Making Rehnquist Proud

October 25, 2002 5:23 AM

Making Rehnquist Proud Just like Rehnquist and his earlier political service, Jim Crow is still hard at work. "Tim Hutchinson and the Republican Party have claimed that they want to reach out to African-American voters, but when election time comes they have nothing to offer but intimidation and harassment," Cook said. "We ask Tim Hutchinson and his party to stop disenfranchising African-American voters and obstructing the democratic process."
posted by nofundy (15 comments total)

And it's deja vu in Floriduh... Voting Problems in Florida Again
posted by nofundy at 5:36 AM on October 25, 2002

Ashcraft said he was disappointed in the Republican "Gestapo" tactics.

Do you not appreciate the slander? Hitler. There, I said it.
posted by hama7 at 5:51 AM on October 25, 2002

For the un(der)educated in the crowd, what's this to do with the Chief Justice? I'm inferring some terrible incident in his past, but I'm not familiar with it.
posted by jewishbuddha at 6:35 AM on October 25, 2002

I'm assuming he's referring the the Supreme Court stopping the 2000 Florida recount, and I'll admit it's kind of a weak statement. The better anaology would have been how the infamous "mob of voters" that invaded a recount place was proven by the photographs to consists almost entirely of Florida officials of the Republican party.

That said, if this story it true, it's disgusting. I can be devil's advocate for people just hanging around and taking photographs, but when you've gone out of your way to make phony credentials, it's hard to convince me you're not planning something.

If the article is correct in the allegations, then many of these "watchers" broke the law and should be arrested.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:52 AM on October 25, 2002

i thought it was referring to Rehnquist's work in Arizona back when he was a youngster and intimidating minority voters at the polls.
posted by tolkhan at 7:28 AM on October 25, 2002

perhaps this is a better link.
posted by tolkhan at 7:31 AM on October 25, 2002

Yes, tolkhan, Rehnquist's ignoble past came to my mind. One must remember that the Republican obsession with "activist courts" can be traced back to the big event: Brown vs. The Board of Education. Few people hear can remember the days of Impeach Earl Warren bumperstickers. Few here can remember when the Supreme Court was a progressive force for social change. Now, we have Clarence Thomas in place of Thurgood Marshall... What nofundy has linked here is an example of active intentional violations of voting rights. hama7 is upset that someone in Arkansas described the hamhanded approach of the Republican "poll monitors" in doing so--not unlike our present chief justice in his younger days--as Gestapo tactics, and perhaps trying to invoke Godwin here to shut this thread down. So, what's your opinion of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. The Board of Education, anyway, hama7? Or were you going to mount a defense of those poor slandered Republican party operatives who were only trying to prevent black people from voting, hmm?
posted by y2karl at 10:16 AM on October 25, 2002

Few here can remember when the Supreme Court was a progressive force for social change.

Hmm, Brown was progressive, no doubt about that, but I would hesitate to call the Warren court a "force for social change." Seems to me that a better characterization might be "somewhat responsive to grassroots efforts to effect social change" whereas the Renquist court might be called "either directly opposed to or totally unresponsive to social change." The Supreme Court has always been a relatively conservative and reactive body when compared to the other branches of government, or even the lower courts. They fear change and will only act in a progressive way if they feel that public opinion and mores are solidly behind them.
posted by boltman at 3:16 PM on October 25, 2002

not that this has anything to do with the post. ; )
posted by boltman at 3:17 PM on October 25, 2002

Republican "Gestapo" tactics.

Here we go.

1. Hitler, and by association the gestapo, were anti-capitalist, socialist, leftist fascists. They were NOT Christians, but teutonic pagans, or something like Aryan theosophists.

2. Asking to see identification at an election office is as much "gestapo tactics" as asking for a receipt when you make a purchase at Wal-mart.

In actuality, "gestapo tactics" would be forcing "voters" to "vote" at gunpoint (if at all) with the ashes of their entire family on hand in a cigar box as persuasion. Perhaps performing vivisection on relatives at the voting booth might suffice, or forcing male voters to rape their own family members at gunpoint would be "gestapo tactics". You might vote for Hitler too, if someone were raping your mother in front of you, or your infant sister, or plucking out their eyeballs, or gutting them like animals and skinning them, or burning them alive. Or any other form of brutality unimaginable in civilized society.

I have the (dis)advantage of living scarcely 50 miles south of a dictatorship very well versed in "gestapo tactics", and believe me, the atrocities above are mere scare tactics. After that the real horror comes, and for some it lasts for years if they are unlucky enough not to die.

If you presume to equate checking voter identification with smashing their teeth out with rocks, forcing them to eat their own excrement, and causing ther gangreneous limbs to rot off due to lack of circulation, then you are making an egregious error indeed.



[I am really upset now. I need a little break. If the above statements were inappropriate, please feel free to delete them, mathowie. I would like not to think about them again.]
posted by hama7 at 2:31 AM on October 29, 2002

You go on about the P.C. fascist hate-police and make this complaint? I didn't, and wouldn't, use the term Gestapo tactics, myself, I was just commenting on the fact that you got so upset when it was used in the context of harassing black voters, an activity in which the GOP evidently excels and of which you evidently approve. I was just noting that fact: you're slick, hama7--but not that slick.
posted by y2karl at 12:03 PM on October 29, 2002

context of harassing black voters, an activity in which the GOP evidently excels and of which you evidently approve.

First of all the article was terrible. A democrat pointing at the 'gestapo tactics' of republicans is a cliche partisan absurdity. I don't approve of 'harrassing' anybody, but checking identification is not harrassment.
posted by hama7 at 3:05 PM on October 29, 2002

If it were, then I certainly got 'harrassed' a lot in my late teens for trying to buy beer.
posted by hama7 at 3:06 PM on October 29, 2002

Early voters were met Monday at the Jefferson County Courthouse by poll watchers from the Republican Party of Arkansas who demanded identification and challenged voter ballots.

During Monday's voting, poll watchers were seen asking voters to either produce identification or risk having their ballots challenged.

"A voter does not have to show an ID as long as it's noted on the ballot," Secretary of State Sharon Priest said. "They (poll watchers) can challenge a ballot, but they cannot ask for an ID or even talk to the voters."

Officials in the clerk's office said several would-be voters became so frustrated and offended by the process that they left without casting a vote. Deputy Clerk Charlotte Munson reported a poll watcher had actually walked behind her counter to photograph voter information on her computer screen.

That's from the newspaper, not the Democrats. It's not a great article--it's the Pine Bluff Commericial, for christ's sake--but it sounds not unlike vintage Rehnquist.

I don't approve of 'harrassing' anybody, but checking identification is not harrassment.

When it's not legal for a poll watcher to demand ID or even to talk to the voter? I see...
posted by y2karl at 4:38 PM on October 29, 2002

When it's not legal for a poll watcher to demand ID or even to talk to the voter?

If their actions were illegal, then why not take them to court instead of calling their actions 'gestapo tactics'? Politics.
posted by hama7 at 4:56 PM on October 29, 2002