Timex
2072
As punishment for committing a crime.
That’s what prison is.
Biden is the best bet to pull votes from Fox News watchers away from Trump. Seriously. He’s exactly the kind of guy those people want to vote for, and while he’s certainly more centrist that people here will like, he’s probably the number one most electable candidate to face Trump.
Strangely, I don’t think that about any prisoners. I think we jail them because they broke the law, not because they can’t cook or balance their checkbooks.
We should just kill them, then. Why not? If ‘we do it because we can’ is good enough.
Timex
2075
I don’t see this as a remotely feasible thing.
Biden’s not going to pull any Fox viewers away from Trump. Fox is simply going to run attacks against Biden (or whoever the Democratic candidate is), non-stop. Biden’s message will never be seen by those viewers.
MikeJ
2076
Not all rights are taken away in prison. Why is voting part of the bundle?
It didn’t cause a huge backlash in Canada but the political environment is very different, to say the least. Also, in Canada it was a Supreme Court decision, not a political party pursuing it. So I agree it would not be a political winner.
Timex
2077
Virtually all of your rights are taken away while in prison. The Constitution protects you from cruel and unusual punishment, but certainly removal of sufferage wouldn’t fall into that category.
When in prison, you lose essentially all of your most fundamental rights, from that of privacy, to freedom of movement, to first amendment freedom of expression.
I’m onboard with continuing to restrict voting rights of felons if we make voting for Republicans a felony :)
I disagree. No matter how hard they try to blow him up, he’s ultimately Uncle Joe. His folksy approach is exactly what resonates with that group as much as Trump’s authoritarianism. It’s people like my mom, who puts Fox on some of the time that will like Biden and be swayed to vote for him IMO. We need every one of them we can get.
He’s already got some similar flaws to Trump, but by comparison his heart’s in the right place. Being a JAG (Just A Guy) is exactly what seem to work best right now since people are so afraid of smart people atm IMO.
Yeah, the argument continues to be something like the reason you can’t vote in prison is that people can’t vote in prison, because it’s prison and you can’t vote there. Because prison. Meh.
Timex
2081
Dude, Biden’s been blown up multiple times in past elections already. This ain’t his first rodeo.
It’s just that in all of his past rodeos, he fell off the bull before getting out of the gate.
He hadn’t been a beloved 8-yr Vice President to a widely beloved President in the prior rodeos. He has earned more credibility and affection in the past decade.
I think the argument is the state decided part of the punishment for committing a crime and being stuck in jail is losing your ability to vote. Because state legislature. Meh.
Now if you want to argue there should be an absolute right to vote, I’d probably agree with you, but at least get the argument right, lol.
antlers
2084
How about “Because the other goals of incarceration necessarily imply that inmates are under close supervision, are cut off from many sources of information and are uniquely subject to coercion from those in authority over them, therefore it is impossible for them to meaningfully exercise suffrage.”
Perhaps it would not be impossible if certain other guarantees for prisoners were in place, but providing those guarantees would impose unreasonable societal costs or unreasonably undermine the other goals of incarceration. If society wants to spend its limited resources on improving the human rights situation of prisoners, it should start with more basic things like healthcare and physical security.
Fair enough, let me try to be more clear. I’d make 2 arguments:
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The common sense argument. If this person can’t be trusted to not assault me or otherwise do violence to take what they want, how can they be trusted to make political decisions? If they can’t abide by laws designed to keep the peace, how can they be expected to abide by and play a part in the peaceful transition of power?
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The opt out argument. Voting is part of the law and the rules of society, it’s this giant social construct that we all more or less agree to follow in order to make things run smoothly and avoid violence. By disobeying the law in a serious way, prisoners have opted out of this structure, and shown they can’t be trusted to play within that system. In the same way that the secessionist states did not get to vote during the Civil War, people who commit serious crimes have separated themselves from the body politic. And just like the Confederate states had to make amends for years before they could be re-admitted and be able to vote again, prisoners have to rebuild trust that they can be part of society again.
Ok, those are my semi-hot takes, Change My Mind. :D
That’s just a restatement of the empty reason.
Unfortunately, there are many jurisdictions that allow prisoners to vote; so the reason can’t be that it’s impractical or incompatible with running a prison.
It seems to be the case that some Southern states began doing this post-Reconstruction, as a way to disenfranchise black voters. First make a particular infraction a more serious crime, then disproportionately enforce it against black people, then deny them the right to vote as prisoners and ex-cons. So I think the question why should we do this deserves more of an answer than because we can.
It doesn’t make sense to apply that to all felons, does it? Joint smokers? Embezzlers?
Maybe just consider what a great vote-suppression tool it has turned out to be? States who incarcerate people get to count them for representation purposes, but don’t have to let them vote. That’s a bad incentive.
The one thing I don’t like about incarcerated people losing the right to vote is that it’s an easy way to suppress the vote and it’s something that we seem to do already with minorities.
We put more people in jail than any other nation, and we put a large percentage of minorities in jail than the population they represent in the population. It sounds a lot like incredibly evil voter suppression.
And, what is the justification for losing the right to vote? I understand locking people up as a way to protect the rest of the population, to give out some righteous retribution, to be a warning to others, but I don’t understand how losing the right to vote might impact any of these? Are we worried that inmates might vote for more lenient sentences? Maybe they’ll vote to make murder legal or something? Or are people just worried that the For Profit Prison System my suffer if people that actually care about it starting to vote?
So apparently your unstated argument is you don’t believe in state rights, or that at least they should be curtailed more than the law currently holds. See, I think this could be a more interesting debate than “prisons, meh.”
No one believes in state rights, it’s just meaningless justification for racist acts.
Yup. Same. Without a qualm.
