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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31239 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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These charges were patently frivolous from the very start but setting that aside they don't even make sense from the political grandstanding perspective. Bewildering.

Think on the meta level just a bit. As in, not about whether these twenty people themselves were or were not intentionally trying to commit a crime, and catching them is proof of anything.

From a pure signalling standpoint, if you want to prevent people from knowingly casting illegal votes and demonstrate that you are capable of enforcing this rule (i.e. detecting illegal votes), then yes, you have to arrest people who do cast illegal votes, even if they possess a defense for the action.

Especially since "I was told it was legal to cast my vote" is such an easy defense to invoke and hard to disprove otherwise. You show that you will STILL investigate such situations and try to verify the defense as valid.

Do you think that this action will, on the margins, increase or decrease the chances of someone attempting actual voter fraud in the 2022 elections in Florida?

Or would the effect be entirely minimal and worth disregarding?

powerful ammunition for the "voting rights" faction.

How powerful is the "voting rights" faction?

I mean, did you hear about his kerfuffle with Disney and the Reedy Creek Improvement District?

Desantis directly challenged one of the single most powerful private entities in his state, which is also one of the biggest corporations on the planet.

I dunno if the "voting rights" faction warrants any particular caution in light of this.

If he gets taken down, it'll probably not be due to these twenty arrests. Probably.

Given that the Reedy Creek matter isn't over yet I'm not sure that's an example you want to be giving. I'd be willing to bet a decent sum that come next July, it's still in existence.

And do you think that other corporations in the state are more or less likely to take open positions disfavoring legislation passed by the state government during that time?

Again, Meta level. Disney spoke out against the "Don't Say Gay" (sic) bill at the behest of lefty/democrat activists. Then Desantis took the fight to them. Disney has since shut the fuck up about said bill.

Showing that you're willing to fight the biggest guy in the prison yard is a good way to keep other, smaller guys from messing with you going forward.

You think that in a liberal society it's the proper role of government to threaten legal consequences for exercise of free speech rights?

I think society stopped being liberal long ago.

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