The GOP argues that disenfranchising millions to prevent a minuscule number of fraudulent votes is noble.
Conservatives assume that goodness arises from exacting idealism.
It doesn't.
Evil arises from exacting idealism.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
More Merton Quotes
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Pax on both houses: GOP Voter Suppression And Conservative Contempt For Democracy
Pax on both houses: Ayn Rand: Atheist Cornerstone of Tea Party ...
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Arizona and Kansas win court approval on voter rules. "A federal judge in Kansas on Wednesday ordered federal election authorities to help Kansas and Arizona require proof of citizenship of registering voters, in a decision that could well set a trend for other Republican-dominated states. Judge Eric F. Melgren of United States District Court in Wichita ruled that the federal Election Assistance Commission had no legal authority to deny requests from Kansas and Arizona to add state-specific instructions to a national voter registration form. The states sued the agency to force the action after it had turned them down." Fernanda Santos in The New York Times.
What this ruling means. "The upshot of this opinion, if it stands on appeal, is that states with Republican legislatures and/or Republican chief election officials are likely to require documentary proof of citizenship for voting, making it harder for Democrats to pursue a relatively simple method of voter registration....I do not know how this case will fare as it works its way up on appeal. I can see the arguments on both sides here -- but this is exactly the path I feared after Inter Tribal. In the meantime, in states which impose citizenship requirements, the streamlined path of voter registration just got a whole less streamlined." Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog.
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