I’m sort of in a gritchy mood today. There’s a kind of general malaise at work, and there are a couple of things that have really made me angry, and just decided to vent about them here.
First, what is it with the Republicans passing all these voter ID, voter restriction laws. Do you realize in the state of Texas that a concealed gun carry permit is acceptable ID to vote, but a student ID isn’t? Florida has disenfranchised an ninety plus year old woman because she can’t get the approved ID because she can’t provide a birth certificate — because the state records office burned down, and it was lost.
In Australia everyone is required to vote. You’re fined if you don’t go vote. So why are we, the world’s first democracy, leaders in the quest for freedom making it so damn hard to vote?Let’s take Australia’s approach. Let’s make election day a national holiday so people aren’t worried about missing work.
Here’s a little tidbit from a Romney supporter —
“I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. “Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.
“We’ve got the message,” she added. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.”
Yeah, shocking, all the hoi polloi thinking they have the right to have a say in this country’s governance.
Then there’s abortion. Since the Republicans have come into power the assault on women’s reproductive rights has become epidemic. Now Republican politicians don’t even hesitate to say they would outlaw abortions even in the case of rape and incest. There’s a meme going around to the effect that “if corporations are people then why is my uterus property?”
We have real problems in this country. Disenfranchising poor people and minorities and denying women the right to make choices for themselves and their families, should not be among them. How about the fact virtually every water system in the U.S. is over 70 years old. That our bridges are falling down. That natural gas lines are corroded and when they break neighborhoods are destroyed and people die. That we’re still in Afghanistan.
I’m with you on the call for American voting to be compulsory. However, one small correction: elections in Australia are on Saturday so they don’t have to declare a holiday. (In Israel, though, people do get the day off on election day.)