I’m Having Trouble with this One

Every once in a while you read a news story, shake your head, read it again and then finally admit that you’re having trouble comprehending what the story seems to be telling you.

The story in question is the AP account of a congressional election race in Garden Grove California where the Republican candidate’s campaign is being investigated for sending intimidating letters to Hispanic immigrants warning them that they could be deported or jailed for voting in next month's election.

However, the focus of the story wasn’t on the letters or the investigation, it was on the Republican candidate’s tirade against his opponent implying that she was the instigation behind the probe into the letters.

Uh-huh, uh-huh, and this is a problem because? Note that he is NOT denying the allegations, rather he is, I think, criticizing his Democratic opponent, who I might add is the incumbent, for having the matter investigated. Personally I think the lady should get a medal. Isn’t this the kind of thing a Congressman should be doing for his or her constituents?

I’m also a little confused about the strategy here. Illegal immigrants can’t vote and neither can legal aliens. Only American citizens can vote and they can’t get deported without a very long process to revoke their citizenship. So what the hell is the threat here? Are you telling me that either illegal immigrants are voting in California or some people there are so dumb that they think they can get confused with illegal immigrants simply because they’re Hispanic? They think the INS might stake out the voting booths? Or is the Republican candidate’s campaign so ignorant of election law that it thinks illegal immigrants can vote and they sent the letters in an attempt to scare them away from the polls? How about the campaign is banking on the naturalized Hispanic voters being too dumb not to know that they can’t be deported for voting?

I don’t get it. Can somebody, anybody, please explain this one to me? I might also point out that if the Democratic opponent wasn’t Hispanic herself the Republicans would be doing everything they could to get Hispanics, legal, illegal and in between, to the polls since they tend to vote Republican. Another example that assuming that people will vote their self-interest only works with rational voters. The American electorate ceased being rational when it elected Ronald Reagan and hasn’t recovered since.

I became convinced a while back that universal suffrage is a really bad idea and this story isn’t doing anything to make me change my opinion on that one. I’m convinced that some sort of minimum educational level or the passing of some minimum knowledge test should be required before people are allowed to vote. I think voting should be a privilege that is earned and not something freely given simply based upon an accident of birth.

We ask people to take a test before they get a driver’s license and you can kill a lot more people by voting poorly than by driving poorly. Consider all the people that have died in Iraq because so much of the American electorate cast their votes based upon an illusionary concern about what queers do behind locked doors.

Try as I may I just haven’t been able to come up with something appropriate to wish on the voters that voted for George W. Bush in the last election based upon so-called “Moral Values.” It should be lingering and annoying but most important it should make them realize how tragically wrong that vote was. It’s that last part that makes it hard. Anybody can come up with something to just make them suffer. How do you make them realize that they were so, so wrong?