[thechat] Re: Re: war phase 2
Dave Fitch
lists at dere-street.com
Mon Dec 3 15:22:11 CST 2001
Ben Henick <persist1 at io.com> said:
>The fact remains that the rights are there, and that people make the
>willful and informed choice not to exercise those rights. (A choice about
>which I rant on my site, no less...)
The fact remains that the rights aren't there: I have friends who
have worked on political campaigns in the South and, well, let's just
say that many of the 'rights' of voters were more hypothetical than
anything else. The reality, however unpalatable it is to many, and it
*is* unpalatable to many, is that the rhetoric about people
'choosing' not to exercise rights is very different from the question
about whether people actually have access to the 'rights' they are
denied.
I didn't vote in the last UK election, not because I wasn't
registered [I was, mostly because if you're not registered to vote
it's damn difficult to get a mortgage in this country, which is
bizarre but hey, local government sells your addresses...] but
because I found it far more useful to send the evening in the pub.
Lots of people aren't registered though: many people lack the
literacy and social skills [including the time and the money]
necessary to register/vote. If/when the system makes it difficult to
register [and remember that lots of people in the US were vehemently
against the various Motor-Voter laws...], you're seeing structural
attempts to restrict the franchise.
Dave
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Dave Fitch, lists at dere-street.com <http://www.dere-street.com/>
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