More great assorted links

I'm a fan of history especially history that helps explain the world I live in today. One piece I got to see personally was the science-led ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). I did independent study on the issue while in college in the late 70s, and it's fascinating to look back. Back then, science was more respected and not just a ping pong ball in adversarial politics. 

A great, passionate talk about race relations in the US. Insight after insight. Watch and learn so much that you need to learn. 

Unusual mail-in ballot numbers in Wisconsin. Probably some fraud, but not huge amounts. And during covid, nursing homes were making sure residents got to vote. But that makes sense because residents weren't getting visits. 

Explanation of US oil production and the effects of covid. Demand cratered, pumping didn't slow, the market was over saturated, prices cratered, producers went bankrupt, production dropped sharply. 

The view from Twitter employees on the Musk takeover. Nervous. (Funny, this one fell apart, but here's a historical record.)

Fact-checking the 'blockbuster' expose movie about voter fraud. The premise is very weak--the Dems supposedly had 2000 ballot harvesters, based on cell phone tower ping data. 

The military has a problem with white supremacists. But according to some conservatives, the military is actually trying to censor conservatives. Here are some cases. 

Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense, describes how Trump was unfit to be president. Maybe compare that with Rick Scott's reasons for calling Biden unfit. 

How were voting rights for black people secured? It was a long process, where the federal government ignored the problem for years despite having the mandate right in the 14th amendment to enforce those rights. 

A pilot project sent mental health teams to respond to minor police calls in Denver. It was successful, so maybe we'll see more diverse response teams become more common rather than relying so much on police. 

An software engineer at Google has been suspended for sharing private information. It concerns his opinion that an artificial intelligence (AI) application has achieved sentience. That puts the engineer into an ethical dilemma.

Image: abcnews.go.com

Links, for the few other things happening

This is many months of links, perhaps since the election in November 2020. 

The GOP decides no post-mortem needed on the election. Let's trade farfetched theories instead. Dems are worried at the gains Republicans made. And, naturally, the GOP wants to make it harder to vote again. Not exactly pro-republic values. 

The Kansas City Star newspaper apologized for decades of racist and biased coverage of black folks. Yes, of course it happened. If this is seen as white guilt or pandering, I want to shoot someone. 

Texas had a deep cold snap that devastated its power grid and its water pipes (in houses and the mains). A lot of conservatives were blaming green energy (because they want them as a scapegoat), but the governor placed blame on the failure of their regulations. 

Witty column about CPAC, the conservative convention. This year it's 99.99% Trump fealty. 

Cuomo's sexual harassment, teasing, and pressure is similar to what is still found in many companies. 

Racial discrimination against black tribal members in American Indian nations.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Qanon nutcase who won a House seat, may not have much of role in current events within a few months. However, she is getting a lot of attention now for some of her bizarre beliefs, prior statements, and current political antics. 

How big an impact did slavery have on the US economic system? Are claims by black Americans that they built the US true? I hope to find out more about this important question. It's certainly possible because cottom made up (by dollar) more than half of US exports during some periods in US history. 

Big Pharma is trying to get closer to Dems because they looked like they would win the lion's share of power in the 2020 election. 

Voting rights and Texas.

Russian hackers. Maybe the Biden administration will make some progress. 

China. Xi Jinping and his consolidation of power. 

The condo collapse in Florida. It's being carefully investigated, but there were known structural problems, but the condo board wasn't able to raise the money for the repairs. 

Image: geology.com

Details and loose ends of the covid disaster

This is a mishmash of links related to covid-19. Like this one, zerohedge declare that Bill Gates planned this hoax. The virus is real, but the warning of carnage are hype meant to control the populace.

3M is exporting masks when the US doesn't have enough. Terrible but with a good explanation. It may be the main or only supplier to other countries that need masks too.

The conservative site Washington Examiner says that Trump is right to focus on reopening the economy. Maybe, but they also claim that he was thwarted from this task by 'collusion of the public health network, both political parties, and the media.' Clueless! Tin-foil hat theories of collusion with no realistic understanding of this disease's spread. This is a more serious report about the goal of the Trump administration to reopen. Trump may feel that it's necessary to his prospect of winning that the economy is in good shape again, but the virus may ruin those plans, and Trump won't be able to get around that.

A cogent analysis of Trump's attempts to grab the headlines. That's still the most important outcome to Trump, the huge egotist. And unable to handle criticism. Hopefully this is the last addition to this short list of people criticizing Trump for his egotism during this crisis. This time it's mild criticism from other Republicans. For a broader view of how Trump handled the beginnings of this crisis, see this article and this one.

What happens when non-experts drown out the experts: we have Trump touting a drug (based on an adviser's beliefs), that then gets bought up and creates shortages for the people who need it.

Slices from the crisis in New York. The field hospital set up at the Javits Center, the hospital ship, and protective clothing and masks being manufactured right in the vicinity. One sick person pushes another sick person, causing a fall and subsequent death. Not unforeseeable in crowded, chaotic conditions. Perhaps New York is over the hump of admissions, but the death toll drops much later.

Another concern. Covid is striking minority communities harder. Why?

Fallout from Wisconsin being unable to delay it primary due to inaction on the part of Republican legislators: many mail-in ballots won't be counted. Yes, the Republicans are looking like power-hungry charlatans, but that's what some people want. Lip service to fairness is ok, but the GOP needs to maintain its power (my interpretation). The country will need to consider how to run elections if this pandemic continues, but the GOP will be keeping an eye on what helps them electorally.

I intensely dislike that lying jerk Alex Jones and his conspiracy factory. He is at it again, this time with a mouthwash that protects you from covid-19. More ugh from a Florida police chief who connected a covid-19 death of a deputy to homosexuality in a long rant to other deputies.

A brouhaha over Dr. Fauci stating the obvious--that earlier distancing measures would have saves lives. Trump got petulant and retweeted someone who called for #FireFauci. But that could have been partly to stir the pot and capture eyeballs yet again. Scientists also warn that cheap easy immunity tests may not be coming soon. That's bad news for workers

Close to my home. The Soldiers Home in Holyoke had a growing problem with covid-19 and a director who didn't do anything about it, and didn't seek help. It spread through the workforce and the residents. Who knows how many will be dead when it's all done? So far about 20 residents but there's no reason to think that will be all. More local news.

Image: propublica.org

Extras and updates added free-form. It's worth seeing how CNN fact-checks Trump. How fair are they?

A nursing home in New Jersey handled its outbreak by stacking the bodies in its morgue and not telling state authorities. A short-term solution, not long-term.

Nurses suspended from their jobs for refusing to care for covid patients if they weren't given safety equipment. For workplaces have a safety first ethos where you're not supposed to put yourself into harm's way. I support that.

Important picture. Bodies laid out in a refrigerated trailer in New York City.

Image: talentrecap.com

Hotspots---------

South Dakota has a large cluster based around a large meat processing plant. Because there was a partial voluntary social distancing, the state government thinks it's in good shape to handle the cluster. Other meat processing operations are also having problems. Also other food processing operations.

Bus drivers are dying at higher rates, though not everywhere.

Lots of elderly are dying in Sweden. It seems like it was planned not to provide protective equipment to workers in elder care facilities. Or at least the lack of equipment didn't change in response to all the information blasting around the world.

In the US, longterm care facilities are sitting ducks. They don't have enough protective equipment, the right kinds of protective equipment, the extra personnel or time for gowning, and a population in close quarters that is ideal for spread. Lots of older people are dying in nursing homes (see New Jersey item above), including in my state, Massachusetts. Here's a report from Illinois, but it's going to be the same everywhere. There is at least one law firm ready to sue if Grandma died. Never mind that this is very tough to protect residents from. A reasonable list of precautions from a different law firm, but based on my experience, it's not enough. I'm very worried that the court cases after this epidemic are going to be a clusterfuck. And... New York fucks over nursing homes by requiring them to take covid patients. Yes, recovering covid patients need rehab, which nursing homes normally do. However, they are ill equipped to do the necessary separation, so separate facilities should have been set up. Cuomo screwed this one up. Let me emphasize that: SEPARATE FACILITIES. A long article about many facilities and the problems with staffing that they faced even before the virus hit. Reference materials for Massachusetts and the US as a whole.

Related: The lieutenant governor of Texas defends his view that grandparents would happily die to keep the economy going. I disagree that the choice was that clear or easy. Many people 50 and younger are getting sick too, and that's very disruptive to workplaces.

Also related: Another long term institution with crowding and vulnerable people: prisons. I support somewhat early release for those nearing the end of their sentences, but not releases in general. Criminals are imprisoned for the reason that they are a possible danger to society, and also because they are sserving time earned by their criminal actions. Those issues don't disappear because there's an epidemic.

Covid-19 is a weird virus with unexpected behavior, including causing clots and strokes in youthful adults.

One of the important turning points was when Trump started talking about potential deaths in a serious way. The first estimates that the administration released (when they got serious) was 100-200K deaths. That was revised down to 60K deaths by Aug. 4. Instead we passed the 60K mark on April 29.

A shooting/killing with racial overtones happened in February, but complications and covid has delayed the investigation and arrests. Also perhaps because it as a white-on-black shooting with a connection to law enforcement. Video has energized the issue, but it shows the very worrisome effects of covid-19 on fair and reasonable application of the laws. I hope this won't be an opening for backsliding in bad old habits of discrimination. (Not that discrimination in law enforcement has been eliminated.)

No, Bill Gates, don't give China a pass on what they did wrong, especially the coverups and misinformation.

Rats are suffering and getting desperate since restaurant garbage isn't available.

A church that defied social distancing norms was burned down in an arson incident. Congregants had been aggressive, even staging a mass gathering at a Walmart.

April links

I was away for the month of March with only a tablet, and not in the mood for typing on that infernal non-keyboard. I did read a few interesting items, and a few more since I returned home.

Closing the racial achievement gap. According to Charles Murray, this should be impossible because it's inherent in the genomes. An intensive program in New York City has had very good results. However, skimming the published scientific paper, it's not clear that the gap was erased, just that they were heading that way.

North Carolina's blatantly discriminatory voting act. Struck down, but uggghhhh! This couldn't happen in the Supreme Court hadn't decided that the Voting Right Act was no longer needed. Well, that was a partisan decision, not an honest judicial finding. I read elsewhere that the legislation disallowed the types of IDs that were more common among blacks. Yes, very blatant.

Voter fraud investigation in California. I wonder a lot about California, partly because I nearly became a voter there but bailed out before I committed an actual illegal act. This investigation may be ongoing, but hasn't turn up much. However, I like to watch whatever I can in CA.

Korean strategies. From March. This story is a bit slow, but still an easy read and fairly informative on different ways to view the situation in Korea.

Nazi story. A profile of a leader of a white supremacy group that was involved in Charlottesville.

Unexpected interference in business. Suppose the socialism wasn't the worst enemy of business. Instead, it was a thin-skinned blowhard who ended up as president.

Capsule picture of what's wrong with Trump. This story rings so true to me. Trump as an impetuous glad-hander who doesn't know what he's doing.

Iran's presence in Syria. Very informative story about why Israel is bombing airfields in Syria, and who has missiles where.

Image: dailytarheel.com

Don't call American voters 'stupid'

Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist, had the worst week in Washington when video surfaced of him talking about the ACA law. He broke one of the rules--you have to pretend that American voters are logical and willing to take some pain for the greater good. Gruber actually used the words "the stupidity of the American voter."

COME ON! REALLY! Politicians insult the intelligence of US voters all the time. Videos of stupid voters go viral ALL THE TIME. Who can forget the Obamaphone woman or the "he's a Muslim" woman? These are iconic stupid voters, but there are so many types of stupid voters. For example, there are the stupid voters who want their tax cuts, but then can't understand why deficits are so high. There are the stupid voters who think the US is so rich that only reason we don't have a better safety net is because too many people are mean-spirited. We have stupid voters who think that we shouldn't have any cost controls on Medicare. We have stupid voters who think every Democrat is evil or every Republican is racist and greedy.

But heaven help us if someone connected to the administration should say that voters are stupid. Here is Reason magazine, pretending that it's extraordinary that Gruber wouldn't be totally upfront about the bill:

"What it shows, in other words, is Gruber openly embracing a strategy of messaging manipulation and misleading emphasis even while the bill was still being debated."

Wow! How dare he participate in messaging manipulation. How could this happen in our country--that someone would even contemplate manipulating the perception of a political issue?

OK, enough faux outrage.

I don't know if honesty has a place in politics anymore. I certainly don't see consistent honesty from any politician. I see so many lies that I expect it 100% of the time. Because of this, I work like crazy to dig out the truth, and most of the time I don't know if it's truth or not.

The only good thing I have to say about politicians is that what they say isn't the exact opposite of what they truly believe or want. It's maybe within 30 degrees of what they believe to be true. So a politician may say that the economy will surge when we cut taxes, and the economy won't tank. But he made that prediction, not based on knowledge, but on hope and partisanship. Politicians could never get anywhere if they only spoke the truth, so let's give them a break and not go ape-shit over the inevitable double-speak we get from them.

One final point--what about the hypocrisy of those who complain about stupid voters? I bet everyone who complained about Gruber's comments actually believes a lot of US voters are stupid. Does anyone really believe that American voters are largely intelligent and well-educated about the issues? HAHAHAHA. No one believes that.

Image: theawl.com

How dare blacks vote!

Chris McDaniel is planning to sue for a new run-off election for the Senate nomination in Mississippi. He, a Tea Party candidate, lost his run-off primary against Thad Cochran, an old GOP establishment type. Cochran was a long shot at winning until he used a clever, and legal, plan to get blacks to vote for him in the run-off. The plan worked.

Howls from the Tea Party, and even from their supporters in the UK. The loudest complaint is that the GOTV messages for black voters were "tinged" with racism. As though there aren't any tinges of racism in Tea Party campaigns. Nothing like black votes are bought with goodies from social programs, that they're happy to suck on the teat of government, that they're stupid voters, that they support Obama just because he's black, that Obama is not an American and actually hates America. There's nothing racial there.

What's so ironic is to label this statement as out of bounds:

"Say ... no to their disrespectful treatment of the first African-American president" 

Yet Tea Party supporters routinely say things like this:

"You know Barry, ... most people don't like you because you are a narcissistic, idiotic, anti-American moron."

The Tea Party treatment of Obama has been extremely disrespectful. People can argue about whether it's infrequently racially motivated or not, but it's clearly disrespectful. The TP is extremely disrespectful to lots of people, or they might get a better reputation.

If the black voters were already familiar with the Tea Party and knew it was a calm, level-headed, polite group, the ads against the Tea Party would have been ineffective and clearly seen as lies. However, the sense that the Tea Party has been disrespectful of the president correlates highly with real-life experience. That's what we usually call 'truth.' (By the way, it's also clear that tons of Dems are extremely disrespectful to conservatives, too. The crap doesn't flow just one way.)

The worst exaggeration (from a radio ad) was this:

"If the Tea Party, with their racist ideas win, we'll be set back to the 50's and 60's... Say no to the racist agenda of Chris McDaniel and the Tea Party."

That's on a par with typical Tea Party tripe about Obama/Dems hating America, and wanting to drive the country into the ground. I'm pretty sure I've heard that a million times.

However, the ads and robocall didn't stick only to racial issues. It tried to convince listeners with other relevant concerns like obstruction, cuts to public education, food programs, disaster relief, etc. That, like the comments about disrespect, sounds pretty accurate too.

Maybe instead of griping, the Tea Party should start inoculating itself against racial charges by: 1) being explicitly non-racist, and 2) caring about black people's concerns.

Image: kingsjester.wordpress.com

Extras. Listen to the robocall and the radio ads that ran on black-centered stations. The Tea Party not only hates Obama, they often hate everyone who voted for him or other 'liberals.' That's a lot of hate. According to this TP group, it's anti-American to say anything good about Islam. For a bit of balance, here is a potty-mouthed anti-TP organization.

A fast look at the Voting Rights ruling

While Congress is stalled (for the foreseeable future), the Supreme Court chugs on through its roster of important cases. It's probably good that two branches of government can still function. However, I don't think I'll be giving out accolades to the justices.

Yesterday, in a 5-4 vote along party lines (which weren't supposed to exist in the judiciary), the Supreme Court removed a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required Department of Justice review and approval of changes to voter law in areas with pervasive voter discrimination 50 years ago. It's easy to imagine that the law is outdated, and these places have taken the lesson to heart, changed their ways, and don't need the supervision anymore... after nearly 50 years of it.

Maybe these places, mostly in the South, have accepted the lesson that voting should be equally accessible to all citizen. However, looking at the whole country, the actual circumstances are different. Republican legislatures all over the country are trying to make it harder to access voting. They pretend that voter fraud is rampant, and that's their excuse for passing ID laws that they hope, secretly in their hearts, will reduce voting among minority, poor [i.e. Democratic] voters. They don't actually take measure to prevent the only pervasive form of voter fraud, which is the pooling of absentee ballots in the hands of professional vote wranglers.

The hope that political groups won't tamper with voting to suppress certain folks hasn't been fulfilled yet. For that reason, the ruling of the Supreme Court is premature, even after 50 years of oversight.

Luckily, we will still have citizen and media oversight. Suppression efforts are occurring, and will continue to occur, and will hopefully backfire as they did in 2012. Keep watching, keep reporting, keep embarrassing the schemers, the hacks, the operatives, the spin-shysters. All the tools to do that and to disseminate the information are available, thank God and the internet.

If I can repeat my motto for this year: Whatever you try to hide, it ain't going to stay hidden. Everybody, please make it so.

Fraud, or fair exercise?

Image: mfs-theothernews.com

Extra. I considered the possibility that monitoring isn't necessary anymore, but the posts about this ruling didn't support that: Pro-ruling, current tricks, even an enumerated list (probably incomplete).

Short: Strong black voter turnout

Whites apparently forgot to "take back our country" in the 2012 election. After many years of turning out in the highest proportional numbers of all racial groups, they were finally bested by black voter turnout:

I guess the pundits who said that whites stayed home are partially right. Compared to their usual high turnout, whites didn't do as well, whereas blacks turned out more than ever. I hadn't believed the complaint that whites were demoralized, and therefore they stayed home in record numbers, but it appears to be true to some extent. However, whites still poll above their weight--so not a sign of generalized malaise.

GOP campaign operatives are still moaning that they woulda won had they matched their 2004 numbers. I think they should let go of 2004 because that's a holy grail they probably won't repeat in a presidential election year.

It also looks as if the voter suppression efforts in Florida and Ohio backfired, which are lovely just desserts. Democrats take note! All parties take note!

Caveat: This data is based on exit polling, which isn't the best methodology. However, it's all we have. If you're interested in the topic, it's worth wading through the source article.

"White voters also outperformed their eligible vote share, but not at the levels seen in years past... As recently as 2004, whites typically outperformed their eligible vote share by at least 2 percentage points." -- Fox News

... however voter deception or self-deception is an expected part of the game.

Image: theblaze.com

Update 5/9/13. Another good article at HuffPo.

Guest viewpoint: PA voter ID law

[The guest author is MP's brother in Pennsylvania.]
[Reposted due to flakiness on some browsers and invisible HTML gremlins.]

I live in Pennsylvania where a judge this week, under prior directions from the PA Supreme Court, gutted the new voter ID law here for the Nov. 6 election. The law was passed last March unanimously among the majority Republicans in the PA House and Senate, and signed by GOP Governor Tom Corbett. All Democrats in the PA House and Senate voted against it.

The law called for a test period during this spring’s primaries, when voters going to the polls would be asked to show a photo ID but if they didn’t have the prescribed type of photo ID, they could still vote in that primary election. For the general election in November, however, the law stated that a party without te proper form of photo ID would only get to vote via provisional ballot, which would only be counted if the voter presented the proper form of photo ID within 6 days at the county election office. In effect, few would bother since that period of time to get the proper ID then travel to the county office is too short just to have a vote counted that might not matter.

This law would have no impact on me. I have a valid PA driver’s license and a current US passport, both valid forms of photo ID under the law. My wife and son have the same, since we went to Canada last year and needed up-to-date passports.

Most people in PA, likely 95% give or take, have some form of valid photo ID under the law. They would be able to vote, no sweat, assuming they remembered to bring it with them. What the big deal?

The Veneer of Reasonableness

The key element of this entire affair is the use of a veneer of reasonableness to ram through an law designed to produce a favorable political outcome for those who rammed it through. Surveys in PA consistently show that a majority of people support the law and the supposed concept behind it: to verify that people who vote are who they say they are.

But that was just a convenient subterfuge, like a salesman who takes extra business trips to spend more time with his mistress. During court arguments, the state’s lawyers stipulated that they had ZERO evidence of in-person voter fraud (i.e., someone impersonating another registered voter at a polling precinct in order to cast a illegitimate ballot). This is the only kind of voter fraud that presentation of a voter’s prescribed photo ID at the polls would mitigate.

As the PA Supremes pointed out, a legal stipulation has consequences. From that point on, the state could no longer argue that there would be any harm – to the state or the electoral process – from failing to enforce the law. I would further argue that any citizen who supports the law and, hence, the state’s legal position could no longer argue that voter fraud is rampant, widespread or even exists. As the PA Supremes correctly concluded, any evidence of harm – that is, inability to cast a ballot that would count – to duly registered voters required the voter ID law to be put on hold.

Find the Fraud

So if there’s no fraud, and a new law to prevent the non-existent fraud, what could possibly be the reason to require a prescribed form of photo ID? The answer is obvious, as stated by the GOP majority leader in the PA House: “Allow Romney to win Pennsylvania.” This was a foolish motive, too. Chances are and were at the time that the number of people disenfranchised from the new law, even if disproportionately Obama voters, would not be enough to swing PA’s electoral votes to Romney. This GOP mistress could only let those who passed the law feel better for a bit.

I suppose the GOP also hoped to sow some confusion and sap Democratic resources in attempts to assist the disproportionate Obama voters who would need to acquire a new prescribed photo ID. They definitely achieved that goal for a while, but that was certainly not going to be enough to change the outcome.

In the end, the judge ruled that the Nov. 6 election would work the same as the primaries last spring. You can be asked but you don’t have to show. This will certainly cause additional confusion for some voters and be another distraction for Democratic opponents to the law’s existence. But voters and the law’s opponents won’t have to continue to expend resources and time in the impossible attempt to get a prescribed photo ID for everyone who would need it, including those voters who don’t know that they would need one. The GOP received that bonus, but now their wife is on to their dishonestly and they will likely pay the price.

I’m guessing that the PA GOP will let it go now – in their hearts if not in fact – since their ill-conceived plan can no longer work. Yet, all people who abhor this kind of politics and deception have to guard against similar ruses on the public. It’s easy to pick on a minority – the smaller the better – to gain an advantage for another minority if the majority of people don’t care because they aren’t impacted. While the PA courts ultimately got this one right, it doesn’t always work out that way.

When I’m asked at the polls on Nov. 6 (no early voting allowed in PA) for my photo ID, I’m going to ignore the poll watcher – whom I’ve known personally for years – and talk about the weather as I sign my name in the registry book, just as I’ve always done it. They have my signature digitized from my registration right in the book. That’s why voter impersonation never happens. The poll workers know their neighbors, and the signatures have to match, duh.

Collateral damage in voter suppression... and lead plaintiff

Image: politicstoday.biz

Stupid voters

This is a perennial favorite in election years. If we could only eliminate the stupid voters, we'd have much better elections. The latest stupid voter is presented in a video where she declares she'll vote for Obama because he gave her a cell phone.

"Typical Stupid Voter for X"

Some people claim that this woman is a "typical Obama voter" but I doubt that so highly that I'd love to place a large bet on it. I doubt that 50% of Obama voters got free cell phones... or food stamps or housing vouchers. You can't win state-wide or nation-wide elections on a give-away platform in this country. However, a talking point for conservatives is the 47% vs the 53%. If you believe that the 47% automatically vote for Obama, all you have to add is 3.1% of self-supporting stupid liberals, and you (Obama and other liberals) are a winner. If this was true, it should scare the crap out of conservatives because those are hard numbers to defy. However, the GOP doesn't act overly scared about these demographics, so maybe they know that this talking point is an exaggeration.

But I digress. The point I want to make about stupid voters is that they are a strawman argument. It's so easy to find a picture or video of a stupid voter, then blast the strawman emblem you selected. If each side is represented by its dumbest advocate, we'd be hard pressed to choose. But that's not the way it really is. Instead, we decide based on the strongest arguments and the best advocates, not the worst ones.

We are still left with the problem of whether the stupid should be allowed to vote. The answer might be easy if you think the stupid voters are predominately on the other side. (I personally think the stupid are probably evenly divided. If it wasn't true, one party would gain a sustained advantage by not being the "stupid party" but that hasn't happened. Ergo, the stupid are evenly divided.)

 The Miracle of Testing

I look at this issue operationally: how would we check for stupidity and filter out the stupid from those who deserve to vote? We could reinstitute literacy tests and maybe add some math in there too. I don't think I object to that on principle, but I worry that once you institute a test, people start tinkering with it for other purposes, like winnowing out the voting pool. Also, what should the functional level actually be? I can see that basic reading comprehension at third grade level, but not a requirement for a higher level, like 10th grade. But I can see a lot of demagoguing that third grade or sixth grade is too low, and it should be higher. However, once you make it higher, you are definitely going to get bias effects.

These effects occur because the test authors are typically educated white middle class suburban college graduates, and they write questions that they can answer. Plenty of average or near-average inner city voters or rural voters might not pass such a test. Do we really want to disenfranchise those people? (I'm safe because I'm in the white-middle-class-suburban-college-graduate-demographic-who-will-write-the-test-questions, but occasionally I think about other people.)

If there is to be a minimal intelligence required to register to vote, then it better really be minimal, even frighteningly minimal. As I said before, the temptation to raise the standards would be present all the time, and it would be hard to continually resist it. Maybe that's why I think stupid voters should continue to be allowed to vote, because tinkering with this is an invitation onto a sure slippery slope. So let the stupid vote! It's easier than eliminating them and only them.

Image: sodahead.com