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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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On principle, I'm against it, because I see the potential for it to be abused. "Quick, in this moment while we have control of the legislature and a friendly judiciary, let us render felonious some behavior that is characteristic of the other tribe so they can never vote again!" Now, of course, that's really unlikely to happen in that way, and if that ever becomes possible, surely we have bigger problems, but I still don't like leaving doors open to tyranny.

While I'm very sympathetic to this view, recent Red/Blue tribal warring has begun to convince me that there's really no legal safeguard, check, or balance you can implement that can prevent abuse of one tribe by another if there's sufficient tribal hatred and insufficient faith in our system of laws and government. It might stall the abuse for a time, but that time is probably a lot shorter than I previously imagined. And so any potential benefits of banning felons from voting ought not to be weighed against the potential for that ban to be used as a political weapon. Because in an ugly tribal conflict almost anything can and will be used as a political weapon.