This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Continuing my theme of thinking American election processes remain sketchy, the House just passed the SAVE act, ostensibly to prevent non-citizen voting. We all know how the battlelines are going to be drawn on that with the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth about how all of the totally legitimate citizens wouldn't actually be able to show that they're citizens and would be unfairly disenfranchised, and honestly, I suppose that's right to some extent. What's way more annoying is the drumbeat of people that say this is already illegal and doesn't happen. In a piqued fit of curiosity, I thought I'd take a look at what exactly California's process is for making sure only citizens are able to vote. Here's their registration application. It includes something a bit odd, checkboxes to simply indicate that you don't have a driver's license or social security number.
Well, if you check those boxes, there isn't really going to be sufficient unique identifiers to be crosschecked with a database to verify citizenship. Surely that disclaimer means you'd need to bring proof when you vote though, right? Well, here's what they say you need:
Really? You can register with nothing that would identify you as a citizen, then show up to vote and identify yourself with the mailer you got when you signed up to vote. I have no idea how this process would stop a non-citizen from voting even in theory. Am I missing something? This seems like you can just straightforwardly vote in California as a non-citizen and the only thing that would stop you is a fit of conscience about checking the box that says you're a citizen. Are other states doing better at actually verifying the citizenship of voters? I would guess that some are and some aren't, but the claim that verifying citizenship would prevent quite a few people from voting kind of suggests that there isn't currently much of a process to do so.
And if you don't check the boxes, there probably aren't going to be, either. Maybe some states have citizenship information in their DL databases. I think Pennsylvania might. But I know that California doesn't, and I imagine other states don't as well. You aren't required to be a US citizen to have a driver's license. Some states require a birth certificate or immigration documents as proof of identity, but that doesn't mean that they note citizenship status in the database. The Social Security Administration, on the other hand, does keep this information. But if you think it's just sitting in a database any random county office can query, think again. I used to have a job at a state agency where we had access to the SSA master database. It's a mainframe that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1980s (though this was in 2011 so it may have been updated since then, but based on printouts I get for my current job I doubt it). Despite its age it's also incredibly secure. I mean secure in the sense that if an authorized user logs in and makes a query he can expect a call from Philadelphia to verify that the office did indeed make the query and had a good reason for it. And, of course, they'd need more than the last four digits for this to work. The ID requirements are meant to verify residence, not citizenship.
If it were really that much of a problem, though, then we should be taking way more proactive measures than the SAVE Act, which basically admits that there isn't an existing problem in the way it is structured. It only applies to new registrations. Why are we waiting for every illegal noncitizen voter to die or move or switch parties before we kick them off the voter rolls? If this is really a problem we should just cancel all existing registrations and make everyone re-register. This would have the added bonus of getting rid of all the dead people who are also supposedly voting. I'm lucky enough to have my birth certificate sitting on my desk in front of me right now (long story), but how many people can really find theirs right now without looking too hard? Maybe most of the people on this board can, but I doubt the average West Virginian can. Of course, for a large part of the native-born population that won't be enough, because if you ever changed your name due to marriage then you're going to need a copy of the marriage certificate, too. And no, I don't mean the souvenir certificate they give you that you may actually have. A real marriage certificate sufficient for Real ID purposes has to be a certified copy from the Register of Wills in the county where the marriage was performed. So God help you if you had a destination wedding or moved a significant distance. And God help you even more if you were married multiple times or were married in a foreign country that isn't Canada.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link