Fisking Eugene Kane 

Eugene Kane has a very poorly done Op Ed in the Journal a couple days ago on voting rights... talking about the recent rally that occurred in Atlanta and using it as fodder to knock Voter ID in Wisconsin. I don't normally take on Kane in my blog. If I tried to Fisk every poorly written column of his, I'd have no time left in the day for anything else. This column really caught my attention though.

Saturday, thousands of people marched in Atlanta to mark the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

The march was sponsored by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and attended by civil rights activists from across the nation, along with entertainers such as Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and Harry Belafonte.

And Harry Belafonte sure was entertaining wasn't he? Nothing like listening to inflammitory speech such as calling successful members of the Bush Administration "black tyrants" to make you want to sing and raise your lighter in the air.

In Wisconsin, members of the Republican Party appear dead set on passing a photo ID bill instead of concentrating on more reasonable reforms.

In both states, the idea is to significantly limit what forms of ID voters can use.

The motivation behind these movements seems based on nothing more than a fear of the growing strength of the minority vote in major cities.

(Doesn't it seem odd that the people currently in power are the ones trying to change the voting process so drastically?)

No it doesn't seem odd Eugene. This is called democracy. The people in power (the majority) are tasked with passing laws (which tend to change the status quo). If you don't like said changes, you vote out the people currently in power. Were you never required to take a civic's class in high school?

And of course Eugene's entire slant is the supposed fear of the growing minority. Did it ever occur to you that our fear might be people voting multiple times, or dead people voting or criminals voting? Maybe our fear is that our votes are being stolen by those who would vote illegally, therefore diluting legitimate votes.

Many believe switching to a photo-ID voting law will disproportionately affect poor people, immigrants, black people and senior citizens.

That makes this issue, at bottom, a civil rights struggle. Which is why folks like Jackson are involved.

Why is that by the way? You never explain why it dispropotionately affects them. All the proposed laws have specific clauses in them to make sure that senior citizens and the poor will still be able to easily vote. As for black people specifically... are there special laws that I don't know about that prevent them from getting driver's licenses or state ID's like any other member of any other ethnic group? Immigrants can certainly do the same thing as well... unless they're illegal in which case they shouldn't be voting anyway!

The renewal of the Voting Rights Act is confusing for some because of urban myths on the Internet that wrongly implied African-Americans will lose their right to vote if the law isn't renewed in 2007.

That's not true. Blacks won't lose the right to vote. But, it could become a lot harder for some people.

I'm glad you're not perpetuating those myths. But how and why will it become harder? Because you say so? You seem to be long on ideas and short on details and proof as usual.

In Milwaukee, other myths are harder to disprove. Some still believe rampant voter fraud took place in the black community during the November elections, even though voting irregularities were found throughout the state, even in all-white communities.

Despite the absence of any hard evidence of widespread voter fraud, there's a campaign afoot to make it harder to vote, which can only end up hurting people whose vote is the only thing they can use to try to change society.

I love it. In the first paragraph you say that there were voting irregularities throughout the state. In the very next parapraph you say that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Which is it? Thankfully Voter ID will make illegal voting by blacks and whites harder... and that's the point!

Don't worry though Eugene, your buddy Doyle will make sure that Voter ID never get's signed, so you can breathe a sigh of relief.