A solution in search of stupidity

The editors of the Oklahoman have picked a new right-wing topic to push in their letters section: voter ID laws. A few days ago Mary Keefe had an utterly fatuous letter about voter ID published by the paper. And now, Randy J. Wedel of Stillwater chimes in. We have heard from him before and it's no surprise that he comes off as an idiot. It's also not surprising that the editors endorsed him when he ran for the state legislature some time ago. Interestingly, Wedel lost that election and tried to block the results because of "irregularities" in the voting process. We will come back to that topic in a moment. First, let's look at his banal letter:

Regarding Mary Keefe’s letter (Your Views, May 21) about a photo ID being required to get a library card: A photo ID is also required to apply for a hunting or fishing license, rent or buy a home, get on an airplane, visit a casino, open a bank account, get married, buy alcohol or cigarettes, buy a gun, rent a hotel room, pick up a prescription, donate blood, buy a cell phone, buy some video games, buy cold medicine, buy spray paint or even open an investment account with a broker. But not to vote? 

A photo ID is even required to adopt a pet in many places, enter some government buildings, buy nail polish at some retail outlets and return merchandise to a retailer. But not to vote? Fortunately a photo ID is required to apply for food stamps, welfare and Medicaid, but unfortunately not to vote.

The point, here, is to somehow show that lots of unimportant or quotidian things (e.g. renting a hotel room, buying spray paint) require an ID, implicitly suggesting that since voting is so important, it, too, should require an ID.

Lost in this is that there are good reasons for such things to require an ID, and they serve difference functions. For instance, the notion that you need and ID to buy spray paint is one based entirely on proof of age. The same is true of things like buying alcohol, or even nail polish. That's it. This isn't a problem with voting, when you register to vote, you have to prove that you are at least 18 years old.

In other cases, providing an ID is for security reasons (like getting on an airplane), or to prevent the clear and present problem of fraud (like opening a bank account, or a cell phone). Obviously a bank is going to want to be able to track me down if I start writing thousands of dollars of bogus checks one weekend.

The response to this from the right is that there is voter fraud, too. The question is: is that true? And the answer, of course, is that it absolutely is not. Indeed, voter fraud-- real in-person voter fraud-- is a virtual chimera. Think about what needs to happen for real voter fraud to take place:

1) A person has to be aware of a name on the rolls in a particular district who a) hasn't voted and won't vote, and b) won't be recognized by voting poll officials;

2) This person has to then go to the correct poll, park, and stand in line-- sometimes for hours;

3) This person then has to vote for whatever candidate she or he wants to win.

All of this-- at the risk of jail time and huge fines if caught-- for one fucking vote. Seriously: who would actually do this? And why? Even in the case of Mr Wedel's election, the difference was 32 votes. That's a very slim margin-- even for an election in rural Oklahoma-- but are we to imagine that 32 (or more?) people independently (or collectively?) sought to influence one election for state senator? That they had nothing better to do than illegally vote???

It's nuts.

And indeed, in serious evaluations of such things, the reality is that most voting errors are of a benign sort. Such as typographical or clerical errors and the like:

For example, despite having died in 1997, Alan J. Mandel was alleged to have voted in 1998; upon further investigation, Alan J. Mandell (two "l"s), who was very much alive and voting at the time, explained that local election workers simply checked the wrong name off of the list. The same problem may occur when information from a poll book is entered incorrectly into a county's computer system, as in Milwaukee in 2004. Or voters-- legitimate voters-- may make a mistake: a 1994 investigation of fraud allegations in California, for example, revealed that voters accidentally signed the poll books on the wrong lines, next to the names of deceased voters.

While perhaps some sort of ID might have prevented some of these sorts of errors (though, let's be clear: how often is someone going to notice "Mandel" versus "Mandell"?), these are in no way malicious attempts to sway an election. In other words, it's not fraud! And the Department of Justice even acknowledges this! They note:

However, not all irregularities in the election process are appropriate for criminal prosecution. It is, for example, not a federal crime to transport voters to the polls, or for election officials to make negligent mistakes in the administration of an election. Many of these noncriminal lapses are redressed through election contests, recounts, education programs, or disciplinary action against election officials whose mistakes are the result of negligence rather than corruption.

Again: the sorts of problems that an ID card purport to solve don't exist. The Oklahoman made the headline for this letter "Voting is like buying underwear" and Mr Wedel concludes his letter:

Somewhere along the way, the most sacred right of our republic, the right to elect those who will govern society, has been diminished to an act comparable to attending a movie, buying popcorn, going bowling, buying underwear or using the bathroom at the mall.

YES. THIS IS BECAUSE NO ONE SEEKS TO COMIT FRAUD TO BUY UNDERWEAR OR GO TO THE BATHROOM.

But if this is the case, why is the right pushing so hard to get voter ID laws passed? Well, the answer is clear: Because the people MOST LIKELY to lack a valid ID are the poor, women, and minorities-- the people-- not coincidentally-- MOST LIKELY to vote Democratic. Study after study show this. Indeed, right wingers admit this! In a now infamous speech, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai noted:

Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it's done. First pro-life legislation-- abortion facility regulations-- in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.

Got that? According to this guy, voter ID laws will help a Republican win the state! If that isn't an admission to what the right wing push to voter ID laws is actually about, I don't know what is.

Mr Wedel is obviously bitter about his loss almost 20 years ago, and no doubt he surrounds himself with the sort of right wing media outlets (like the Oklahoman) that repeat the mantra that voter fraud is rampant-- even though it isn't. A real newspaper that dealt with reality wouldn't bother to push this non-issue, but the Oklahoman isn't a real newspaper and is instead a (sadly) effective propaganda machine for the far right.

As expected

Yesterday, we noted how some thin-skinned Christians remained angry that schools don't open with official prayer (from which, the sympathetic fundamentalists offer, non-Christians can "opt out of" never mind the complications (and waste of time) such things bring).

The irony in Christians fighting for putting up as much Christian shit as possible in public areas is that-- at least for now-- our First Amendment rights always allow for other non-Christian shit to similarly be displayed. Thus, after the Oklahoma legislature paved the way for a (privately-funded) Ten Commandments display to appear in Capitol grounds, some Satanists quickly moved to have a (privately-funded, and totally spectacular) Baphomet display appear there as well.

Regarding the letter of Joe A. Putnam, who whined that we should urge Gov. Fallin to again have teacher-led official school prayers put in place, I noted that:

I have no doubts that when the day comes that someone gives a prayer to Satan in a 'public meeting' Christians like Mr Putnam will be livid. And it will all be their own fault. [Emph. in original]

Well, don't say I didn't warn you.... 

Legally dumb

A commonly heard mantra in this country is that everyone is entitled to their opinion. And that's more or less true. But when an opinion flies counter to reality, it shouldn't really be given much consideration-- particularly in a state's major newspaper!! And yet-- predictably-- that's exactly what we get with today's letter from Joe A. Putnam of Oklahoma City. He writes:

The first word of the First Amendment is 'Congress.' As in 'Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...' Atheists have for years misused this as a battle cry for pushing religion out of the public square. The Constitution doesn’t separate church and state; it prevents Congress from establishing an official religion. The Constitution limits Congress, not the states.

Uh. OK, even if one isn't a trained lawyer or constitutional scholar, this sort of logic should send up some red flags. If it's just Congress that is prohibited from privileging one religion over another, then why aren't states with huge fundamentalist Christian populations passing laws left and right making sure to establish Southern Baptist Protestantism (or whatever) as the religion of the state, and ban the practice of less desirable religions??

Oh, right. There is the Supreme Court and this thing called Gitlow v. New York. You can read about the case at the link provided, but the thrust of it is this:

The Supreme Court relied on the 'due process clause' of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits a state from depriving 'any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' The Court stated that 'For present purposes we may and do assume that' the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press were 'among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states'

So, in other words, people far smarter than Joe Putnam have already thought about this and decided that the opposite is true. So while the First Amendment may limit this to Congress, the Fourteenth extends it to the States. Boom.

At this point, why is the paper running this letter? There are factual errors here!

Of course, Mr Putnam isn't finished:

It may offend atheists, but states aren’t prohibited from putting the Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds, crosses in public places or engaging in other forms of religious expression.

No, but they can't do it with public money. And the plan has already back-fired as there will also be a wonderful monument to Baphomet right there on the Capitol grounds, too.

In 1962, Madeleine Murray O’Hair took a case to the Supreme Court because she was raising her children to be atheists and school prayer made them uncomfortable. Thus, all it took was one atheist complaining that prayer was offensive to get school prayer banned ever since.

Way to misrepresent things!!  The case was actually consolidated with Abington School District v. Schempp before going to the Supreme Court. And it wasn't about whether school prayer made some children "uncomfortable" at all. Instead, it was that, as noted in the Schempp case involving the mandatory reading of certain Bible verses, "specific religious doctrines purveyed by a literal reading of the Bible 'were contrary to the religious beliefs" held by Schempp as his family.

It is EASY to see how this could be problematic for any religious family-- the school is forcing a child to read and interpret a specific religious text in a specific way. This is precisely what the First Amendment sought to prevent!

Indeed, what would happen if a particular teacher decided to lead prayers to Baphomet?!? How upset would Mr Putnam be then?!?

Naturally, children had the option to opt out of such things, but, again, as noted in the Schempp case, doing so could ostracize the student and/or jeopardize relationships with teachers and other classmates.

It should also be noted that these rulings didn't "get school prayer banned" at all. Instead, it simply stopped the public, teacher-led, organized prayer that had been going on. A kid can of course pray in school!!

Mr Putnam concludes:

It’s time to fight back! The Supreme Court just ruled that public meetings can start with a prayer. If that is constitutionally sound, then Gov. Mary Fallin should instruct state schools Superintendent Janet Barresi to have Oklahoma’s schools begin each day with a voluntary prayer. After all, what is a school if not a public meeting? If atheists don't like it, they don't have to participate.

Ugh. Mr Putnam is referring to the recent case out of upstate New York. There are plenty of people who disagree, but a careful reading of the majority's decision make it clear that applying this ruling more broadly is not what they had in mind. (E.g. "The analysis would be different if town board members directed the public [clearly meant as opposed to members of town boards and commissions, who often serve part-time and as volunteers -- ed.] to participate in the prayers, singled out dissidents for opprobrium, or indicated that their decisions might be influenced by a person’s acquiescence in the prayer opportunity.") I have no doubts that when the day comes that someone gives a prayer to Satan in a "public meeting" Christians like Mr Putnam will be livid. And it will all be their own fault.

In any event, it seems clear that Mr Putnam has no real understanding of the law, so running a letter demanding that Fallin do something that is almost certainly unconstitutional is sort of stupid.

Why a newspaper would run such a stupid letter is beyond comprehension. But since it pushes the editors' theocratic agenda, it gets published.