So it's' been almost 36 hours

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Sancria
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So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Sancria »

The US isn't burning. Mark that as a win.
I'd gladly travel back in time, except I would have to wait longer for the next chapter of Fel's work...sorry, pass.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Blacktiger »

You can always hope. But it will be a tremendous task to heal the deep chasm that devides the US. I fear this will take at least 2 generations.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Fawks »

Sancria wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 3:30 am The US isn't burning. Mark that as a win.
Have you looked at Portland Oregon? ANTIFA is still running amok and the idiotic Democrats in the mayor and governors office let them do it. Still.
Last edited by Fawks on Sat Jan 30, 2021 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Fawks »

Blacktiger wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 6:08 am You can always hope. But it will be a tremendous task to heal the deep chasm that devides the US. I fear this will take at least 2 generations.
No, It will take ALL votes being in person at the polling location, all ballots being hand counted and no precincts turning in their vote counts until ALL precincts are ready within the state.

If you don't know how bad your losing then you cant fudge ballots to make up for it like the Democraps did in November 2020 giving us the illegitimate bastard who will be 46 until Comrade Harris gets tired of him. 25th anyone?

If nothing is done, there will not be healing in the nation, unfortunately.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Greymist »

Fawks wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:14 am
No, It will take ALL votes being in person at the polling location, all ballots being hand counted and no precincts turning in their vote counts until ALL precincts are ready within the state.
I'm not from the US so I don't have a large stake in this but my thoughts:

I don't understand how a vote can be considered representative of the population if it's conducted in a way which prevents ANY valid person from voting. For example military services people on deployment, older people who aren't mobile or those who lack transport, people who have work/childcare/etc commitments, or just people who don't want to spend their precious time queuing with lots of other people during a pandemic.

Voting should not be onerous.

If you suspect there are problems with the accuracy of votes submitted through any method, whether that's fradulent postal votes, people voting in person at multiple voting sites with fakes id, or ballot stuffing, then you need to come up with solutions for that, but ones which don't place an undue burden on citizens which prevents them from voting, or reduces voter turn out.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Sancria »

Greymist wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:21 pm
Fawks wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:14 am
No, It will take ALL votes being in person at the polling location, all ballots being hand counted and no precincts turning in their vote counts until ALL precincts are ready within the state.
I'm not from the US so I don't have a large stake in this but my thoughts:

I don't understand how a vote can be considered representative of the population if it's conducted in a way which prevents ANY valid person from voting. For example military services people on deployment, older people who aren't mobile or those who lack transport, people who have work/childcare/etc commitments, or just people who don't want to spend their precious time queuing with lots of other people during a pandemic.

Voting should not be onerous.

If you suspect there are problems with the accuracy of votes submitted through any method, whether that's fradulent postal votes, people voting in person at multiple voting sites with fakes id, or ballot stuffing, then you need to come up with solutions for that, but ones which don't place an undue burden on citizens which prevents them from voting, or reduces voter turn out.
Actually, I think this is a problem with the college of electorates. 200 years ago, it made sense to send a representative to vote in your stead during a busy time of year, or when it was manifestly unsafe or difficult to travel, but that no longer holds true. The gerrymandering of the districts is ridiculous. Go look at some of the maps and it is just nuts.

I am not a huge fan of proportionate representation because urban areas would completely outstrip rural areas however there is some merit to the simplification of such a vote.

I personally think the future lies with some split between rural urban votes where urban areas get to vote for their own and rural area gets to vote for their own representative perhaps based geographically.
I'd gladly travel back in time, except I would have to wait longer for the next chapter of Fel's work...sorry, pass.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Cronus1585 »

Greymist wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:21 pm
Fawks wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:14 am
No, It will take ALL votes being in person at the polling location, all ballots being hand counted and no precincts turning in their vote counts until ALL precincts are ready within the state.
I'm not from the US so I don't have a large stake in this but my thoughts:

I don't understand how a vote can be considered representative of the population if it's conducted in a way which prevents ANY valid person from voting. For example military services people on deployment, older people who aren't mobile or those who lack transport, people who have work/childcare/etc commitments, or just people who don't want to spend their precious time queuing with lots of other people during a pandemic.

Voting should not be onerous.

If you suspect there are problems with the accuracy of votes submitted through any method, whether that's fradulent postal votes, people voting in person at multiple voting sites with fakes id, or ballot stuffing, then you need to come up with solutions for that, but ones which don't place an undue burden on citizens which prevents them from voting, or reduces voter turn out.
The problem with the US voting system is that its based on blind faith on the honest of people casting votes. There is literally no way for the government to verify that a voter is actually eligible. On top of that, we aren't even allowed to have voter id requirements because its "racist". Mind you, I can barely walk down the street without a government id. They keep saying there is no voter fraud but they don't even have the capability to detect voter fraud if it was happening. With mail in voting, there is no way for anyone to know if the ballot is cast by the actual voter, that there wasn't a man-in-the-middle compromise to the voting, or the voter is even eligible. We just keep sticking our heads in the sand of all the potential security risks.
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Fel
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Fel »

You must not live in a large city, Cronus.

When I lived in Washington D.C., I didn't have, and didn't need, a government issued ID. The metro took me everywhere I wanted to go, so I didn't need a driver's license. The bank didn't require a government ID to open an account, so I didn't need it to bank. I didn't need an ID to get a job, I only needed to prove citizenship, which a social security card does. When you live in a place like that, you don't NEED a government-issued picture ID.

I didn't have a government issued picture ID until I joined the Air Force, and it was my active duty ID. And guess what, I didn't need an ID to join the Air Force, all I needed was my SS card and a birth certificate. Neither is a picture ID.

I now live in rural West Virginia, and here, since you absolutely MUST have a car in order to function, I have a government ID.

This is why voter ID laws ARE racist. The large majority of people who live in large cities are minorities, who don't have the ID that voter ID laws require in order to vote. And since you have to pay to get those IDs, it is actually a form of poll tax, forcing you to pay to vote.

That is unconstitutional.

If people were allowed to get the required ID to vote for free, I wouldn't have a problem with it so long as where they get the ID is somewhere easily accessible from their homes. But another aspect of why these laws are unconstitutional is that the authors of them DO NOT WANT those people to get the IDs they need. They require IDs that require them to go somewhere they can't easily reach because they don't have a car, and won't make getting those IDs free because they want as many roadblocks in place as possible to keep them from voting.

Add this to the fact that the majority of voter ID laws are in states where GOP-dominated state legislatures have to deal with a significant population of non-white voters. There is a reason these laws only seem to be in places where the GOP needs them in order to suppress voters that vote against them.
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imthejman85
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by imthejman85 »

Blacktiger wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 6:08 am You can always hope. But it will be a tremendous task to heal the deep chasm that devides the US. I fear this will take at least 2 generations.
Personally I think you're being incredibly optimistic there...

The gulf has always been there, but it hasn't ever closed that I can recall. It's not even expanding, it's big bang universal expansion expanding. The only way I see it ending is a split of the country. We had a good run boys and girls.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. -George Orwell
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by imthejman85 »

Fel wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:54 am You must not live in a large city, Cronus.

When I lived in Washington D.C., I didn't have, and didn't need, a government issued ID. The metro took me everywhere I wanted to go, so I didn't need a driver's license. The bank didn't require a government ID to open an account, so I didn't need it to bank. I didn't need an ID to get a job, I only needed to prove citizenship, which a social security card does. When you live in a place like that, you don't NEED a government-issued picture ID.

I didn't have a government issued picture ID until I joined the Air Force, and it was my active duty ID. And guess what, I didn't need an ID to join the Air Force, all I needed was my SS card and a birth certificate. Neither is a picture ID.

I now live in rural West Virginia, and here, since you absolutely MUST have a car in order to function, I have a government ID.

This is why voter ID laws ARE racist. The large majority of people who live in large cities are minorities, who don't have the ID that voter ID laws require in order to vote. And since you have to pay to get those IDs, it is actually a form of poll tax, forcing you to pay to vote.

That is unconstitutional.

If people were allowed to get the required ID to vote for free, I wouldn't have a problem with it so long as where they get the ID is somewhere easily accessible from their homes. But another aspect of why these laws are unconstitutional is that the authors of them DO NOT WANT those people to get the IDs they need. They require IDs that require them to go somewhere they can't easily reach because they don't have a car, and won't make getting those IDs free because they want as many roadblocks in place as possible to keep them from voting.

Add this to the fact that the majority of voter ID laws are in states where GOP-dominated state legislatures have to deal with a significant population of non-white voters. There is a reason these laws only seem to be in places where the GOP needs them in order to suppress voters that vote against them.
I never met a single person in any inner city I've ever been to, all 30+ of em, that didn't know how to call a cab, find a bus route, or have some friend/family/co-worker/etc that couldn't get them to a place to get an I'd of some form. Are there some, I'm sure. Is it a majority? No, not by any stretch of the longest longshot imagined.

I do agree they should be free however.

By the way Fel, I have no issues with any minority voting in this country as long as they are a US citizen. My main concern is 12-20mil illegals in the country that will suddenly be given a vote by Dems for no other reason than they happen to be in the country. Those same Dems trying, and soon to be succeeding, in handing out billions and trillions of dollars in free shit to said illegals that have no legit reason to be here, buying their votes to keep themselves in power. That is where I have a problem...
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. -George Orwell
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by mbeau »

Cronus1585 wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:46 amThe problem with the US voting system is that its based on blind faith on the honest of people casting votes. There is literally no way for the government to verify that a voter is actually eligible. On top of that, we aren't even allowed to have voter id requirements because its "racist". Mind you, I can barely walk down the street without a government id. They keep saying there is no voter fraud but they don't even have the capability to detect voter fraud if it was happening. With mail in voting, there is no way for anyone to know if the ballot is cast by the actual voter, that there wasn't a man-in-the-middle compromise to the voting, or the voter is even eligible. We just keep sticking our heads in the sand of all the potential security risks.
It's very possible to have voter ID that works. Here is the list of forms of ID that are acceptable for voter ID in Canada: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?s ... dex&lang=e

There have been numerous audits of voting by mail, and all of them have found that actual voter fraud (as opposed to people just screwing up honestly) is so insignificantly small so as to be non-existent. The US Military has been doing mail in voting for years, with no issues, as have numerous states. There are claims of massive fraud, however said claims have yet to be supported by **any** evidence of massive conspiracies whatsoever.

The issue with voter ID laws in the US is they are designed to make it very difficult for poor people to get.

If people in the US want to reform and have voting be more representative, start with getting rid of (a) gerrymandering; and (b) Citizens United. Those, combined, have much, much larger impacts.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Bester »

The voter fraud conspiracy theories continue to boggle my mind.

There are undoubtedly individual cases given the size of the country and voting population, and a few have been caught here and there. But the size of the count mitigates the effect of individual issues (whether accidental or intentional) to effectively nothing. No organized effort has been found, despite intense scrutiny, screaming, crying, and made up claims. The entirety of the Republican party has been desperately looking for some sort of evidence of vote fraud (any evidence will do, no matter how crazy, limited, or stupid), and has found...nothing significant. Almost all the cases of intentional vote fraud have come from Republicans, not Democrats. There are a number of checks and balances in the voting system to prevent fraud from getting through. As far as any fact-based analysis has determined, these checks and balances have been almost absolutely effective in countering mistakes and fraud. Virtually every issue where a vote was cast when it shouldn't have been was already identified and dealt with by the proper systems before the votes were added to the count, despite the historically incredible scrutiny in the aftermath to find bad votes.

Do you think that if Trump had even a smidgen of proof he wouldn't be waving it instead of the vague, proof-less conspiracy theories? That the 60+ election lawsuits would have had more than one partial victory (that one only allowing observers to be closer during recounting), with judges from across the political spectrum (including many hard republicans installed by Trump, and including unanimous rejections by the Supreme Court that has three Trump installed judges) rejecting the lawsuits. When asked by judges in actual court, Republican lawyers universally backed down and said that they weren't claiming fraud.

The idea that Trump losing is proof of election fraud because "if it was a fair election Trump would have won," is circular, disingenuous, and deluded. Trump is at historic levels of unpopularity amongst the majority of the population. That the people that support him are wrapping themselves in a media echo chamber that refuses to acknowledge anything that the Trumpicans don't think should happen is dangerous, particularly since that crowd finds blatantly lying and dishonesty easy and effective tactics. This kind of thing is what lead to the Capitol Sedition Riots on Jan 6th.

The "illegals" cannot vote because they cannot register, since that requires proof of citizenship for voter registration well before each election is held. While I'm sure there are some left-wing whack-nuts that would push for giving votes to non-citizens, it is probably equivalent to the right wing whack-nuts that would push for disenfranchising non-white voters. Neither of those groups will gather enough support for either of those paths, and building strawmen for what the left-wing whack-nuts will do if given total power is a tired, disingenuous and stupid tactic that has been drummed by the faux news crowd far too often over the last decade, and especially the last four years. Government shouldn't happen by virtue of fighting battles against conspiracy theories.

And Fel is absolutely correct that the voter identification thing is historically racist and universally disgusting. If look at the historical precedents, they were all startedin the reconstruction (post-civil war) era in southern states, that were doing their best to created legal roadblocks to minorities voting. The specific reasoning and tactics have changed, but the basic premise and drive have not. It is well-documented that minorities have severely lower percentages of population that possess photo-id. Beyond that, economics (not only access to transportation, but access to open DMV's, time off to go, and spare funds for fees) mean that trend will continue. These Voter ID crusades as specifically targeted at the lower income populations, including dense urban areas, where minorities are higher percentages of the population. If you are saying they they are not racially (or at least economic class) driven, then you are being disingenuous, deluded, or blatantly lying.

I know a couple of people of that crown in real life. They parrot things that come from their segregated media platforms without any understanding of politics, or history, or the constitution. When Trump says things like he will issue an executive order that Biden can't be president (as he did at one point a couple of months before the election), they cheer and repeat it. When it is pointed out that he can't legally do it, they say "so what?" When it is later pointed out that the executive order never showed up, they shrug and move on to the latest outrageously stupid and obvious lie. This is how we get a story, that a significant portion of the country really believes, that Trump is going to have the military round up and execute all of the Democratic leaders (including former presidents!) in the streets.

Look, I'm in no way believing Democrats or the left are beacons of righteousness. Democrats are just as corrupt as any other part of the political spectrum, and have just as many extremists with unrealistic views. With that said, a large portion of the Republican base has become divorced from reality, helped by an extremist propagandistic media that has no qualms about blatant lies or dishonesty, let alone fact checking. If CNN leans two points to the left, and MSNBC leans five points to the left, Fox News runs 10 points to the right and OANN and the others don't even care about the scale since they are all the way the hell in.

I don't know what the solution is. I believe strongly in the First Amendment, and that means that government shouldn't be allowed to dip it's fingers in correcting (or even influencing) the media. With that said, the way that some media sources are so blatantly distancing themselves and their viewers from reality is a huge problem, to the point that their propaganda is essentially another conversation in and of itself (such as the whole Q Anon movement), something needs to change before everything breaks. And by everything, I mean Democracy and the country.

We somehow need to get back to the point where we are all talking in the same language about politics.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Bester »

mbeau wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:05 pm
Cronus1585 wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 1:46 amThe problem with the US voting system is that its based on blind faith on the honest of people casting votes. There is literally no way for the government to verify that a voter is actually eligible. On top of that, we aren't even allowed to have voter id requirements because its "racist". Mind you, I can barely walk down the street without a government id. They keep saying there is no voter fraud but they don't even have the capability to detect voter fraud if it was happening. With mail in voting, there is no way for anyone to know if the ballot is cast by the actual voter, that there wasn't a man-in-the-middle compromise to the voting, or the voter is even eligible. We just keep sticking our heads in the sand of all the potential security risks.
It's very possible to have voter ID that works. Here is the list of forms of ID that are acceptable for voter ID in Canada: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?s ... dex&lang=e

There have been numerous audits of voting by mail, and all of them have found that actual voter fraud (as opposed to people just screwing up honestly) is so insignificantly small so as to be non-existent. The US Military has been doing mail in voting for years, with no issues, as have numerous states. There are claims of massive fraud, however said claims have yet to be supported by **any** evidence of massive conspiracies whatsoever.

The issue with voter ID laws in the US is they are designed to make it very difficult for poor people to get.

If people in the US want to reform and have voting be more representative, start with getting rid of (a) gerrymandering; and (b) Citizens United. Those, combined, have much, much larger impacts.
Sure, there's proof, at least in their eyes. Trump lost, which by definition, at least in their eyes, means that the election couldn't have been fair. All they have to do is find the way in which the opposition cheated.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Not a ID »

mbeau wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:05 pmThere have been numerous audits of voting by mail, and all of them have found that actual voter fraud (as opposed to people just screwing up honestly) is so insignificantly small so as to be non-existent. The US Military has been doing mail in voting for years, with no issues, as have numerous states. There are claims of massive fraud, however said claims have yet to be supported by **any** evidence of massive conspiracies whatsoever.
I don't know about "massive" but the Military has a history of doing some shady stuff with their vote in the past. The Union Army did some shifty stuff in the 1864 Presidential election as I recall. Some parties in DoD weren't above it in the not so recent past based on 2nd hand information I was getting during a certain other election about 20 years ago. But I didn't see anything myself besides being aware that our first mail pickup in November happened a few days after an election's outcome was known to be hanging on a margin of a few hundred votes, and as such my evidence is heresy in a court of law, so there is that. 8)

Mail in voting is very easy to manipulate or otherwise abuse if the right people are involved and given the right circumstances. And the ones abusing it are very unlikely to fess up to it during an audit for obvious reasons.
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Re: So it's' been almost 36 hours

Post by Sancria »

imthejman85 wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:04 pm
I never met a single person in any inner city I've ever been to, all 30+ of em, that didn't know how to call a cab, find a bus route, or have some friend/family/co-worker/etc that couldn't get them to a place to get an I'd of some form. Are there some, I'm sure. Is it a majority? No, not by any stretch of the longest longshot imagined.

I do agree they should be free however.

By the way Fel, I have no issues with any minority voting in this country as long as they are a US citizen. My main concern is 12-20mil illegals in the country that will suddenly be given a vote by Dems for no other reason than they happen to be in the country. Those same Dems trying, and soon to be succeeding, in handing out billions and trillions of dollars in free shit to said illegals that have no legit reason to be here, buying their votes to keep themselves in power. That is where I have a problem...
I might be misunderstanding how the american economy works but isn't it based off of cheap labor of immigrants? I don't see how you can get things like super cheap restaurant food without having a workforce who are desperate enough to take the jobs. Because there is a surfeit of cheap labor, there is a lot of unemployment, which helps drive down the costs to businesses (at least for unskilled labor).

Also, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a single first world country that is actually growing their populations without immigration. We simply do not have enough kids to replace deaths of boomers.
I'd gladly travel back in time, except I would have to wait longer for the next chapter of Fel's work...sorry, pass.
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