"Don" wrote in news:Qa0Ye.1956$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
James Baker and Jimmy Carter are working up a deal where voters must
> have a picture ID.
>
> Apparently *disadvantaged* persons, or those with *unequal
> opportunities* have little time, need or funding to aquire a drivers
> license to present as a picture ID at the polls.
>
> In past elections these persons simply supplied a utility bill or
> voter registration card so that they might vote.
Hell, Don, I remember when they didn't even put your picture on your license......how times have changed (for the worse)...
The idea is that the proposal by those 2 folks, Baker and Carter, will
> cause thousands or millions of poor persons and others to not be able
> to vote in elections.
>
> Is this a good idea?
>
> Is this in accordance with the strict writings of the Constitution
> that requires no such thing?
> (photgraphy itself was not invented until long after the ratification)
I think (but check as I am not sure) that one had to be a property owner and of the age of majority in order to vote back then.
Why should people that do NOT pay income tax be allowed to influence,
> no matter how small that influence might be, how those taxes are
> disbursed through their voting of chosen politicians?
Originally, the thought was similar - people who were itinerants of temporary residents or whatever were not deemed to have a permanent stake in the nation.
As the spending of taxes is only one facet of the power wielded by
> elected politicians is it not right that all persons that meet the
> qualifications set forth by the Constitution (go read it sometime, I
> double dog dare ya) be able to choose those people that have effect > upon their lives?
>
> Hopefully you'll be able to connect the dots here to see clearly that
> when a National ID is required of *some* of the populace it is only a
> matter of time that ALL of the populace will be required to possess
> the same ID. Once this is done whats next, tattoo barcode?, implanted
> ID chip?, retina printing? frenum tracks? You get the idea.
People have been calling for a national ID for a while now. For *all* people.
I wonder whether Australia has a national ID/tracking system...
I will remind you, just in case you somehow forgot your 8th grade
> Civics class, that the United States of America is unique on this
> Earth that it is unlike other countries that are sovereign entities
> unto themselves, and it is rather a collection of FIFTY individual
> sovereign states (sort of like small countries), prohibiting the
> unification by gov't or others into one mass body.
Oh Don, stop confusing the issue with the facts. You and Gruhn and 3D Peruna just *insist* upon doing that! How un-American of y'all.
Though this fact is
> mainly disregarded by misconstrued things like the Interstate Commerce
> clause and the General Welfare clause, just to mention two, (banking,
> assembly of national military force, social security, and on and on
> and on, etc.) this is no justification for the total disregard of the
> sovereign status of each of the individual states comprising these
> United States of America. I won't even go there about the sovereign
> status of the individual persons.
Oh Don, don't you realize that these days, the term "individual" is merely a metaphor? Get with modern politics!
In other words, isn't the issue of identification of voters a *states*
> issue rather than a national issue?
One would think. Same as right to vote. You have to register to vote in each state you move to. Just as you have to get a new driver's license each time you move from one state to another.
*When the responsibilty and rights of states has been finally
> discounted in full by incremental steps there will be no point of
> individual representation of these bodies.*
> --gs, 2005
>
> (sounds like something Jefferson would have written, rather than the
> whiney, embarrassing stuff demonstrated by popular politicians of > late)
Ah yes, whining - the path to power of the "terrible twos" - pretty disgusting that, these days, it remains so right through adulthood and to old age...
14 or fight.
??