (maybe 80% of the population?) sees it more as common sense other than it has been used for oppression, stopping people on the street and only demanding papers from certain racial groups. "this separation has never ever been mentioned in my own education" Join the club, which unfortunately includes most Americans who've lived here their whole life and don't understand which laws are local, state, or federal. If you think our laws are confusing, try the building codes some time (ugh). This also is comical because there is a cultural meme on HN that "we" all live in SV or Manhattan even though most of us actually do not. Like us two. So someone will comment about electrical codes for 3-phase wiring for the NAS in their basement in Mountain View as if the whole country works the same way, which it certainly doesn't. Or voting, which is regulated by state.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    Thank you for such thorough explanation. I will add one more thing to this discussion: " if you pay taxes, even just road taxes via gasoline for your car, you get to vote on who spends the tax money" Interesting you say this, because this is one thing that should work like this in EU, but it doesn't. As a EU citizen living in a country that is not the country of my birth, I am in a situation where I pay all the taxes like everybody else, I pay income tax, I contribute to national insurance, pay road tax with my petrol, once I get old I will receive a state pension from this country, the whole deal - I literally don't pay anything in my home country anymore, so from the "tax" point of view, I am no different than any other "citizen" of the country I currently live in. However, I cannot vote in parliamentary elections of this country, because my passport has the wrong country on it, even though for all other purposes it doesn't(and in fact, it by law cannot) make any difference as long as we are inside the EU.

by VLM 12y ago

gambiting 12y ago

Like I have said in my own comment - I am not from US. For me, the very concept of non-citizens voting is.....bizarre. Also, the problem with US citizens not being just given IDs is also bizarre - when people in my country turn 18, they just collect their ID for free at the nearest government office, and that ID can also be used as a passport for travelling inside the EU, negating the need to ever pay for a passport for most people. It certainly does not seem to be difficult, because everyone is registered as a citizen from birth, unless someone becomes a naturalized citizen, so they are also added to the national database. In the States I understand the difficulty is that there is no such database - people can be Americans without having paperwork to necessarily prove it, and so demanding such paperwork is seen as discriminatory. Am I correct? And no, as a European I very frequently do not understand what is governed on your federal or state level. In fact, this separation has never ever been mentioned in my own education,and I only know of it because I frequent places like HN.

VLM 12y ago
"For me, the very concept of non-citizens voting is.....bizarre" Its that taxation without representation thing, still an issue two centuries later, if you pay taxes, even just road taxes via gasoline for your car, you get to vote on who spends the tax money ... More practically we use voting as a propaganda technique to calm the voters... "we don't have an oligarchy or dictatorship, you get to choose between two carefully chosen (by us, not you) candidates, and they do have different PR firms... see? thats real freedom so stop complaining!" "Also, the problem with US citizens not being just given IDs is also bizarre" We've historically had problems with J Random Criminal walking up to the counter and asking for someone else's ID and then doing very bad things with it. My own mother supposedly bought a truck in Texas last seen at the border crossing to Mexico, that's only 1000 miles away. Culturally we have a lot of people who work on commission and don't really care about much other than collecting that commission check. We could have .gov bankroll the substantial costs of identity paperwork, but 1) technically you're not supposed to throw away your birth certificate, so the guy who "lost" it should have some skin in the game, so bill them $100 and 2) Obvious voter suppression. At least poor voter suppression. Also aside from cost its a confuseopoly type of situation.. profiting off people being confused. Another thing we're really into culturally. "demanding such paperwork is seen as discriminatory" By a subset of the population with a political axe to grind, yes. Everyone else (maybe 80% of the population?) sees it more as common sense other than it has been used for oppression, stopping people on the street and only demanding papers from certain racial groups. "this separation has never ever been mentioned in my own education" Join the club, which unfortunately includes most Americans who've lived here their whole life and don't understand which laws are local, state, or federal. If you think our laws are confusing, try the building codes some time (ugh). This also is comical because there is a cultural meme on HN that "we" all live in SV or Manhattan even though most of us actually do not. Like us two. So someone will comment about electrical codes for 3-phase wiring for the NAS in their basement in Mountain View as if the whole country works the same way, which it certainly doesn't. Or voting, which is regulated by state.
- gambiting 12y ago
  Thank you for such thorough explanation. I will add one more thing to this discussion: " if you pay taxes, even just road taxes via gasoline for your car, you get to vote on who spends the tax money" Interesting you say this, because this is one thing that should work like this in EU, but it doesn't. As a EU citizen living in a country that is not the country of my birth, I am in a situation where I pay all the taxes like everybody else, I pay income tax, I contribute to national insurance, pay road tax with my petrol, once I get old I will receive a state pension from this country, the whole deal - I literally don't pay anything in my home country anymore, so from the "tax" point of view, I am no different than any other "citizen" of the country I currently live in. However, I cannot vote in parliamentary elections of this country, because my passport has the wrong country on it, even though for all other purposes it doesn't(and in fact, it by law cannot) make any difference as long as we are inside the EU.