Thoughts on the eve of election


Greetings regular reader (if any of you actually exist!)

I'm guilty of Dwight's accusation: I don't update nearly often enough. That said, I try to make sure that if I'm posting something, it's actually worth the effort, both to post and to read.

At any rate, I've been holding back recently. A recent 'heated discussion' with my mother about politics followed by a little quiet reflection helped me realize something. Argument with those you disagree with is counter productive; you don't convince them of anything, and often you reduce yourself to the very same knuckle-dragging level of diatribe you accuse them of that so drives you to distraction.

So, rather than spout my usual rebuttals to news items by endlessly quoting other news items with different opinions, I've been keeping silent lately.

I've gone underground, so to speak. I've actually been having discussions with the opposition! Done quietly, respectfully and resolutely, admitting points when made as well as making points of my own is a far more effective method of discourse. It promotes those elements most rare in today's world: common ground, mutual respect, re-examination of one's beliefs.

A few vignettes to illustrate my assertions:

I stood outside Coastline Deli on Friday, watching the excited throngs of between 7,000 and 10,000 wait in line to gain entrance to the rally for Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards being held at L.C. Walker Arena. Many hundreds held signs. Most were pro Kerry, but a couple of dozen there were Bush supporters.

I was tempted to ask them if they were enjoying their right to protest so close to a political rally, since protesters are usually corralled off to 'designated free speech areas' outside of Bush rallies. I held my tongue.

I watched as some misguided Kerry supporters tried frantically to cover up the Bush signs by standing in front of them with larger signs. This struck me as the very height of hypocrisy; free speech means free speech, for everyone. Let them hold their signs. What harm could be done? Were they afraid that the Bush supporters and their signs would begin a cancerous erosion of Kerry support in Muskegon??

I think not.

On the way home from work tonight, I had the 'pleasure' of listening to the DJ on the local classic rock Clear Channel affiliate radio station WMRR 101.7 spout misinformation about the voting irregularities in Florida in 2000. As many of you know, Clear Channel isn't exactly afraid to promote their own political views, especially when it comes to further relaxation of already liberal media ownership rules. Clear Channel are huge, and want to get gargantuan.

Anyway, the DJ was saying that Michael Moore was some sort of crypto communist storm trooper for taking 200 film crews to Florida to document any voting irregularities that may occur there. He went on to state that there was no evidence of voter disenfranchisement in Florida in the 2000 election, and offered a $100 bet that if Moore found any Democrats guilty of committing voting irregularities, he'd never document it.

Firstly, as far as proof of voter disenfranchisement, the Associated Press filed this article on April 26, 2002 (exerpted):

Quietly Florida Admits 2000 Election Fraud
By The Associated Press
April 26, 2002 | Filed at 10:17 p.m. ET

MIAMI (AP) -- A federal judge has approved a settlement between Leon County and civil rights groups that sued over widespread voting problems in the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

The state and six other counties remain in the case brought by the NAACP and four other groups who sued in a dispute that grew out of the long-uncertain results of Florida's vote for president.

State lawmakers changed election laws in response to complaints after the 2000 election, but critics said the changes didn't go far enough.

Many voters said their votes didn't count or they were turned away from polls due to mistakes on voter lists, busy telephone lines at election headquarters, punch-card voting machine foul-ups and other problems.

Statewide, the largest numbers of voting problems were found in precincts with high proportions of black and elderly voters.

Under the settlement, both sides will work to restore voters who were wrongly removed from voters lists in the 2000 election. Many law-abiding voters across the state said their names were dropped because they were mistakenly pegged as ex-cons, who generally aren't allowed to vote in Florida.

read the whole story here

So, there WAS voter disenfranchisement. According to Human Rights Watch, nearly 400,000 black men have been permanently disenfranchised in Florida due to felony convictions, nearly one in three black men. Florida is one of only thirteen states who permanently deny voting rights to felons who have served their sentences.

What's wrong with disenfranchising felons? Well, you can argue over whether or not that's a good idea on your own, but I don't think anyone would support being put on the voter 'purge list' for felons if you weren't a felon.

That's exactly what happened in Florida in 2000. The state used extremely liberal criteria to match potential voters to the felon 'purge list', often not bothering to cross-reference names with birth dates, and even ignoring similar spellings. In short, the state of Florida cast a very wide net for felons to purge from voter lists, and tens of thousands were purged that had not been convicted of a felony. Those mistakenly purged were overwhelming black, and likely Democratic voters.

Back to the hapless DJ...

It's one thing to go off on a topic, and state your opinion. It's another thing to do it on air. It's another thing to do it on air, when you aren't being paid for your opinion. It's yet another thing to do all that, and then spread misinformation to boot. Clear Channel Communications is yet another example of absolute power corrupting absolutely.

The oddest part of all this is that I usually don't listen to any of the multitude of Clear Channel stations in the West Michigan area (WOOD, WMRR, WSHZ, WSNX, WTVI). As luck would have it, I was fiddling with the radio in my car, trying to change the clock for the time change, unsuccessfully, I might add, when WMRR came on. Defeated by my unfamiliarity with the arcane time changing controls, I resigned myself to listening in.

And that's what started all this!

I hope you all go out and vote, that your experience is positive, that every vote counts, and every vote is counted.

Posted: Mon - November 1, 2004 at 09:33 PM          

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